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]

Shakespeare’s representations of history often have replaced history itself in the popular imagination: Julius Caesar, Margaret of Anjou, Henry V, Richard III — popular recollections of their lives and deaths are intimately linked with Shakespeare’s accounts of their stories, despite the playwright’s deviations from historical facts. In order t…[Read more]

Gendered night, or the nocturnal brightness of the early modern English stage
In French, critics speak of the night using feminine terms, but the term is grammatically neutral in English. Despite this neutrality, night may be gendered. In Romeo and Juliet, virgins hide their shame from their lovers by hiding in the dark. If night is consecrated…[Read more]

For poets like Sir Philip Sidney, the numerous incongruities found in Elizabethan drama fly in the face of Aristotelian theory. London audiences in 1580-1600 would have been hard pressed to recognize the time and place of the action represented on stage from one scene to the next. By comparing Greek theory and Elizabethan practice, this paper…[Read more]

What might strike some as Arden of Faversham’s faulty construction may perhaps be ascribed to the fact that Arden’s murderers, as well as the play’s audience, had to learn how to “temper poison” (i.229). Poison is not simply a means to commit murder, its use also requires great dexterity, one which must be interpreted within a historical and metat…[Read more]

How might the work on gender in Twelfth Night be challenged by trans theory, narratives, and experience?

Covering the changes in Shakespeare editorial theory and practice over the decades between the publication of the Oxford Shakespeare (1986) and the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016), this article surveys a range of modern texts with different rationales and aimed at different readerships. The article has three sections: the imagery associated with…[Read more]

This article examines the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) recent focus on digital ‘innovation’ by analysing the relationship between their emerging digital-focused business practices and digital performance practice for The Tempest (2016). To assess this relationship, I first review the socioeconomic context of 21st century neoliberal UK econo…[Read more]

Describes and analyzes two episodes of article rejections based on political correctness and several published instances of politically correct inverse racism. Shows that political correctness in judging scholarship on race uses a double standard which enables reverse racism and an unsavory rhetoric. Discusses political correctness as the…[Read more]

Reviews the Shakespeare Quarterly special issue (spring 2016), a collection of articles on different aspects of modern race study in Shakespeare. Addresses the problems confronting race study, the rhetoric of race “conversation,” and difficulties in race scholarship. Focuses on Ian Smith’s “Who Speaks for Othello” as representative of race study…[Read more]

Provides a personal perspective on, and analysis of, developments in the English profession. Emphasizes the proliferation of PhDs, the industrialization of scholarship and its effects on research and promotion, and the diminished influence and status of English studies. Makes suggestions for addressing present difficulties and reviving the study…[Read more]

Explores issues of professionalization and politicalization of humanistic studies. Sketches an up-dated return to the basics of humanistic research and teaching.

Critiques current status of relationship between scholarly research and academic teaching. Uses three examples–one each from Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear–to illustrate connections between both efforts.

Describes the dynamics of the attribution argument between Stratfordians and anti-Stratfordians, with particular attention to the asymmetries of the debate. Revisits the evidence of Greene’s “A Groatsworth of Wit.” Sketches and critiques two anti-Stratfordian arguments on that evidence.

After a critical overview of Price’s anti-Stratfordian argument, this paper scrutinizes her argument on Greene’s “A Groatsworth of Wit” and three arguments on the First Folio’s items “To the Reader,” Jonson’s tribute, and “To the great Variety of Readers.” All arguments reveal typical deficiencies in scholarly analysis of the evidence and typical…[Read more]