A distinguishing feature of Shakespeare's later histories is the prominent role he assigns to the need to forget. This book explores the ways in which Shakespeare expanded the role of forgetting in histories from King John to Henry V, as England contended with what were perceived to be traumatic breaks in its history.

This collection of essays by distinguished international scholars explores the role of literature as a means of mediating religious conflict in early modern England. Marking a new stage in the 'religious turn' that generated vigorous discussion of the changes and conflicts brought about by the Reformation, it unites new historicist readings with an interest in the ideological significance of aesthetic form. It proceeds from the assumption that confessional differences did not always erupt into hostilities but that people also had to arrange themselves somehow with divided loyalties between...