How To Do Things With Shakespeare: New Approaches, New Essays

How do writers find topics and develop their ideas?

How To Do Things with Shakespeare: New Approaches, New Essays shows us how literary research is a reaction to experiences, thoughts, or feelings and illuminates the thought process that leads a reader to take a critical stance.

Twelve experts take new critical positions in their field of study using the writings and analysis of Shakespeare. How do The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Winter s Tale frame discussions on animal ethics? What is the role of history as a character in Henry VIII and Love s Labour s Lost? Each contributor shares insights into what ignited his or her curiosity and led to the resulting essay on each topic. Illuminating the thought processes of these particular writers leads to larger questions: What problems, omissions, or dissatisfactions lead us to our critical positions? What is the internal dialogue that precedes the writing process? Research often moves in unanticipated directions, so here readers are invited to judge first–hand how closely each final essay relates to (and how far it develops from!) the initial questions that inspired it.

Notes on Contributors.

Introduction: Laurie E. Maguire (Magdalen College, University of Oxford).

Part I How To Do Things with Sources.

1. French Connections: The Je–Ne–Sais–Quoi in Montaigne and Shakespeare: Richard Scholar (Oriel College, Oxford).

2. Romancing the Greeks: Cymbeline s Genres and Models: Tanya Pollard (Brooklyn College, City University of New York).

3. How the Renaissance (Mis)Used Sources: The Art of Misquotation: Julie Maxwell (Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge).

Part II How To Do Things with History.

4. Henry VIII, or All is True: Shakespeare s Favorite Play: Chris R. Kyle (Syracuse University).

5. Catholicism and Conversion in Love s Labour s Lost: Gillian Woods (Wadham College, Oxford).

Part III How To Do Things with Texts.

6. Watching as Reading: The Audience and Written Text in Shakespeare s Playhouse: Tiffany Stern (University College, Oxford).

7. What Do Editors Do and Why Does It Matter?: Anthony B. Dawson (University of British Columbia).

Part IV How To Do Things with Animals.

8. The dog is himself : Humans, Animals, and Self–Control in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Erica Fudge.

(Middlesex University).

9. Sheepishness in The Winter s Tale: Paul Yachnin (McGill University).

Part V How To Do Things with Posterity.

10. Time and the Nature of Sequence in Shakespeare s Sonnets: In sequent toil all forwards do contend : Georgia Brown (independent scholar).

11. Canons and Cultures: Is Shakespeare Universal? : A. E. B. Coldiron (Florida State University).

12. Freezing the Snowman : (How) Can We Do Performance Criticism?: Emma Smith (Hertford College, Oxford).

Index

Laurie Maguire is a Fellow of Magdalen College and Reader in English at Oxford University. Her books include Shakespearean Suspect Texts (1996), Studying Shakespeare (2004), Where There s a Will There s a Way (2006), and Shakespeare s Names (2007). Maguire has published widely on Renaissance drama, textual problems, performance, and women′s studies.

Maguire does not seek to force the essays into convenient (and conventional) critical boxes. Rather, she asks her contributors to open their essays with discussions of the questions and contexts that drove them to pursue their topic and then write about it. Highly recommended. ( Choice Reviews, October 2008)