Marxist Shakespeares

"Marxist Shakespeares" uses the rich analytic resources of the Marxist tradition to look at Shakespeare's plays afresh. The essays collected here reveal the continuing power of Marxist thought to address many issues including:

* the relationship of texts to social class

* the historical construction of the aesthetic

* the utopian dimensions of literary production.

This book offers new insights into the historical conditions within which Shakespeare's representations of class and gender emerged, and into Shakespeare's role in the global culture industry stretching from Hollywood to the Globe Theatre.

"Marxist Shakespeares" will be a vital resource for students of Shakespeare as it examines Marx's own readings of Shakespeare, Derrida's engagement with Marx, and the importance of Bourdieu, Bataille, Negri, and Alice Clark with a continuing tradition of Marxist thought.

1. Introduction : Marxism Now, Shakespeare Now 2. Well Grubbed, Old Mole : Marx, Hamlet and the (Un)Fixing of Representation 3. An Impure History of Ghosts : Derrida, Marx, Shakespeare 4. Looking Well to Linens : Women and Cultural Production in Othello and Shakespeare's England 5. Judicious Oeillades : Surveying Marital Property in The Merry Wives of Windsor 6.The Rape of Jesus : Aemilia Lanyer's Lucrece 7. The Undiscovered Country : Shakespeare and Mercantile Geography 8. Shakespeare's Globe 9. The Shakespeare Film and the Americanization of Culture 10. The Management of Mirth : Shakespeare via Bourdieu 11. Measure for Measure : Marxism Before Marx 12. Shakespeare Beyond Shakespeare

Jean E. Howard teaches Early Modern literature at Colombia University. Scott Cutler Shershow teaches English literature and literary theory at Miami University.