Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with a survey of philosophical hermeneutics before moving on to explain the general principles of literary/cultural hermeneutics. It details the principles and lineage of hermeneutics philosophers such as Friedrich Ast, Daniel Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Wilhelm Dilthey, as well as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and more recently, Steven Connor. The book explores the general principles of philosophical hermeneutics to develop principles for literary interpretations. It explores the cultural mobility of Shakespeare through the lens of cultural hermeneutics, focusing on the intersection of locality studies and hermeneutic principles. The book argues that Shakespeare is being reinvented as part of a global cultural repertoire, transcultural reworkings of Shakespeare attest to the ways in which generic, formal, and media boundaries of literature continue to merge, and complexify.