Shakespeare and Fun

The Birth of Entertainment Value

By: Donald Hedrick

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Hardcover | 27 March 2025

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Hardcover
304 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.8 x 14.4 x 2.4

Hardcover

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In this bold, original study Hedrick proposes an early modern âentertainment valueâ revolution, to which Shakespeare contributed and in which he played a competitive role.

As Londonâs 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 âfun,â seen contemporaneously in LasVegasization and the election of Donald Trump to U.S. Presidency.

In this innovative approach to Shakespeareâs plays through their compulsory, competitive relation to other choices from Londonâs entertainment industry, such as sex work and gaming, Hedrick recovers a coherent internal dynamic of theatreâs âpleasure enclosureâ accompanying the revolutionary logic of capitalâs new cultural and economic extremes.

Applying these relations to original, insightful readings of A Midsummer Nightâs Dream, The Winterâs 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 âreality showsâ such as contests of prose and verse. Continual insights emerge, both broad and specific: from ten âentertainment value axiomsâ to Shakespeareâs awareness of entertainment valueâs birth at moments in his late plays, marking a logic of value crisis, bubbles, and the danger of âtoo much fun.â

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