First published in 2012. This work of introduction is designed to escort the reader through some six centuries of English literature.

Taken together, the texts collected here dispel the idea that new historicism is antithetical to literary and aesthetic value. Stephen Greenblatt is one of the most influential practitioners of new historicism.

Offers many key works of the period in their entirety. Introductions and annotations to the texts reflect the developments in critical and cultural theory as well as the current state of Renaissance scholarship.

Taking the reader back to the early modern period, this book addresses the works of Shakespeare, and asks how historical texts might be seen to interplay with identity.

Payne writes here with the same lucidity and acuity to be found in his highly successful companion to this volume, Reading Theory: An Introduction to Lacan, Derrida, and Kristeva (1993).