Shakespeare's History Plays

Among Shakespeare’s history plays, Richard II is the least known and performed in Ireland. For a long time, the overthrow and murder of the anointed king was shown to English audiences with the interesting omission of the deposition scene (also known as the ‘Parliament scene’, IV, 1, 151-318), while in Ireland the play was taken for a long time to be a tragic reminder of the Island’s colonial past. It is possibly for this reason that there has been a significant lack of professional productions of Richard II in Ireland, and equally there has been a significant lack of critical attention to its fate on the Irish stage. In recent years, however, some attempts have been made to re-appropriate a canonical text whose plot lends itself to reflections on history and the past. One such instance is a production of Shakespeare’s play presented in 2013 by the Dublin-based Ouroboros, a theatre company that is no longer in operation. This study looks at the way in which Ouroboros creatively use ...

Following the "intertextual turn" in adaptation studies, scholars of Shakespearean performance have embraced the interpretive possibilities offered by infidelity, focusing increasingly on the corrective potential of recent stagings and adaptations. Such productions are not primarily valuable as progressive rewrites, however. In claiming not to be "Shakespeare", these productions make testable claims about the nature of the Shakespearean playtext. In this paper, I examine two recent stage productions and one non-traditional film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing: Kenny Leon's 2019 Public Theater production, Chris Abraham's 2023 Stratford Festival production, and Will Gluck's 2023 romantic comedy Anyone But You. All three performances are consciously unfaithful to Shakespeare's text or setting, and their revisions attend to making the characters' behavior more palatable for a contemporary liberal-progressive audience. Yet when we compare these revisions with the original playtext, Shakespeare's own views come into sharper relief, as does our own inclination to identify with characters that Shakespeare's immediate audience may have felt quite distanced from. I argue that in their drive to correct the play and make the characters more likable, these productions paper over Shakespeare's critique of the arbitrary construction-and violent enforcement-of social hierarchy. Drawing upon Jacques Derrida's notion of the parergon, I show that Shakespeare's deliberate narrative framing invites a more skeptical, disapproving understanding of his characters. My hope is that this discussion leads to an understanding of Much Ado About Nothing as a "problem play" rather than a "problematic" one.

Literature' has long been under suspicion. The New Historicists would make no essential difference within the field of writing, or even within discourse: high literature enjoyed no privileged status, beyond that (presumably) of occasioning the search for analogues in neglected and minor forms. The tendency was to assimilate literature to discourse, and to treat all utterance as of a kind. Discourse became the term no longer in question, and utterance its normative instantiation.

NOTE: A version of this paper was first presented as the Inaugural Lecture of the Professor of English Literature at the University of Copenhagen, on 13 February 1996. At that time, Denmark and Britain had already negotiated a means of'opting out' of the single European currency. Subsequently, in a referendum held on 28 September 2000, Denmark firmly rejected the euro. The topic of debate and unease has been the principle of sovereignty. Against European integration, the 'ever closer union', we still, in these northern lands, hear voiced the rhetoric of national sovereignty. And it may not be coincidental that the attachment to the national currency is strongest in countries where the coinage bears the image of the sovereign. Of all the Nordic nations, only the republic of Finland has exchanged its mark for the euro, without resistance or complaint. The three Nordic nations whose currency is the crown-Denmark, Norway, Sweden-remain, albeit on disparate trajectories, outside the European Monetary Union, as does sterling.

