Cultural Shakespeare - Essays in the Shakespeare Myth

This volume brings together for the first time a definitive collection of Graham Holderness's writings on Shakespeare and national culture and the 'Shakespeare Myth'

Published in books and journals between 1985 and 1997, these essays constitute a unique resource for the study of 'Shakespeare' as a cultural phenomenon or ideological apparatus, as distinct from Shakespeare the poet and playwright

The volume also includes a specially written Preface, a hitherto unpublished essay 'Everybody's Shakespeare', and an extensive Bibliography of work in this particular field

These studies consistently look behind and beyond the 'plays', the narrowly defined forms of literary text, historical phenomenon and theatrical production, and recognise 'Shakespeare' wherever and whenever the authorial construction is manifested

The ultimate objective of their address is to cultural power, or the power of cultural politics

What, finally, does Shakespeare mean in historical and contemporary cultures?