Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates how complexity theory may be of value to Shakespeare studies, and conversely, how its use might refine the implementation of complexity theory in the humanities. Complexity theory, the study of complex systems, is a dynamic new framework that radically reimagines the Shakespeare system and our attempts to investigate it. The chapter expands from the internal world of the play's narrative to the construction of the play itself as a complex system. It embeds the complex system of a play within a contemporary educational system, and uses data drawn from class observations and interviews to explore the role of the unpredictable in Shakespeare education. The chapter also identifies and traces the behavioural patterns of 'attractors' in two systems: the Shakespeare system as it localises in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and the political system of Julius Caesar.