This book explores how Shakespeare uses images of dreams and sleep to define his dramatic
worlds. Surveying Shakespeare's comedies tragedies histories and late plays it argues that
Shakespeare systematically exploits early modern physiological religious and political
understandings of dreams and sleep in order to reshape conventions of dramatic genre and to
experiment with dream-inspired plots.The book discusses the significance of dreams and sleep in
early modern culture and explores the dramatic opportunities that this offered to Shakespeare
and his contemporaries. It also offers new insights into how Shakespeare adapted earlier
literary models of dreams and sleep - including those found in classical drama in medieval
dream visions and in native English dramatic traditions. The book appeals to academics
students teachers and practitioners in the fields of literature drama and cultural history
as well as to general readers interested in Shakespeare's works and their cultural context.
