Jean E. Howard

The Norton Shakespeare, based on the Oxford edition

Instructors and students worldwide welcomed the fresh scholarship, lively and accessible introductions, helpful marginal glosses and notes, readable single-column format, all designed in support of the goal of the Oxford text: to bring the modern reader closer than before possible to Shakespeares plays as they were first acted. Now, under Stephen Greenblatts direction, the editors have considered afresh each introduction and all of the apparatus to make the Second Edition an even better teaching tool.

The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies

new kind of activity is gaining prominence in Renaissance studies: a sustained attempt to read literary texts of the English RenaisA sance in relationship to other aspects of the social formation in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This development, loosely called the “new history” and flourishing both in Europe and America, involves figures such as Stephen Greenblatt, Jonathan Dollimore, Alan Sinfield, Kiernan Ryan, Lisa Jardine, Leah Marcus, Louis Montrose, Jonathan Goldberg, Stephen Orgel, Steven Mullaney, Don E. Wayne, Leonard Tennenhouse, Arthur Marotti, and others.’ Journals such as E L H , English Literary Renaissance, Representations, and L T P : Journal of Literature Teaching Politics regularly publish “new history” pieces. In short, a critical movement is emerging, and in this essay I want to look at the new historicism both to account for its popularity and to try to define what, if anythng, is new about its approach to the historical study of texts and then to examine some instances of new hstorical criticism.

Author's Pen and Actor's Voice: Playing and Writing in Shakespeare's Theatre (review)

recognition—is given to more flexible or progressive notions of what constitutes Shakespeare in performance as expressed by critics such as W. B. Worthen, critics who may be skeptical of the premise that the range of playable meanings is both facilitated and contained by the (uncut) authorial text. Nowhere does Ripley aim to counter such skepticism, seeking rather to document than to theorize, and making no apologies for his modernist (as opposed to postmodernist) sensibilities. The result, however, is that he rarely engages ideas overtly, and while this is admirably even-handed in its attempt to leave conclusions to the reader, one sometimes feels that he achieves the critical equivalent of those eighteenth-century productions, enacting their obsessive fascination with historical re-creation. In short, the book’s strength as a research tool—its meticulous researching and cataloguing of productions, together with a detailed performance chronology and extensive notes—might also be considered its weakness as a read.

Constructing the Canon of Early Modern Drama by Jeremy Lopez, and: Early Modern Theatricality ed. by Henry S. Turner (review)

ward to pre-Reformation Christianity, attempting paradoxically “to imagine a space in and through words that escapes the prevailing oppressive doxa” (225). And Ian McAdam argues that the treatment of magic and gender in the final plays marks a movement away from Shakespeare’s earlier depictions of masculine dominance through imaginative manipulation. McMullan closes the volume with a succinct afterword suggesting that the final plays were not only backward-looking when they were written, but also “fresh, new, exciting, [and] playful” (263). The essays in this collection are all carefully researched and well argued, and the variety of perspectives assures that any reader will find something of interest. Taken together, they present a fresh look at both our conception of and the particulars in and surrounding Shakespeare’s late plays, and they lay the ground for further exploration. The book will be of interest to all scholars and critics of the early modern theater.

Sick Economies: Drama, Mercantilism, and Disease in Shakespeare's England (review)

is not enough for the preoccupied Brutus” (26). The citations are not as careful as they might be and are sometimes odd, as when the Times Literary Supplement of 1933 is cited in support of a quotation of Henry Jackson’s 1610 account of a production of Othello (132n14) or when katherine Maus’s Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance is cited solely as the “quoted in” source for the prologue to Tamburlaine (132n12). More importantly, there is also a complete omission of any existing scholarship on Shakespeare and cognition or indeed of the wider area of literature and cognition. Both Ellen Spolsky’s Gaps in Nature and Satisfying Skepticism should certainly have been acknowledged, since many of kinney’s points are anticipated in these books, especially the former. It is also strange that kinney does not acknowledge Mary Thomas Crane’s Shakespeare’s Brain. Although Crane’s approach is somewhat different from that of kinney’s, especially in her interest in cognitive linguistics, this major and innovative intervention into the field should certainly have been discussed, the more so since Crane explores the exploration of a nexus of association with certain key words and concepts. Similarly, there is no acknowledgment of any work done in the area of literature and cognition more broadly. This lack of engagement with the scholarly field is puzzling, to say the least. While one might expect that a book published by Routledge on the subject of Shakespeare and Cognition would constitute a major advance in the field, kinney’s book unfortunately fails to live up to this potential.

Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare's English Histories

Part I: Making Gender Visible: A Re-Viewing of Shakespeares History Plays 1. Thoroughly Modern Henry 2. The History Play in Shakespeares Time 3. Feminism, Women, and the Shakespearean History Play 4. The Theater as Institution Notes. Part II: Weak Kings, Warrior Women, and the Assault on Dynastic Authority: The First Tetralogy and King John 1. Henry VI, Part I 2. Henry VI, Part II 3. Henry VI, Part III 4. Richard III 5. King John. Notes. Part III: Gender and Nation: Anticipations of Modernity in the Second Tetralogy 1. Richard II 2. The Henry IV plays 3. Henry V Notes. Bibilography. Index.

The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England.

The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England is a ground-breaking study of a controversial period of English literary, cultural, and political history. In language that is both lucid and theoretically sophisticated, Jean Howard examines the social and cultural facets of early modern theatre. She looks at the ways in which some theatrical practices were deemed deceptive and unreliable, while others were lent legitimacy by the powerful. An exciting and challenging work by one of the leading writers in the field, The Stage and Social Conflict in Early Modern England is important reading for anyone interested in the period.

Shakespeare Reproduced: The Text in History and Ideology

Offering a political critique of Shakespeares writings and the uses they are put to, these essays suggest that the activity of criticism is itself a site for political intervention.

Shakespearean Counterpoint: Stage Technique and the Interaction between Play and Audience

N THE FIRST SCENE of Loves Labors Lost, poor Costard is hauled before the King of Navarre for violating the proclamation that no man within the immediate province of Navarres court shall consort with a woman for three years. The officious Spaniard, Don Armado, having discovered Costard with the fair Jaquenetta, has sent Navarre a long letter detailing the circumstances of Costards indiscretion. As the King reads this epistle aloud, Costard cannot keep quiet: