Shakespeare's tragedies are among the greatest works of tragic art and have attracted a rich range of commentary and interpretation from leading creative and critical minds. This Reader's Guide offers a comprehensive survey of the key criticism on the tragedies, from the seventeenth century through to the present day. In this book, Nicolas Tredell: introduces essential concepts, themes and debates relates Shakespeare's tragedies to fi elds of study including psychoanalysis, gender, race, ecology and philosophy summarises major critical texts from Dryden and Dr Johnson to Janet Adelman and Julia Reinhard Lupton, and covers influential critical movements such as New Criticism, New Historicism and poststructuralism demonstrates how key critical approaches work in practice, with close reference to Shakespeare's texts. Informed and incisive, this is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in how the category of Shakespeare's tragedies has been constructed, contested and changed over the years.

Nicolas Tredell is a freelance writer and formerly taught Literature, Film, Drama and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the series editor of the Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism series and has authored a number of books in that series, including the volume on Macbeth.