The author is a pioneer of "new historicism" - a form of cultural criticism that is refashioning studies in the humanities. His writing reflects the concerns of new historians: refusing to respect the boundaries that arbitrarily divide the literary and aesthetic from the political, it seeks to situate the elusive pleasures of literature within a context of cultural and historical understanding. The essays in this work trace the evolution of the author's new historical practice through his engagement with a wide variety of texts and social practices, from "King Lear" and "The Jew of Malta" to Zuni dances and the Musee d'Orsay. Combining historical an anthropological techniques with textual analysis, the author approaches issues and authors that once seemed comfortably familiar. Focusing on such problems as the relationship between cultural identity and otherness in early modern culture; the uses of violence, both physical and rhetorical, against those identified as aliens; and the role of the imagination in efforts to shape and stabilize both cultural and personal identity, this work exposes a Renaissance world made challenging and strange.