The question is not whether Shakespeare studies needs feminism, but whether feminism needs Shakespeare. This is the explicitly political approach taken by the contributors to A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare. In the new edition of this award-winning book,contributors come from across the feminist generations and from various stages in their careers to address what is new in the field in terms of historical and textual discovery, and especially in analyses of recent performances and appropriationsof Shakespeare. Essays offer fresh insights into Shakespeare's plays and poems as well as the early modern world in which they were written. In addition, they acknowledge and confront the historical facts around dynamics of the gender hierarchy in early modern England, examining the restrictions imposed uponwomen as a group no matter what degree of latitude they were able to achieve in the exercise of personal or political agency. Throughout the volume, essays cover the history of feminist Shakespeare criticism, text and language, social economies, raceand colonialism, performing sexuality, religion, character genre and history. The new edition also covers issues that bring it right up to the present day by exploring some of the newest theatrical and creative engagements with Shakespeare.