His works on arithmetic exhibit a conception of numbers and their relation to the natural world that earned him a place in Jacob Klein's account of the emergence of modern mathematics. In this paper, I examine Stevin's innovations in relation to Klein's thesis about the conceptual interdependence of Greek ontology and mathematics: [A]ny attempt to understand Greek mathematics as a self-sufficient science must fail. It is impossible to disregard the ontological difficulties which fundamentally determine its problems, its presentation, and its development, especially in its beginnings. It is just as impossible, on the other hand, to understand Greek ontology without reference to its specifically 'mathematical' orientation. 2 (GMTOA 61) Herein Aristotle represents the Greek tradition and serves as a foil to clarify Stevin's innovative understanding of the relation between mathematics and nature. Where Aristotle emphasizes the role of form in relation to number, Stevin emphasizes matter, and the contrast illuminates Klein's emphasis on mathematical physics in modernity: "The problem of the origin of mathematical physics is the crucial problem of modern history and modern thought…. The establishment of modern physics is founded upon a radical reinterpretation of ancient mathematics." 3 It helps to begin with a summary of Aristotle's account of the relation between number and being. 4 Aristotle's famous formula, "being is said in many ways," denies the Parmenidean notion that being is one only. Many means many ones, and so, in Aristotle's view, being is not continuous and undifferentiated but discretely divided into various ones or units. Each of the several units that constitute being as multiple is essentially indivisible as a sense of being. Aristotle distinguishes the many senses of being by identifying the several ways beings are indivisible. Against a Parmenidean view (and in contrast to a postmodern view), according to 2

The current research examines Stephen Greenblatt’s theories on the improvisation of power as well as tyranny in William Shakespeare’s second tetralogy to investigate the complex network of non-violent psychological domination of human being’s mind, by the manipulation of symbolic order through the stages of displacement and absorption. It examines how the Western psychic mobility and its embodiment in empathy and the improvisation of power affect the represented English society in the Medieval era and how the consequential power relationships impact on the ways of ruling the country. The improvisation of power deconstructs the vertical and hierarchical power relations and makes them more diagonal, horizontal or even upward. The represented Medieval English court is a dark labyrinth of conspiracy, intrigue, treason, and complicity. This duality roots in religious fundamentalism of Roman Catholic church. The tension between the two paradigms of court and church causes turbulence and chaos. The result is the absolute submission of the majority through the improvisation of power, which paves the ground for the Machiavellian minority to exert power and gratify their personal self-interest-driven plans, which are mostly tyrannical. Through the improvisation of power, the course of history could change.

This article examines the representation of authority, political power, and legitimacy in William Shakespeare's King John by establishing connections to John Locke's Second Treatise of Government. To this end, the study argues that these themes have similarities in both works. King John enables an opportunity to examine the dynamics of political power and ambition, as the king's legitimacy to the English throne is questionable when assessed from Locke's perspective of political philosophy. Locke's Second Treatise of Government provides a theoretical framework for the principles of political authority and its legitimacy, facilitating the potential of opposition against the King. Locke's concepts regarding property rights, consent, and the social contract established a significant influence on political philosophy in the Enlightenment era. Therefore, the study examines Locke's ideas related to the political discourse to compare them to Shakespeare's King John. Finally, the study suggests a parallel between the play and Locke's work through indicating their similarities through a thorough evaluation of both works.

Traditional film theorists, from the 1910s through the 1950s, often focused on the "essential" differences between the arts of theater and film. Shakespeare was frequently a part of those specificity theory discussions, particularly as his work was so often adapted to silent film (generally in shreds and patches) and then in longer form for talkies in the first decade of sound. The cinematic and written work of prominent Russian filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) engages dialogically with Shakespeare and/in film in significant ways that stretch far beyond the passing of this early giant of film theory. This article examines how Eisenstein's formalist and specificity-oriented theory features Shakespeare at its very core while his later films, Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (Part I, 1944; Part II, 1958; Part III, 1946), were purposely structured in emulation of Shakespeare's contrapuntally designed history plays and the battle scenes in the major tragedies, particularly Macbeth. Conversely, the impact of Eisenstein's films and theoretical work can be seen clearly in the major film adaptations of Henry V (close or free, in part or whole), from Laurence Olivier's 1944 wartime adaptation, through Orson Welles's masterpiece Chimes at Midnight (1965), to Thea Sharrock's Hollow Crown adaptation (2013). Thus, as a filmmaker and theorist, Eisenstein finds profound inspiration in Shakespeare, and, in turn, several directors of Shakespeare films are in dialogue with Eisenstein's work regarding the ideological power and purpose of juxtapositionally structured "chronicle" films, which promulgate cogent ideological messages by demanding active spectatorship. In his later writing, Eisenstein declares that Shakespeare's plays figuratively and literally "mediate" the very Urphänomen of cinema, which stretches back into the prehistoric mists of mythological time and forward into theoretical futures.

