ABSTRACT
We (literally) cannot read Shakespeare, or anything else, without context. There is the reader, a particular life embedded in a culture; there is the text, product of a particular life within a culture with a greater or lesser degree of continuity with that of the reader; and there are the circumstances in which and the purposes for which the reading is being done. We can’t step outside this situation. What we can do is become more fully aware of and better informed about its various elements and the bearing they have on the sense we make of what we read. We can acquire ‘contextual knowledge’. This can happen haphazardly, or we can choose to develop our understanding in particular respects; and we can be taught.
