Citizen Shakespeare: Freemen and Aliens in the Language of the Plays (Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700)

Shakespeare was not a citizen of London. But the language of his plays is shot through with the concerns of London 'freemen' and their wives, the diverse commercial class that nevertheless excluded adult immigrants from country towns and northern Europe alike. This book combines London historiography, close reading, and recent theories of citizen subjectivity to demonstrate for the first time that Shakespeare's plays embody citizen and alien identities despite their aristocratic settings. Through three chapters, the book points out where the city shadows the country scenes of the major comedies, shows how London's trades animate the 'civil butchery' of the history plays, ans explains why England's metropolis becomes the fractured Rome of tragedy, Citizen Shakespeare combines recent historiography with the close analysis of language to show how the subjectivities of the London citizen and the immigrant city-dweller unexpectedly pervade the full range of Shakespeare's drama despite the overt aristocratic settings and concerns many of his plays share. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-22 Comedy: Civil Sayings....Pages 23-70 History: Civil Butchery....Pages 71-120 Tragedy: What Rome?....Pages 121-168 Back Matter....Pages 169-211