Shakespeare’s Late Plays: New Readings

This new collection reflects a resurgence of interest in Shakespeare’s plays performed between 1608 and 1613: Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, All is True (Henry VIII), The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Cardenio. It offers a broad range of new, historicist approaches, touching upon key topics in current Shakespearean studies, such as kinship relations, manliness, magic, medico-politics, nationalism, rhetoric, schism, sexuality and staging conventions. The plays are explored both individually and within generic, thematic and chronological groups. Each author combines new research with their experience of teaching the plays, offering innovative approaches to some well-known works, as well as encouraging readers to explore less familiar dramas such as Pericles, Cymbeline, All is True and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The volume is unusual in its coverage of the lost ‘late’ play Cardenio, and considers its significance for our conception of the ‘lateness’ of these plays. This book will fill a large gap in the market for a broad-ranging critical introduction to this important and increasingly popular area in Shakespeare’s work, and is suitable as a textbook for undergraduate, graduate and more general readers.