Shakespeare was my first love, not so much in the classroom as at the theatre. As a child in London, I saw most of the plays when the Old Vic put on the complete works over a period of five years. Three shillings and sixpence was a small fortune but a seat in the gallery was worth every penny. It took me a long time, however, to come by the kinds of critical skills that would let me say anything about Shakespeare that seemed worth putting into print. So much had been written already. Theory was an ally here: it offered unfamiliar ways to make sense of texts that would always exceed commentary. This book is a collection of essays in the etymological sense of that term: they represent successive try-outs, attempts not to betray the material they interpret.

The chapters were written at different times and I have made no real effort to update them. Although I still subscribe to the views they put forward, I might not always start from the same place now. Instead, I have revised them only lightly, generally in the interests of clarification or to avoid undue repetition. Having commented elsewhere on ‘Anna O.’, for example, I have silently replaced her with ‘Irma’ in ‘Peter Quince's Ballad’. On the rare occasions when I have been unable to resist an afterthought – or an after- reference – I have placed the new material in square brackets in the notes.