This book explores the different ways in which identity and otherness are defined, the Self and the Other, in Shakespeare's dramatic works, with references to contemporary dramaturgy and literature in general.

The first section, which is also the most extensive, distinguishes between two different Others: the unheimlich (uncanny) and the familiar. For an English person of Shakespeare's era, the Other could be the - more or less exotic - foreigner, but it could also be the European neighbor or even the British brother, Welsh, Scot, or Irish.

The second section investigates otherness as a social stigma through three aspects: disfigurement, mental illness, and deafness.

The third section examines how gender, age, class, race, religion, and cultural identity are defined through references to food and clothing, and explores the factors that determine social class.