Chapter 4: Macbeth: Loyal Stewards and Royal Succession views the play as a romance defined by its overarching structure as exile-and-return of the rightful and qualified successor to the throne. Malcolm proves himself worthy in the Court Scene in England, where his test of Macduff demonstrates his ability, superior to his father’s, to e…[Read more]

Chapter 5: Hamlet: Courtly Revenge and Chivalric Succession sets Hamlet’s confusion about the appeal of a chivalric figure as a figure of justice and the ghost’s injunction to courtly revenge for adultery and incest at least as much as murder, in the larger context of the struggle between Denmark and Norway. Whatever befalls Hamlet occurs in the…[Read more]

Chapter 6: Othello: Courtly Love and Chivalric Justice explains the sudden onset of Othello’s jealousy in terms of the known propensities of intermediaries in courtly love to betray their function and thereby alter perceptions of relationships among lady, lover, and their go-between. It interprets the dichotomies between Venice and the Levant o…[Read more]

Chapter 7: King Lear: Courtly Romance and Chivalric Restoration sees the opening perversions of and developing machinations of courtly love as means leading to the undoing of Edmund, Goneril, and Regan. It sees Edgar, the instrument of their undoing, fulfilling his obligations to father and godfather, as the fair unknown made so by internal exile…[Read more]

“Appendix: Census of English Chivalric Romances through 1616” compiles data on manuscripts, printings, entries, and adaptations of English chivalric romances from standard sources: Short-Title Catalogue, Annals of the English Drama 975-1700, and the Stationers’ Register, among others. Tabulations of the data through 1610 serve as the basis for t…[Read more]

Reflects all works cited or consulted in preparing this book. The disproportion between pre-1970 and post-1970 works reflects the greater and lesser relevance, respectively, of most work in the field of English chivalric romance to my thesis. Recent scholarship has approach the subject less from a literary and historical than from a political,…[Read more]

Entries identify chapter and page.

Begins with the textual crux–Q’s “you” and F’s “he”–in Iago’s question to Othello at III, iii, 96-7: “Did Michael Cassio/When [someone] woo’d my Lady, know of your love?” Q’s reading is unanimously but silently adopted by all modern editors of the play, who take F as their copy text, on the assumption that F’s reading makes no sense. Continues…[Read more]

Establishes the division of characters between Maria/Toby/Feste and Malvolio, and their respective behaviors, characteristics, and values; shows the difficult, though sanctioned position, in which Malvolio’s role as steward places him; and traces Olivia’s (and later Orsino’s) regard for him in that role. Correlates the dichotomy between the two d…[Read more]

Analyzes Spenser’s Red-Cross Knight and Shakespeare’s Edgar as chivalric knights in the tradition of English chivalric romance, and compares these writers’ attitudes toward the knights and the chivalry which they represent. Finds that, contrary to common interpretation, Spenser is the more modern, Shakespeare the more medieval, in their regar…[Read more]

Uses the survival of the English chivalric romance tradition throughout Shakespeare’s professional lifetime and his exploitation of that tradition especially in his major tragedies to challenge the commonplace distinction between the medieval and the renaissance on the one hand, and to suggest that his openness to that medieval tradition showed…[Read more]

Analyzes the character and convictions of New Historicism, demonstrates its conflicting impulses and theoretical inadequacies, and critiques Kastan’s New Historical interpretation of “Macbeth.”

A prose rendering of the earliest English medieval romance, adapted into chapters, annotated throughout, with an introduction.

This bibliography is divided into three parts. The first two parts encompass medieval romances first available in English before 1558. Part I includes romances by unknown or little-known authors or translators which others, as noted, regard as romances. Part II includes romances by those who are well known: Caxton, Chaucer, Gower, Henryson,…[Read more]

Assesses the characterization and distinctions between the medieval and renaissance periods, and finds them deficient and the supporting scholarship superficial.

Reviews arguments for identifying Shakespeare’s handwriting to the handwriting of Addition IIc in the Sir Thomas More ms. and, by reference to the concept of a control as the indispensable requirement for such comparison, finds the arguments not only instances of special pleading, but a failure to satisfy this fundamental requirement. Urges…[Read more]

Resolves the previously inconsistent or incomplete account of the watermarks in the “Sir Thomas More” ms, shows their distribution among the sheets of the original and the additional texts, and suggests a possible collation in the collaborative process of revision.

Theater historians regard Alfred de Vigny’s “Le More de Venise” as an early part of the romantic revolution against French classicism. Despite the sensation created by the word “mouchoir,” an analysis of the play shows that de Vigny’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Othello” reflects the diction and versification, the simplification of character and…[Read more]