The Greenblatt Reader

Stephen Greenblatt is one of the most influential practitioners of new historicism. This Reader makes available in one volume Greenblatt's most important writings on culture, Renaissance studies, and Shakespeare. It also features occasional pieces on subjects as diverse as story-telling and miracles, demonstrating the range of his cultural interests. Taken together, the texts collected here dispel the idea that new historicism is antithetical to literary and aesthetic value.

John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, editor of The Norton Shakespeare, and prizewinning author of academic books including Hamlet in Purgatory, Stephen Greenblatt garnered a 2004 National Book Award nomination for his eye-opening look at the life and career of William Shakespeare.