Michael Keefer

University of Guelph, School of English and Theatre Studies, Emeritus

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Michael Keefer holds degrees from the Royal Military College of Canada, the University of Toronto, and Sussex University. A former President of the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (1992-94), he is a Professor Emeritus in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. He has published in the fields of Renaissance literature, early modern philosophy, textual-critical theory, and contemporary cultural politics (with emphases on neo-McCarthyism, electoral fraud, post-9/11 issues, and Indigenous and Palestinian rights).

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Gabriela Cruz

University of Michigan

Ronan Hatfull

University of Warwick

Diana Manole

Trent University

Scott Duchesne

University of Guelph

Kimber Sider

University of Waterloo

Michael Prusse

Zurich University of Teacher Education / Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich PHZH

Gregor Campbell

University of Guelph

Jana Javornik

University of East London

Gwen Robbins Schug

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso

University of Salamanca

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Papers by Michael Keefer

Cornelius Agrippa's Double Presence in the Faustian Century

The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the Age of Luther and Faustus, ed. J.M. van Der Laan and Andrew Weeks., Feb 1, 2013

An essay first published in &#39;The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the A... more

The Dreamer's Path: Descartes and the Sixteenth Century

Renaissance Quarterly, 1996

[Descartes] ne croioit pas qu&#39;on dût s&#39;étonner si fort de voir que les Poëtes, mê... more [Descartes] ne croioit pas qu&#39;on dût s&#39;étonner si fort de voir que les Poëtes, même ceux qui ne font que niaiser, fussent pleins de sentences plus graves, plus sensées, &amp;amp; mieux exprimées que celles qui se trouvent dans les écrits des Philosophes. Il attribuoit cette merveille à la divinité de l&#39;Enthousiasme, &amp;amp; à la force de l&#39;lmagination.— Adrien Baillet,Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes(1691), paraphrasing Descartes&#39;sOlympicamanuscript of 1619-20Methode ist Umweg.— Walter Benjamin, “Epistemo-Critical Prologue,”The Origin of German Tragic DramaJacques Derrida begins a recent reflection upon Descartes&#39;sDiscours de la méthodeby remarking upon the metaphor of the path, way, or road contained within the etymology of the word “method”: “methodos, metahodos, c&#39;est-à-dire ‘suivant la route,’ suivant le chemin, en suivant le chemin, en chemin.”

Verbal Magic and the Problem of the A and B Texts of" Doctor Faustus

The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 1983

... paid the substantial sum of four pounds to Samuel Rowley and Wil liam Birde (for Borne) &... more ... paid the substantial sum of four pounds to Samuel Rowley and Wil liam Birde (for Borne) &quot;for ther adicyones in doctor fostes,&quot;6 they not unnaturally believed the B-text to embody these additions. But a shift in scholarly and critical opinion was initiated by the appearance in ...

Forever Young: The Teen-Aging of Modern Culture (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 2004

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The World Turned Inside Out: Revolutions of the Infinite Sphere from Hermes to Pascal

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What We Talk about When We Talk about War by Noah Richler (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 2014

Lyric Poetry: Beyond New Criticism ed. by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1986

Misreading Faustus Misreading: The Question of Context

Dalhousie Review, 1986

" Doctor Faustus " de Marlowe : la tragedie de l'interpretation| etude du contexte ... more

Ellis on Deconstruction: A Second Opinion

ESC: English Studies in Canada

Shakespeare’s America, America’s Shakespeare by Michael Bristol

ESC: English Studies in Canada

The Works of Thomas Vaughan ed. Alan Rudrum

ESC: English Studies in Canada

For and Against the Moon

ESC: English Studies in Canada

Mars and the Carthaginians (Doctor Faustus, Prologue, Line 2)

Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies

The word mate in the second line of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus-"Not marching now infields ... more The word mate in the second line of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus-"Not marching now infields ofThracimene, fWhere Mars did mate the Carthaginians" (A: 2-3)1_has been a source of continuing embarrassment to commentators on the text. One obvious sense of this word was recognized in 1850 by Alexander Dyce when he glossed it in his edition as meaning "confound, defeat.'? The OED, similarly, cites these lines as an instance of the common though long obsolete usage of "mate" in the sense of "overcome, defeat, subdue." Yet whatever Mars may have done to the Carthaginians at Lake Trasummenus in 217 B.C., he did not prevent them from crushing the Roman army led by Caius Flaminius and killing its general. Could a poet who had himself graced tithefruitfull plot ofScholerisme" (A: 17) have forgotten the elementary fact that this battle was one of Hannibal's most resounding victories? To evade this awkward possibility, Francis Cunningham proposed, in his edition of 1870, that the word must mean "to marry": Mars mated the Carthaginians in the sense of espousing their cause.' But A.H. Bullen in 1885, followed by A.W. Ward in the second, third, and fourth revisions of his edition of the play, dismissed Cunningham's conjecture as implausible. As Ward wrote in 1901, "so paradoxical a use of the word is extremely doubtful, and ... it is safer to suppose the poet's memory to have been at fault." He himself glossed "mate" as "match, pit himself against," and quoted Henry VIII, llL2.272-4 ("That in the way of loyalty and truth tToward the king, my ever royal master, fDare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be") in support of this interpreration." The view that Marlowe somehow confused victors with victims in the first two lines of Doctor Faustus reappears in the Complete Plays and Poems edited in 1976 by E.D. Pendry and J.C. Maxwell: "mate" is there glossed, though hesitantly, as "abash" or "defeat.'? Most twentieth-century editors, however, have preferred to follow Cunningham in rescuing Marlowe from the imputation of forgetfulness. F.S. Boas wrote in 1932 that "If the reading is right, 'mate' appears to mean 'enter into alliance with' ."6 This opinion, adopted by John D. Jump (1962), by Roma Gill (1971), and most recently by David Ormerod and Christopher Wortham (1985), was ingeniously expanded in 1969 by J.B. Steane: "Mars 'mated' the Carthaginians ... in the sense that he entered into them: he was on their side and with his spirit in them they won (cf. Lady Constance on Fortune: "Sh'adulterates hourly with thine uncle John. King John ", Ill.I. 56)."7 In the mean time, W.W. Greg had in 1950 suggested another possibility.

The A and B Texts of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" Revisited

The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America

Twice during the latter half of the twentieth century textual critics confidently announced the r... more Twice during the latter half of the twentieth century textual critics confidently announced the resolution of a textual problem widely recognized as one of the most intractable in early modern English dra matic literature — that of the A and B texts of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. On the first occasion, in 1950, W. W. Greg, one of the great textual scholars of his time and a standard-bearer of the "scientific" New Bibliography, succeeded in demonstrating to his own satisfaction, and that of most scholars of the next quarter-century, the authorial au thenticity of the 1616 quarto (or B text) and the derivative and secondary nature of the 1604 quarto (the A text). By his account, the A text had been memorially reconstituted by actors (and hence lacked manuscript authority); moreover, it had been cut down for provincial performance and was marked throughout by clumsy revisions as well as by pervasive signs of "memorial corruption."1

Shakespeare and the Question of Theory ed. by Patricia Parke, Geoffrey Hartman (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1987

between elite and popular culture' (p 58). These texts reveal three often repressed attitudes... more between elite and popular culture' (p 58). These texts reveal three often repressed attitudes of popular culture: first, the critique of privilege and an idealized hierarchical class system; second, an acknowledgment of conflict as essential to productive life; and third, an expression of the common people's desire for material plenty. Section three considers the theatre in terms of its relation to the structure of authority in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. It argues, very persuaSively, that the controversies over the morality or immorality of playhouses and actors was really a struggle about authority. Later attempts to explain the antitheatricalliterature as a failure to understand that value of art ignore the fact that the theatre represents 'a genuine rupture in the fabric of social authority' (p 110) because it embraces the clowning, mockery, and, above all, the 'uncrownings' characteristic of Carnival. This section also suggests that, as part of a 'project of legitimation' (p "7) of the theatre, the prestige of authors was raised in order to combat the anonymous and improvisatory power of the players, who were closer to the fluid energies of popular culture. Not surprisingly, Ben Jonson is seen as central in this regard . I am puzzled, though, that Bristol does not comment on the Carnival anarchy of Jonson's plays, which is just as striking as their devotion to order and various forms of hierarchy. The concluding section of this study, called 'Carnivalized Literature: offers readings of 'minor' plays of the period, such as The Merry Devil of Edmonton and Locrine, as well as of Hamlet and King Lear. Since the tragedies are not usually thought of in terms of Carnival, Bristol breaks new ground here, in readings that are suggestive and convincing. To say that the reader is left wanting even more, about historical Carnival events as well as about individual plays, is a compliment to this study. Its central contribution to an understanding of the Renaissance theatre nevertheless stands clearly forth: plebeian culture is not the passive victim of authority but has its own resources, including the theatre, for sustaining and renewing its collective life. (DOUGLAS FREAI

A Winter's Snake: Dramatic Form in the Tragedies of John Webster by Christina Luckyj (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1991

Lyric Poetry: Beyond New Criticism ed. by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1986

Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henricus Cornelius (1486–1535)

Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006

Famous in the sixteenth century for writings in which he steps forward variously as magician, occ... more Famous in the sixteenth century for writings in which he steps forward variously as magician, occultist, evangelical humanist and philosopher, Agrippa shared with other humanist writers a thoroughgoing contempt for the philosophy of the scholastics. In his more evangelical moods Agrippa could be taken for a radical exponent of the philosophia Christi of his older contemporary Erasmus, or mistaken for a follower of Luther, whose early writings he actively disseminated in humanist circles. However, his deepest affinities are with magically inflected philosophies: the Neoplatonism and Hermetism of Marsilio Ficino, and the syncretic Christian Kabbalah of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Reuchlin and Johannes Trithemius. As well as expounding an influential magical view of language, Agrippa contributed to the sixteenth-century revival of scepticism, denounced the ‘tyranny’ of those who obstructed a free search for truth, criticized the subjection of women and (with a courage unusual in his time) resisted and mocked the instigators of the witch-craze. Finding in Hermetic–Kabbalistic doctrines the inner truth both of religion and of philosophy, Agrippa was also aware of parallels between these magical doctrines and the Gnostic heresies. His heterodoxy made him a target for pious slanders: within several decades of his death he became the protagonist of demonological fictions which were soon absorbed into the legend of Dr Faustus.

Christopher Marlowe: Poet for the Stage by Clifford Leech (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1988

Deconstruction and the Gnostics

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1985

Whatever its title might lead a new reader to expect, T.S. Eliot's well-known essay on 'S... more Whatever its title might lead a new reader to expect, T.S. Eliot's well-known essay on 'Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca' is not an argument for influence, but a pre-emptive strike. Eliot wrote, in his own words, 'to disinfect the Senecan Shakespeare before he appears. My ambitions would be realized if I could prevent him, in so doing, from appearing at all.' It is now late in the day to entertain similar thoughts with regard to that leading trend in post-structuralist literary theory known as deconstruction. The most violently jealous of traditionalists could hardly hope to strangle in its cradle a theory and a literary practice that already stalks with Herculean strength through English departments and publishers' lists, flushing out the Augean stables of humanistic commentary, and banging on the head such primordial monsters as the belief that the knowledge of relationships does not preclude a knowledge of things, or that truth is founded upon materi...

Cornelius Agrippa's Double Presence in the Faustian Century

The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the Age of Luther and Faustus, ed. J.M. van Der Laan and Andrew Weeks., Feb 1, 2013

An essay first published in &#39;The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the A... more

The Dreamer's Path: Descartes and the Sixteenth Century

Renaissance Quarterly, 1996

Verbal Magic and the Problem of the A and B Texts of" Doctor Faustus

The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 1983

Forever Young: The Teen-Aging of Modern Culture (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 2004

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The World Turned Inside Out: Revolutions of the Infinite Sphere from Hermes to Pascal

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What We Talk about When We Talk about War by Noah Richler (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 2014

Lyric Poetry: Beyond New Criticism ed. by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1986

Misreading Faustus Misreading: The Question of Context

Dalhousie Review, 1986

" Doctor Faustus " de Marlowe : la tragedie de l'interpretation| etude du contexte ... more

Ellis on Deconstruction: A Second Opinion

ESC: English Studies in Canada

Shakespeare’s America, America’s Shakespeare by Michael Bristol

ESC: English Studies in Canada

The Works of Thomas Vaughan ed. Alan Rudrum

ESC: English Studies in Canada

For and Against the Moon

ESC: English Studies in Canada

Mars and the Carthaginians (Doctor Faustus, Prologue, Line 2)

Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies

The A and B Texts of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" Revisited

The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America

Shakespeare and the Question of Theory ed. by Patricia Parke, Geoffrey Hartman (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1987

A Winter's Snake: Dramatic Form in the Tragedies of John Webster by Christina Luckyj (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1991

Lyric Poetry: Beyond New Criticism ed. by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1986

Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henricus Cornelius (1486–1535)

Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006

Christopher Marlowe: Poet for the Stage by Clifford Leech (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1988

Deconstruction and the Gnostics

University of Toronto Quarterly, 1985

Lunar Perspectives: Field Notes from the Culture Wars

A critical and polemical study of the so-called 'political correctness' wars of the early 1990s, ... more

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Magic Circle and Celestial Macrocosm: The Structure of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus

[This essay, which applied a formalist-structural analysis to Marlowe's play, dates from 1980. It... more [This essay, which applied a formalist-structural analysis to Marlowe's play, dates from 1980. It has not previously been published. Except in note 16, where I have added in square brackets a reference to my 2008 edition of Doctor Faustus, and note 21, which is entirely new, the text and notes have not been updated.] I More, perhaps, than any other part of Doctor Faustus, the third scene of Act I (which begins with Faustus's invocation of Mephastophilis) 1 illustrates the difference between the experience of reading a play and of seeing it performed. The extraordinary image of grotesque macrocosmic appetite with which the scene opens is striking to the ear, and repays a reader's meditative pause: Now that the gloomy shadow of the earth, Longing to view Orions drisling looke, Leapes from th'antartike world unto the skie, And dimmes the welkin with her pitchy breath: 1 1 I have used this spelling of the spirit's name throughout this essay (except in quotations where other spellings occur). " Mephastophilis " is the most common spelling in the 1604 quarto (the most frequently occurring spelling in the 1616 quarto is " Mephostophilis ").

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Michael Keefer

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