Abstract

Abstract:

Fiscal policy in Shakespeare's history plays represents a key administrative reality that both conditions and limits the exercise of sovereign authority. Shakespeare is acutely aware of how sovereign efforts to appropriate subjects' wealth magnify political volatility. The plays of Shakespeare's first and second tetralogies, in addition to King John, demonstrate what we might call the sovereign predicament: sovereignty takes money and the taking of money creates affectively intense opposition to rule. The royal protagonists in these plays confront the realities of financial management as both the condition of and limit on their power. Even Henry V, the ruler who most successfully and spectacularly negotiates the governmental realities of fiscal policy, has to confront the limits and nonreproducibility of his achievement.

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