Shakespeare and Fun

In this bold, original study Hedrick proposes an early modern entertainment value revolution, to which Shakespeare contributed and in which he played a competitive role. As Londons nascent capitalist industry developed and the variety of entertainments proliferated, theatre contributes to the birth of entertainment value and a commercial trajectory toward what Marxist critic Adorno theorizes as fun, seen contemporaneously in LasVegasization and the election of Donald Trump to U.S. Presidency. In this innovative approach to Shakespeares plays through their compulsory, competitive relation to other choices from Londons entertainment industry, such as sex work and gaming, Hedrick recovers a coherent internal dynamic of theatres pleasure enclosure accompanying the revolutionary logic of capitals new cultural and economic extremes. Applying these relations to original, insightful readings of A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Winters Tale, and The Taming of the Shrew, Hedrick draws from cultural studies, contemporary and personal parallels, wide-ranging historical materials, and political theory. These include: the semantic shifts in keywords of pleasure, the practice of betting on actors, the psychology of paying admission before an entertainment, and various reality shows such as contests of prose and verse. Continual insights emerge, both broad and specific: from ten entertainment value axioms to Shakespeares awareness of entertainment values birth at moments in his late plays, marking a logic of value crisis, bubbles, and the danger of too much fun.