Attempts to see Shakespeare both as a unique dramatist, and as an Englishman keenly sensitive to the profound changes, good and bad, going on around him. Kiernan explores the connections between his poetic and dramatic achievements and his awareness of social change and civic responsibility.

In this book the distinguished historian makes a case for seeing Shakespeare as a writer profoundly sensitive to the great social and political upheavals through which he lived. Shakespeare's poetic and dramatic achievement, Kiernan argues, was not something which transcended his environment but was directly enlarged by his civic consciousness and his critical reactions to a changing social fabric. Shakespeare's phase of dramatic activity coincides with the first challenges to the institution of monarchy. Kiernan analyses the cycle of History plays in the light of the demise of feudal allegiances and the emergence of the modern state apparatus. He shows how the far-reaching transformations in social hierarchy which simultaneously began to take place are crucial to an understanding of the Comedies, in which confusion of identity, disguise and cross-dressing are central. And he examines the ways in which women's roles are affected by this nascent individualism, especially in relation to the ideas of romantic love around which the Comedies revolve. Shakespeare: Poet and Citizen draws a vivid portrait of the outstanding dramatist of modernity. Lucid, scholarly and absorbing, it will be a rich resource for both students and the general reader.