Inscribing the Time

Shakespeare and the End of Elizabethan England

Eric S. Mallin

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520370791
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520332959
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

Combining the resources of new historicism, feminism, and postmodern textual analysis, Eric Mallin reveals how contemporary pressures left their marks on three Shakespeare plays written at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Close attention to the language of Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night reveals the ways the plays echo the events and anxieties that accompanied the beginning of the seventeenth century. Troilus reflects the rebellion of the Earl of Essex and the failure of the courtly, chivalric style. Hamlet resonates with the danger of the bubonic plague and the difficult succession history of James I. Twelfth Night is imbued with nostalgia for an earlier period of Elizabeth's rule, when her control over religious and erotic affairs seemed more secure. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• ONE Emulous Factions and the Collapse of Chivalry Troilus and Cressida
• TWO Word and Plague in the Second Quarto Hamlet
• THREE Succession, Revenge, and History The Political Hamlet
• FOUR “A twenty years’ removed thing” Twelfth Night’s Nostalgia
• Notes
• Index