The use of informed imagination can transport us sufficiently into the past to enable a refreshed re-evaluation of part one of Shakespeare's Henry IV through the eyes and ears of early modern playgoers. The playwright fueled this imagination by familiarising the audience with places and themes they recognized, encouraged their inner thoughts, awakened their memories

The use of informed imagination can transport us sufficiently into the past to enable a refreshed re-evaluation of Shakespeare’s Henry V through the eyes and ears of early modern playgoers. The playwright fueled this imagination by familiarizing the audience with places and themes they recognized, encouraged their inner thoughts, awakened their memories and employed contemporary language. By these means, and the use of a chorus, he toyed with their expectations and made them participate fully in Henry V. This play should have been a popular play, coming eleven years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, but was it?

The English history play King John vies for being the earliest known Shakespeare drama. There is still very considerable disagreement regarding the date of King John due to its controversial relationship with the anonymous play The Troublesome Raigne of King John of England published in 1591. Nearly all orthodox Shakespeare editors and commentators believe The Troublesome Raigne was written by someone other than Shakespeare and over the centuries its authorship has been variously attributed to at least eight different dramatists among them Kyd, Peele, Marlowe, Greene, Lodge, Drayton, Rowley, and Munday. On the basis King John preceded The Troublesome Raigne the likes of Professor Honigmann (editor of the Arden King John) argues for a date of 1590-1, 1 with others variously placing its date of authorship at 1587, 1588 or 1589. On the other hand, the majority of scholars think (wrongly) The Troublesome Raigne was used as a source by Shakespeare for King John and have consequently championed a date of every year between 1591 and 1598 the year it was listed under Shakespeare by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia (1598). Even though the 1611 quarto of The Troublesome Raigne credited its authorship to 'W. Sh' with the 1622 quarto plainly stating on its title page it was 'Written by W. Shakespeare', virtually all modern scholars (many with an eye on the disputed authorship of the plays) refuse to accept his authorship of it. Recently, however, the prolific orthodox Shakespeare scholar Eric Sams placed his head above this wall of denial who in summarizing his position says that 'There is no objective reason to assume that Shakespeare did not write Troublesome Reign [which he dates at c. 1588] or that anyone else did. Its usual contemptuous rejection is mere personal opinion, though often presented as universal modern expertise'. 2 Even more recently still Ramon Jimenez in 'The Troublesome Raigne of John, King of England Shakespeare's First Version of King John' the most comprehensive study to date, has emphatically shown a single author 'Shakespeare' wrote The Troublesome Raigne, which preceded the greatly revised and rewritten The Life and Death of King John first published in the First Folio. 3 If accepted this would mean The Troublesome Ragine is the earliest printed Shakespeare work antedating the printed editions of the narrative poems Venus and Adonis (1593), The Rape of Lucrece (1594), and what is almost universally regarded as Shakespeare's first printed play Titus Andronicus (1594), by three years. The major themes of the two versions of the Shakespeare play of King John include various aspects of the law, inheritance, identity, legitimacy, and its antithesis bastardy. The last of these provides the pejorative nomenclature for its most important character and largest role in the play, who is given deliberate prominence on its title page The Troublesome Raigne of Iohn King of England, with the discouerie of King Richard Cordelions Base sonne (vulgarly named, The Bastard Fawconbridge). 4 The important character Philip Falconbridge (the bastard) has more lines than any other character and is frequently described as the hero of King John without whom it is said, the play would not exist. The play is undoubtedly one of the less known of all the Shakespeare plays, and its central character the Bastard, unlike the characters of say Hamlet or Prospero, remains unfamiliar to the reader and theatre-goer. The play writes Professor Emrys Jones in his brilliant incisive essay 'King John: The Self and the World' 'is still misunderstood and absurdly underrated'. 5 Like virtually all modern critics Professor Jones too is irresistibly drawn to the complex, enigmatic and elusive key character in the play 'King John would be nothing without the Bastard Faulconbridge. With him, however it comes within hailing distance of Hamlet. He is the sensitive moral agent who registers the human temperature of the places through which he moves. Through his responses the true meaning of the play is mediated to us.' 6 The world of King John is, he observes, 'a place of deceit and deceiving, in which the deceivers are themselves deceived', that portrays the Bastard's 'initiation into high politics-the great world-which forms a major plot line.' 7 Unlike some other characters in the play the Bastard has an 'instinct for justice' and 'justice, with its assumption of reciprocity, matters to him'. 8 The Bastard writes Professor Braunmuller (editor of the Oxford edition of The Life and Death of King John) fully 'erupts into the play as a sourceless, unlocated character'. 9 The

