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Shakespeare and Republicanism, by Andrew Hadfield. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 363. Hardback $80.00
Reviewer: Graham Hammill
In Shakespeare and Republicanism Andrew Hadfield argues two main points. The first is that between the execution of Mary and the accession of James, Elizabethan England witnessed a "republican moment" (210) in which strands of republican thought coalesced-especially but not exclusively on the London stage-to form a point of speculative opposition to a more strictly defined monarchical rule. Following Patrick Collinson's important and controversial work on what he calls Elizabeth's "monarchical republic," Hadfield proposes that the succession question opened the possibility of an interim, quasi-republican oligarchy that could decide the question if Elizabeth died without naming an heir. This possibility, Hadfield argues, led to more general speculation over what forms of government might be better than monarchy. Driven by the execution of Mary, potential republicans learned the lesson that "the conduct of other monarchs might be subject to hostile scrutiny" (146), but stymied by an atmosphere of censorship, they taught this lesson in literature, where writers "could explore their ideas in their chosen forms, as political theorists and historians" (52). The unexpected stability that came with James's accession weakened this moment until, presumably, it was revitalized later in James's rule and after.
Hadfield' s second point is that, as a writer sensitive to the public imagination and committed to some degree or another to an antimonarchical position, Shakespeare "[decided] to fashion himself as a republican writer" (100). In this groundbreaking reading, Hadfield emplots Shakespeare's engagement with republicanism by arguing for a career trajectory. That is, Hadfield argues that the publication history of the early plays and poetry tells the story of a writer who wants to be seen and understood as a republican. We learn that Shakespeare positioned himself as a republican writer by promoting the first tetralogy as his Pharsalia, (in arguments like Hadfield' s, references to and imitation of Lucan's Pharsalia being the equivalent of a party card for early modern republicans). Shakespeare opposed the dead-end figure of Elizabeth against the promises of republican Rome in Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. In Titus Andronicus Shakespeare argues for limited constitutionalism. And in Julius Caesar Shakespeare shows how the...