Shakespeare and the Idea of the Book

This book explores the conversations between two media, the book and the stage, as they evolved in both competition and sympathy. Focusing on seven of Shakespeare's plays, it argues the book on stage, as both object and idea, offers one of the most articulate and developed hermeneutic tools available in the study of early modern English culture. - ;The 'book' - both material and metaphoric - is strewn throughout Shakespeare's plays: it is held by Hamlet as he turns through revenge to madness; buried deep in the mudded ooze by Prospero when he has shaken out his art like music and violence; it.