Shakespeare and the Resistance

By: Clare Asquith

Narrated by: Allan Corduner

Shakespeare's largely misunderstood narrative poems contain within them an explosive commentary on the political storms convulsing his country

The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later.

Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents: two politically charged allegories of Tudor tyranny that justified—and even urged—direct action against an unpopular regime. The poems were Shakespeare's bestselling works in his lifetime, evidence that they spoke clearly to England's wounded populace and disaffected nobility, and especially to their champion, the Earl of Essex.

Shakespeare and the Resistance unearths Shakespeare's own analysis of a political and religious crisis which would shortly erupt in armed rebellion on the streets of London. Using the latest historical research, it resurrects the story of a bold bid for freedom of conscience and an end to corruption that was erased from history by the men who suppressed it. This compelling work situates Shakespeare at the heart of the resistance movement.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Clare Asquith (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A wonderful book and an important contribution to Shakespeare studies. It flows like a good novel, taking the reader into the argument and illuminating the neglected poems with scholarship and infectious enthusiasm."—Michael Scott, author of Shakespeare: A Complete Introduction; Honorary Senior Provost of the University of Wales Trinity St David

"Insightful and enjoyable.... A vivid and persuasive argument that we can and should renew our enquiry into Shakespeare's complex and disguised responses, under strict censorship, to the fraught and dangerous cultural politics of post-Reformation England."—Sir Michael Boyd, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, 2003-2012

"Compelling ... written with lovely clarity and verve."—Emma J. Smith, professor of English, OxfordUniversity

Scholarship

Very insightful.prompting a reading of two obscure but politically fascinating poems written in
a police state

Excellent scholarship unveiling hidden history

Clare Asquith unveils a history of the oppressed, gives voice to the voiceless. Elizabeth I and even James I operated a police state and systematic oppression of terror and propaganda. The iron fist of the Cecils’s use of terror, torture, agent provocateurs could not suppress the Catholic genius of Shakespeare