Taking a new approach to the metaphor of the political body this book examines Shakespeare's
representation of that body as possessing epistemological faculties. The theater is one of
these faculties and is therefore essential to the health and survival of the Early Modern
state. By depicting the theater as an essential faculty of the body politic Shakespeare offers
a defense of the theater against anti-theatrical critics. Students and teachers interested in
the body and its representations in literature will find this text illuminating as will those
scholars whose work focuses on knowledge its relationship to the body ways of knowing and
anti-theatrical prejudice.
