Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Renaissance Self-Fashioning | 1981 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 2 | Shakespearean Negotiations | 1988 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 3 | Representing the English Renaissance | 1988 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 4 | Learning to Curse | 1990 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 5 | Marvelous Possessions | 1991 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 6 | Redrawing the Boundaries | 1992 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 7 | New World Encounters | 1993 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 8 | Practicing New Historicism | 2000 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 9 | The Greenblatt Reader | 2004 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 10 | Cultural Mobility | 2009 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 11 | Shakespeare’s Freedom | 2010 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 12 | Tyrant | 2018 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 13 | Sir Walter Ralegh: The Renaissance Man and His Rolesby Greenblatt Stephen J.Hardcover | 2021 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
| 14 | Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud | 2024 | Stephen Greenblatt | Buy |
Greenblatt’s 1980 book Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare launched New Historicism and changed how scholars read Renaissance literature. The book examines how sixteenth-century writers constructed their identities in response to cultural pressures, analyzing figures from Thomas More to Shakespeare. It argues that selfhood in this period was shaped by social forces including religious conflict, colonial encounters, and changing gender roles.
His 1988 book Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England won the Modern Language Association’s James Russell Lowell Prize for exploring how Elizabethan theater drew power from the cultural materials around it. Hamlet in Purgatory (2001) examines Shakespeare’s use of ghosts against the background of Protestant England’s rejection of Catholic purgatory, arguing that theater filled the psychological void left by religious reform. His other works include Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World on European encounters with America, Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture, and The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, which traces how the Genesis story shaped Western culture.
His 2018 book Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics examines how Shakespeare explored authoritarian leadership through figures like Richard III, Macbeth, and Coriolanus, showing how the playwright navigated the dangerous political climate of his own time while creating characters who embodied the psychology of absolute power.