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Journal of Early Modern Studies, 1, 2012
<http://www.fupress.com/bsfm-jems>
jems@comparate.uni� .it

Biblioteca di Studi di Filologia Moderna: Collana, Riviste e Laboratorio
Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Comparate
Università degli Studi di Firenze
via Santa Reparata 93-95, 50122 Firenze, Italy
<http://www.collana-� lmod.uni� .it>

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ISSN 2279-7149 FUP

 Shakespeare and Early Modern Popular Culture
edited by Janet Clare and Paola Pugliatti

Robert Weimann’s pioneering Shakespeare und die Tradition des Volkstheaters, trans-
lated into English in 1978, cons tituted an authoritative appeal for a reconsideration 
of Shakespeare’s works as deeply in� uenced by the medieval conventions of the pop-
ular theatre. Peter Burke’s Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, published in the 
same year and similarly recognized as a pioneering work, examined ‘the popular’ 
from the point of view of a social historian. But, although these two books marked a 
new beginning in the study of the European forms of popular culture, their respec-
tive in� uences have remained discrete: following Weimann, there has been work on 
early modern English theatre as a ‘popular’ experience (where ‘popular’ is intended 
as ‘widely accessed and enjoyed’); while social historians responded to the theo-
retical issues developed by Burke expanding his suggestions or analysing particular 
contexts. � e essays in this volume constitute a reconsideration of the presence of a 
‘popular’ tradition in Shakespeare’s works, examining this element from a number of 
di� erent perspectives (historical, religious, legal, sociological, etc.) belonging to the 
context whi�  produced them; but they can also be read as a contribution towards 
diminishing the distance between the historians’ readings of documents and socio-
cultural contexts and the ‘close readings’ whi�  are the literary critic’s prerogative.  
� is approa�  to the issues discussed is not simply to a� nowledge the obvious fact
that texts live ‘in history’; more signi� cantly, it intends to a�  rm the need for a pro-
ductive ex� ange of values, perspectives and methods of analysis. � is volume shows 
that su�  a syncretism is not only possible but also fruitful. � e ‘Appendix’ presents 
a few writers’ and theoreticians’ general statements about the meaning of ‘popular’ 
followed by texts whi�  illustrate the cultures, beliefs and prac tices of the people in 
su�  � elds as religion and spirituality, medicine, labour, resistance and revolt, vagrancy 
and beggary, festivities, carnival and performance.   

Contributions by Luca Baratta, Janet Clare, David Cressy, Ann Kaegi, Roberta Mullini, 
Donatella Pallotti, Natália Pikli, Paola Pugliatti, Ciara Rawnsley, James Sharpe

FIRENZE
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6-2017