There is something literary about dreams when they are written down. Dreams and literature intersect in wonder, imagination, and freedom. The excerpts translated here are dream writings from Khābguzārī by an anonymous writer in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and ʿAjā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt by Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd Hamadān…[Read more]

This article examines The Tempest in light of artists’ renderings of the play in New Orleans, reflecting on anti-Black racism in Shakespeare’s play and in the Deep South.

This article explores how certain dramatists in early modern England and in Spain, specifically Ben Jonson and Miguel de Cervantes (with much more emphasis on the former), pursued authority over texts by claiming as their own a new realm which had not been available – or, more accurately, as prominently available – to playwrights before: the sta…[Read more]

Comparative studies have revealed uncanny similarities between the theatrical cultures of Shakespearean England and Golden Age Spain, and in particular between the Elizabethan amphitheaters and the Spanish corrales de comedia (courtyard playhouses). Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, Spain’s (and, in particular, Madrid’s) courtyard the…[Read more]

Going to the theater was one of the most distinctive-as well as conspicuous-cultural activities to take place regularly in early modern european cities. Precisely because so many people from all walks of life partook of this highly visible pastime, public theaters became spaces wherein social and cultural boundaries between spectators were easily…[Read more]

This article explores the change in dynamics between matter and style in Shakespeare’s way of depicting distress on the early modern stage. During his early years as a dramatist, Shakespeare wrote plays filled with violence and death, but language did not lose its composure at the sight of blood and destruction; it kept on marching to the beat o…[Read more]

One of the major differences between the otherwise very similar commercial theatrical cultures of early modern Spain and England was that, whereas in England female roles were performed by young, cross-dressed boys, in Spain female performers were prominent in their industry. indeed, actresses in Spain played an active role in the creative process…[Read more]

“Shamanistic Shakespeare: Korea’s Colonization of Hamlet” offers a timely reminder about the dangers of imposing a reformulated national myth on international Shakespeare productions. Focusing on a London performance of Korea’s Yohangza Theatre Company’s shamanized Hamlet, this case study invites far broader consideration of the readability of glo…[Read more]

This article is an examination of the preliminary material of Shakespeare’s First Folio. With the correct order of the preliminary leaves unknown, the sequence of the first 18 pages has long puzzled scholars. Over the last 400 years, binders have assembled the gathering differently, spawning a variety of order types. Using several data sources, i…[Read more]

In 1 Henry IV, Falstaff enacts his histrionic mock deposition scene, only to be usurped by England’s true heir, Prince Hal. Irate at his actorly demotion, Falstaff praises his own performance skills, while suggesting that, if found lacking, he should receive a punishment befitting his knightly status. Likening Falstaff to small game hanging in a s…[Read more]

With the correct order of the preliminary leaves of Shakespeare’s First Folio unknown, the sequence of the first 18 pages has long puzzled scholars. Over the last 400 years, binders have assembled the first gathering differently, spawning a wide variety of order types. Using data from Anthony James West’s Census of First Folios (2003) and A Des…[Read more]

In this essay Queen Margaret’s curses in Richard III become part of a feminist ethics on the early modern stage. As a parrhesiast, in Foucault’s terms, Margaret speaks truth to power and claims a right of citizenship. That Margaret elicits universal revulsion from the other characters while also holding a unique, though not untroubled, pos…[Read more]

This is the Vol – 2, SPECIAL ISSUE 4: VOL – 2, MARCH 2020 issue.

How does a woman become a whore? What are the discursive dynamics making a woman a whore? And, more importantly, what are the discursive mechanics of unmaking? In Women and Shakespeare’s Cuckoldry Plays: Shifting Narratives of Marital Betrayal, Cristina León Alfar pursues these questions to tease out familiar cultural stories about female se…[Read more]