A Short History of Shakespearean Criticism

The Shakespeare industry, one reviewer has remarked, seems to be one in which there is no unemployment. Each year new interpretations are put forth as hundreds of books and articles are added to the list of critical studies of Shakespeare. Now Arthur M. Eastman’s A Short History of Shakespearean Criticism, a descriptive and analytical survey, fills the needs for an authoritative introduction to the major criticism of Shakespeare from his own time to the present.