Robin Headlam Wells is Emeritus Professor of Renaissance Literature at Roehampton University, London. His publications include Elizabethan Mythologies (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Shakespeare on Masculinity (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and Shakespeare's Humanism (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Shakespeare's Politics is an invaluable introduction to the political world of Shakespeare's plays. It includes passages from the plays together with extracts from contemporary historical and political documents. The clear, jargon-free narrative introduces and explains the extracts and provides an overview of the key political issues that were debated in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England.
The introduction outlines the historical context in which Shakespeare wrote and explains the intellectual principles that informed early modern thinking about politics. By reading Shakespeare alongside contemporary documents students will be able to develop their own informed critical interpretations of the plays. Shakespeare's Politics is essential for anyone studying Shakespeare while tutors and postgraduate students will find the book's up-to-date survey of modern Shakespeare criticism useful and provocative.

Preface

Introduction
1. Civilization and the debate on human nature
2. Gender
3. Forms of government
4. The just ruler
5. Rebellion
6. Providence and history
7. Natural law
Postscript: Shakespeare's politics and modern criticism
Chronology
Bibliography
Index