Shakespeare and Popular Voice

In Shakespeare and the Popular Voice Annabel Patterson challenges as counter-intuitive the common opinion that Shakespeare was anti-democratic, contemptuous of the crowd and an unfailing supporter of Elizabethan social hierarchy. Caviar or the general: Hamlet and the popular theater

The peasant's toe: popular culture and popular pressure

Bottom's up: festive theory

Back by popular demand: the two versions of Henry V

'What matter who's speaking?': Hamlet and King Lear

'Speak, speak!': the popular voice and the Jacobean state

'Thought is free': The tempest

Annabel Patterson is Professor of Literature and English at Duke University. Some of her recent books are Censorship and Interpretation (1984), Pastoral and Ideology (1987) and Shakespeare and the Popular Voice (1991). In Shakespeare and the Popular Voice Annabel Patterson challenges as counter-intuitive the common opinion that Shakespeare was anti-democratic, contemptuous of the crowd and an unfailing supporter of Elizabethan social hierarchy. She shows that this view was constructed in the 19th century and rendered influential especially by Coleridge, as part of his anti-Jacobian propaganda. In fact Shakespeare engaged throughout his career in a structural analysis and critique which reached its apex in Coriolanus.

Using unread or under-interpreted contemporary documents and situating her analysis in relation t the most recent theories of popular culture and popular protest Annabel Patterson offers a breakthrough account of seven plays, from Henry VI part two to The Tempest; and she also stakes out a strong position in current debates on humanism, the relation of culture to society, and the place of the subject as author.