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New methods are needed to do justice to Shakespeare. His work exceeds conventional models, past or present, for understanding playworlds. In this book, Simon Palfrey goes right to the heart of early modern popular drama, recovering both how it works and why it matters. Unlike his contemporaries, Shakespeare gives independent life to all of his instruments, and to every fraction and fragment of the plays. Palfrey terms these particles 'formactions' - theatre-specific forms that move with their own action and passion. Palfrey's book is critically daring both in substance and format. Its unique mix of imaginative gusto, thought-experiments, and virtuosic technique generates piercing close readings of the plays. There is more to playlife than meets the eye. Influenced by Leibniz's visionary model of possible worlds, this book opens up the multiple worlds of Shakespeare's language, scenes and characters as never before. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.