A new study of the role of artists, poets and muscians in Shakespeare's plays and how they illuminate our understanding in new ways

This study of the many poets, musicians and visual artists portrayed or described in Shakespeare’s plays and poems reveals a fascination with art and its makers that continued to influence Shakespeare’s work throughout his career. It also uncovers unexpected aspects of an enthusiastic Elizabethan consumption of artworks, an enthusiasm that had significant bearing on the quite new profession that Shakespeare himself followed. A high valuation placed on art and artists, and at the same time certain fears of these and fears for these, made for a very complex reception of the figure of the artist, and Shakespeare’s treatments were equal to that complexity.

"An enthralling peek at the lives and cultures of the named (or near-named) artists in Shakespeare…For those who took for granted a bleak English Renaissance art scene, his world of three-man songs, injurious bagpipes, imprese, paragone, and whited statuary is likely to be a revelation." - Studies in English Literature 1500-1900