Shakespeare the Craftsman: Volume 5: The Clark Lectures 1968

Professor Bradbrook's Shakespeare the Craftsman was first given as the Clark Lectures in 1968 at Cambridge. Her purposes in the book that followed are twofold: to trace 'the descent of Shakespeare's art from the popular medieval tradition, especially from the religious drama of the Craft cycles'; and to indicate how his craftsmanship was often a response to some immediate demand - a new actor, a new stage or some specific occasion. The Merry Wives of Windsor, for instance, came of a Royal Command. There are chapters about Burbage and the Globe Theatre, and about Robert Armin, the 'new clown', and his part in Twelfth Night. Other chapters deal with Julius Caesar, Hamlet and the revenge play, and the pageant of Timon of Athens.