ABSTRACT
To discuss Shakespeare is to discuss the study of English itself. The word ‘Shakespeare’ is less the name of a specific historical figure, than a sign that has come to designate a vaguely defined, but fiercely defended, set of characteristics that function as the touchstone of value for what we commonly call the ‘English literary tradition’. Shakespearean criticism is often less interested in analysing an historically specific practice (whether we call it a writing, a dramatic, or an ideological practice) than in presenting the products of that practice, and the proper name associated with it, as instantiating the
formal strategies and substantive concerns that form the consensually defined core of all ‘great literature’.
