ABSTRACT
The Introduction frames the book; stresses the importance of author and reader (audience), Shakespeare, the Renaissance and empire; looks at the etymology of key terms in the volume, such as “poet,” “theory,” “theatre,” “history,” “rhetoric,” “politics,” “philosophy;” sets out its structure from Marlowe and Shakespeare representing Asia and ends with Asian films that adapt the voices of the characters he creates in Hamlet; and shows that G. W. F. Hegel, Søren Kierkegaard and Pieter Geyl all admire Shakespeare,who contributes to our pleasure and learning, our exploration, our recognition of the local and the global, English culture and language in the wider world.
