Shakespeare's Universe: Renaissance Ideas and Conventions. Essays in Honour of W.R. Elton.

This collection of twenty-three essays in honour of W. R. Elton covers six broad areas of Shakespearian study and is intended to provide an overview of modern Renaissance 'scholarship and its methodologies' while balancing 'both traditional and more recent critical approaches'. This is a fine ideal but the reality is somewhat different, for while there can be no doubt about the international standing of the contributors, the quality of the book as a whole is disappointing. In the first part, for example, on Shakespeare, Politics and Religion, of the six essays published only David Norbrook's analysis of language and rebellion in Richard H really stands up to close reading. As …