Shakespeare and Multiplicity

'There is so much of interest in Brian Gibbon's Shakespeare and Multiplicity, each chapter warrants more attention than is here allowed. As an exercise in historicizing a play to open up new, important perspectives in a clear, subtle and engaging manner, his chapter on Cymbeline and Britain is exemplary, and this standard of criticism is sustained throughout the book ... All this, and a consistently lively engagement with the plays as theatre, make this a stimulating and important study.' Year's Work in English Studies 'Reading Shakespeare and Multiplicity feels like a release into a toboggan run. This study is lively, elegantly written, pluralistic in its approaches, and often brilliant in its observations ... The result is a book that sparkles with insights not only into Shakespeare but also into Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe, Lodge, Jonson and Nash ... the book is at points so lively that I could not put it down.' C. E. McGee, Modern Language Review '[This] book offers, in its six main chapters, several of the best brief studies so far written about Shakespeare's use of literary sources ... this is a distinguished book.' Notes and Queries 'In this continuously stimulating book ... studies ... are all richly argued, informed by a strong sense of the plays in the theatre, and of the ways in which they can be remade in a contemporary context ... This is a consistently readable book, free from jargon, but not therefore from subtlety.' David Lindley, Shakespeare Survey