SOURCE: "Rituals of State: History and the Elizabethan Strategies of Power," in Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare's Genres, Methuen, 1986, pp. 72-101.
In the following excerpt, an earlier version of which was published in 1985 in Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, Tennenhouse discusses Shakespeare's creation of the Elizabethan chronicle history plays and the drama Hamlet as a political activity in he which sought to find a legitimate, ideal ruling authority.
