Preface

The study of Shakespeare is rapidly changing. Scholars are redefining what he did and did not write, what it meant in his own time, and what it means to ours. Lines are being redrawn, even now; old stories are being told with new twists; our collective images of Shakespeare as a person and a poet are disintegrating and reforming. A new portrait of him has been proposed; scientific language study has assigned new writing to him and dismissed some earlier attributions; we know more about his professional associations, his playing companies, their repertoire, and the country routes they travelled; and we have learned far more about the social, political, religious, and economic times in which he lived and for which he wrote than at any time in the past. Within the Oxford Handbooks of Literature series, those devoted to the study of Shakespeare are designed to record past and present investigations and renewed and revised judgements by both familiar and younger Shakespearean specialists. Each of these volumes is edited by one or more internationally distinguished Shakespeareans; together, they comprehensively survey the entire field.

Arthur F. Kinney