Shakespeare and the Courtly Aesthetic

Shakespeare and the Courtly Aesthetic, by Gary Schmidgall, situates *The Tempest* and the other late plays within the elaborate cultural and political framework of Jacobean court art. Schmidgall argues that to understand Shakespeare’s final dramas, one must examine the courtly aesthetic that shaped—and was shaped by—royal entertainments, masques, and visual allegories, particularly those patronized by James I. Drawing on analogies with painting, music, and spectacle, he demonstrates how Shakespeare absorbed the pressures of court taste while never being simply a partisan of court culture. Instead, his plays, and *The Tempest* above all, reflect both the allure and the dangers of a world where artifice, illusion, and spectacle could conceal as much as they revealed.

The study proceeds in two broad movements. The first half outlines the nature of the courtly aesthetic, emphasizing its rise under James and its continuities with Elizabethan culture, but also its transformation into a more baroque mode. Schmidgall carefully positions *The Tempest* within this revolution, attending to courtly traditions in masque, allegory, and political symbolism. The second half turns directly to Shakespeare’s play, analyzing its imagery, structure, and characterization in light of courtly assumptions, while acknowledging its profound ambivalence. Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, and Miranda all resonate with courtly types, but Shakespeare’s treatment of them ultimately refuses to resolve into uncritical celebration. For Schmidgall, *The Tempest* is both deeply political and strikingly comprehensive: a work of “compression and density” that condenses the inclusiveness of epic into the scope of a play. Throughout, the book insists that Shakespeare’s late style can only be appreciated by illuminating his engagement with the courtly environment, while recognizing his simultaneous skepticism toward its illusions.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.