This paper is about how the image of Elizabethan monarch was constructed as a sacred figure and how this was conducted by purely ideological means that extended to employ art and literature and how state ideological institutions were the source of power for the monarch. It attempts to examine how art and literature were very much ideological and political whereby they were channelled to serve the intended purpose. It also sheds some light on a possible echoing of this image in a few contemporary Shakespearean and Marlovian plays.

In helping my Dad sort through his papers a few years ago, I wanted to see his PhD thesis, Richard III: A Study of the Elizabethan Villain-Hero. Dad and I had discussed themes in his doctorate, how Shakespeare drew from the rich legacy of English cultural traditions of popular religious theatre in forming his depiction of King Richard as villain-hero, how the motiveless malignity of the dramatic villain has an enduring popular fascination, and how 'glorious villains' from Elizabethan theatre, such as Iago, Richard, Volpone and others, as well as inglorious rogues like Macbeth, conceal deeply complex moral dilemmas and traumas beneath a seemingly simple surface appearance, producing the paradox of heroism within villainy.

The Belgish writer Tom Lanoye, in collaboration with the director Luc Perceval, has re-written Shakespeare's two tetralogies, reducing them to ten theatre hours, to be performed in one long day. Naturally, many scenes and characters are dropped, others are added. Yet Lanoye succeeds in emphasising certain character traits that come very close to what may be called Shake-speare's intention and which went unnoticed in the German theatre tradition. Most importantly, Lanoye presents language as a process of deterioration, from very high, manneristic Dutch (in R 2) all the way down to a complete breakdown of language in R 3's vulgar and obscene speech. In this article, the translator of the fust three plays (R 2, H 4, H 5) gives an account of the special problems he is faced with in rendering Shakespeare not from English but from the Flemish variant of Dutch.

Aeschylus' "Persians" is not a versified book of history, nor a documentary of the History Channel concerning a major geopolitical crisis of the Achaemenid Empire, nor a scenario for a historical blockbuster to be directed by Oliver Stone. Neither is it merely a seasonal patriotic play which aims at exalting the triumph of the Athenians and reinforcing the spirit of the demos. Also, it need not be read as a topical denunciation of the expansionism and violence of the Persian Empire or the Athenian Hegemony or any other historical state in particular. Rather, the poet takes occasion from the historical events in order to provide a broader meditative parable around the pathology of power, the measureless greed of empires, the arrogance of rulers and the consequences of political authoritarianism on the fate of peoples. The sea battle of Salamis has the same function that is performed in other plays by the Trojan War or the expedition of the Seven against Thebes. It is an aesthetic means for setting forth, in a concrete manner, general thoughts about the most tragic theme of all: the fate of mortals under divine law. The lesson of Aeschylus' tragic plot is that the universe is reciprocal and retaliative. Every error is paid back by the law of nature or by divine justice in full, in the same coin and with exact equivalence of currency.

In a certain sense, the "Persians" is the most democratic tragedy of ancient repertoire. The suffering tragic hero is not only one personage but an entire people, the total population of Asia which suffers loss and death because of the errors and the imprudence of its ruler. The passion that is dramatized and generates eleos and phobos, pity and fear, is not merely the disaster of the weak Xerxes but the devastation of an empire and its inhabitants — the men killed in a foreign country, the women who remain to lament on their empty beds, the elders who see the collapse of their homeland. This is a genuinely political drama, a tragedy of collectivity, which illustrates not only the morbid mechanisms of power but also their impact on the community. Shakespeare, with his own aesthetic means and in different cultural conditions, will take up this tragic political worldview inhis historical tragicomedies on the kings of England, where the passions of monarchs are again closely interwoven with the sufferings of the people. Somewhere at the ultimate end of this theatrical course looms the phantom of Brecht.

