The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre

by Louis Montrose

Part of a larger project to examine the Elizabethan politics of representation, Louis Montrose's The Purpose of Playing refigures the social and cultural context within which Elizabethan drama was created.

Montrose first locates the public and professional theater within the ideological and material framework of Elizabethan culture. He considers the role of the professional theater and theatricality in the cultural transformation that was concurrent with religious and socio-political change, and then concentrates upon the formal means by which Shakespeare's Elizabethan plays called into question the absolutist assertions of the Elizabethan state. Drawing dramatic examples from the genres of tragedy and history, Montrose finally focuses his cultural-historical perspective on A Midsummer Night's Dream .

The Purpose of Playing elegantly demonstrates how language and literary imagination shape cultural value, belief, and understanding; social distinction and interaction; and political control and contestation.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Criticism, Theatre, Drama, History

242 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[T. Tokunaga]

This book reminded me of the fact how Shakespearean studies or new historicism in general were canonized and made a kind of common sense taught in an undergrad class, at least here in Japan, in the last 3 decades. Its take on Shakespeare as a radical rebel is now becoming a cliché if you're somewhat interested in reading any academic books on him - and the dynamics of theatrical realpolitik centering the symbol of patriarchy and Fairy Queen Elizabeth is also becoming a common ground - and this book is one of the academic canons which helped that.

It is always good to check where our common sense, or possibly bias, is coming from. The understanding that the Bard did not really believe in the permanence of crown should not be emphasized less. However, it's not a book which you'd expect a lot of new discoveries. Or at least, in my case, it wasn't.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you can get past the tortured introduction (seriously, just skip the intro), the rest of the book is a good New Historicist overview of the way that Elizabethan theatre interacted with its culture - not just reflecting it, but influencing it and interacting with it.