Shakespeare's Serial Universe: Patterns, Obsessions, Repetitions

Each chapter tracks a thematic series: Nocturnal scenes, hallucinations, and spectral apparitions; the trafficking in secrets and the culture of surveillance it produces; the folly of love and the reversal of desire into contempt; the cyclical interplay between war and peace; the anxieties and fantasies that queenship raises; cross-dressing; the corpse as a body of evidence; objects – bloody cloths, jewels, letters, and chopped-off heads – that serve as actors in their own right; and final words.

This will be illuminating reading for students and scholars in Shakespeare studies, as well as a wider audience interested in more philosophically oriented discussions of Shakespeare and those interested in issues of seriality. With the concept of “serial reading” as a novel form of literary interpretation, it will also be of interest to those in the wider field of literary and cultural theory.