In 1577 the first edition of The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland credited to one Raphael Holinshed was published at London, a seminal work whose secret association with  Francis Bacon and the Bacon family is more than four centuries later revealed here for the first time. A much revised and greatly expanded multi-volume work was republished in 1587. This second edition was the one used by Shakespeare as one of the primary sources for his English History Plays covering the War of the Roses from Richard II to Richard III, and for Bacon’s prose history of Henry VII (the only reign not covered by him in the history plays) and his final English History Play Henry VIII. It is also a major source for one of his greatest tragedies Macbeth and further provided material for King Lear and Cymbeline.
Just imagine for a single momentous moment if an intrinsically priceless copy of the 1587 edition of what is now known as the Shakespeare Holinshed owned by our supreme poet and annotated and underscored in his own hand all over his Shakespeare History Plays existed or was still extant. Obviously, you would have heard of it and know all about it. This unique work would be a priceless national and international treasure talked about in schools, colleges and universities all around the world. It would be housed in one of the great literary cathedrals where it would be regularly visited by royalty, heads of state, and important foreign dignitaries, all vying and competing to pay devout worship and homage to the greatest writer in the history of humankind. All self-respecting Shakespeare scholars would be falling over each other to scrutinise it to within an inch of its life. Every comma, semi-colon and full stop belonging to any notes and annotations from the hand of the semi-divine bard would be endlessly mulled and argued over, meanings and inferences drawn from his lines and observations, would fill the pages of large tomes and an interminable number of articles published in learned journals, all wanting their names and credentials associated with this holy grail of the Shakespeare world.   
Well, what would you think then, if I told you that a unique copy of the 1587 edition of the Shakespeare Holinshed existed, one copiously underscored and annotated in the divine hand of the bard in the marginalia alongside his English Shakespeare History Plays? I imagine that Shakespeare scholars, students and interested readers all around the world would be somewhat astonished. Well, if it does exist then you might reasonably ask, why does the world not know about it? Because it is the smoking gun of the Shakespeare Authorship Controversy. This unique copy of the Shakespeare Holinshed which has been hidden away for the last 85 years confirms the Truth about the greatest literary secret of all time; namely, the true identity of the author of the Shakespeare works. 
The unique copy of this four hundred and thirty year old book which was owned by the author of the Shakespeare works very briefly publicly raised its beautiful head in the mid-1930s as the world moved inexorably towards a Second World War. Understandably, at the time the world had more important things to concern itself with when notice of it was given in an otherwise unremarkable and unmeritable long forgotten and overlooked work published in 1938. Its value lay in the fact that it was the only time this unique copy of Shakespeare’s personal copy of the 1587 edition of the Holinshed Chronicles was given a fairly extensive examination and where its author Dr Longworth de Chambrun of Paris University produced two valuable facsimiles of its title page and a page covering the reign of Richard II with marginalia and inscriptions in the hand of the bard. She received this unique literary treasure from Capt. William Jaggard, founder of the Shakespeare Press in Stratford-upon-Avon, descendent of the printer of the Shakespeare First Folio, whose ancestors had printed and published several editions of Bacon’s Essays. Dr Longworth de Chambrun, together with the renowned Shakespeare scholar Dr G. B. Harrison, systematically examined the volume in London and for a further six months with the assistance of some of the best experts from the Ecole des Chartes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Archives and Affaires Etrangeres with the results of her endeavours published in Shakespeare Rediscovered by means of Public Records, Secret Reports & Private Correspondence Newly Set Forth as Evidence on His Life & Work. Since which time this unique copy of the Holinshed Chronicles annotated in the hand of the author of the Shakespeare works has disappeared from public view and its whereabouts remains unknown. 
