ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by claiming that literature works most powerfully “in the formal, self-conscious miming of life”. The theatre, or better, the theatre-efTect, is fascinating because its representations produce what Foucault called a “labyrinth” in which selves are no longer fixed but are “free” to change and be changed – by governments amongst others. Greenblatt remains in tune with Foucault and post-structuralism, however, in aiming to analyze representations through non-mimetic categories. He wishes, as he declares, to avoid falling back upon the concept “reflection.” The dynamism of circulatory flow, the sheer currency of things, belongs to proto-capitalism; Shakespeare is an entrepreneur, partner in a joint stock company, able, indeed required, to turn social conflict, anxiety, hierarchies and negotiations into fun, wonder, pleasure, cash and so on. Shakespearean society knew no industrial proletariat, defined as having nothing to sell except a labour power available to be transformed into exchange-value and profit by capital.
