Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Note on texts Proem: Shakespeare's 'Plaies and Poems' Part I. The Imprint of Shakespearean Authorship: Prelude: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Petrarch 1. The sixteenth-century poet-playwright 2. Francis Meres, the Ovidian poet-playwright, and Shakespeare criticism Part II. 1593-1594: The Print Author Presents Himself: Play Scene: 'Two Gentlemen' to 'Richard III' 3. Authorship and acting: plotting Venus and Adonis along the Virgilian path 4. Publishing the show: The Rape of Lucrece as Lucanian counter-epic of empire Part III. 1599-1601: The Author Brought Into Print: Play Scene: 'Love's Labor's Lost' to 'Troilus and Cressida' 5. 'Tales ... coined': 'W. Shakespeare' in Jaggard's The Passionate Pilgrim 6. 'Threne' and 'scene': the author's relics of immortality in 'The Phoenix and Turtle' Part IV. 1609: Imprinting the Question of Authorship: Play Scene: 'Measure for Measure' to 'Coriolanus' 7. 'O, let my books be ... dumb presagers': poetry and theatre in the sonnets 8. 'Deep-brain'd sonnets' and 'tragic shows': Shakespeare's late Ovidian art in A Lover's Complaint Epilogue. Ariel and Autolycus: Shakespeare's counter-laureate authorship Works cited Index.