The title page of the 1587 Shakespeare Holinshed sports five elaborate monograms composed with the initials W.S. formed in such a way that the pen never leaves the paper until completion in the flourish of a single stroke. Dr Longworth de Chambrun informs her readers that these personal monograms are found on the outer cover of the so-called Northumberland manuscript. In fact, in her own words, anyone familiar with Shakespeare’s personal copy of the Holinshed Chronicles extensively annotated in his own hand and the Northumberland Manuscript, with the names of Bacon and Shakespeare written all over its outer cover, would at a single glance know they originally belonged to the same man. Of which there can be no doubt whatsoever. This now left her in a seemingly insurmountable situation, simply because if the Shakespeare Holinshed and the so-called Northumberland Manuscript belonged to the same man (and they most definitely did) and the latter was a collection of Bacon’s own manuscripts (which it most definitely was) originally housing his two Shakespeare plays Richard II and Richard III, then Bacon was Shakespeare. To try and circumvent it she suggested that William Shakspere might have worked in the Bacon literary workshop, an absurd suggestion one completely without any foundation and one for which there exists not a single shred of evidence, not least of course, because it did not happen. 
The Bacon-Shakespeare Manuscript to give its appropriate title (known as the Northumberland Manuscript) originally held seventeen pieces of work comprising letters, religio-political tracts, compositions on national and international matters of intelligence, essays, and dramatic devices and plays. It was widely known at the time that many of these were Bacon’s writings and works and since then it has been shown that all seventeen pieces originated from his brain and hand.  On the title page of the Shakespeare Holinshed and on the top right-hand side of the outer cover of the Bacon-Shakespeare Manuscript both from Bacon’s hand appear the three monograms common to these two documents. In the case of the latter the three monograms appear directly below the name of its owner and possessor ‘Mr. ffruancis Bacon’. Apparently, unbeknown to Dr Longworth de Chambrun these three monogram scrolls are found in other works owned by Bacon including a copy of Les Tenures de Monsieur Littleton (1591) annotated throughout, now held at the British Library, whose own experts confirm to be in the handwriting of Francis Bacon.
The Bacon collection of manuscripts known as the Northumberland Manuscript shares the same provenance and ownership with the unique 1587 edition of the Shakespeare Holinshed with its copious marginal annotations and underscored passages made by Bacon for use in his Shakespeare English History plays from Richard II to Richard III, the two plays originally held in the Northumberland MSS, both further inextricably bound up with the other through their Baconian monograms and Bacon’s handwriting on their respective outer cover and title page. These two inextricably interrelated works taken together wholly reinforce each other providing incontrovertible proof that Francis Bacon is the secret author of the Shakespeare works.
The unique copy of the 1587 edition of the Shakespeare Holinshed with its annotations and underscored portions in Bacon’s own hand alongside passages used for his Shakespeare plays is the smoking gun of the true authorship of the Shakespeare works. Finally, after more than two hundred years of authorship controversy we have proof positive that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare works, which collapses the greatest literary fraud in the history of the world.
Since its fleeting 1938 appearance in Dr Longworth de Chambrun’s book, Bacon’s unique copy of the 1587 Shakespeare Holinshed has not seen the light of day, and as far as the present writer is aware, its whereabouts remains unknown.
Perhaps the reason for this is whichever individual or more likely institution owns this unique copy and has deliberately suppressed it and kept it from public view for the last 85 years is also acutely aware that it is the incontrovertible decisive smoking gun of the true authorship of the Shakespeare works.

Today we in the West enjoy all kinds of freedom, including freedom of conscience, expression, action, and assembly. These in the long run have led to the development of our democratic institutions and evolution of our liberal political system. Many usually take these freedoms for granted, because they are under the false impression that things have always been like this. But the truth is, many of these freedoms were not there in the first place. They only evolved against the backdrop of a strict ancient order that most people don’t remember today because it lies so far from us in time. As it happens, William Shakespeare was one of the earliest and most popular modern thinkers to problematize that order. He introduced new ideas in worldview and human conduct that would lay the groundwork for the emergence of our individual freedoms and liberal democracy.

Shakespeare and 'the King's English' Language, History, Power An 'antiquated phrase', as Patrick Parrinder has remarked, 'the King's' or 'the Queen's English' has nevertheless continued to exert a hold as a 'notion or fiction of cultural ownership'.  This chapter offers a history of the emergence and use of this trope as a context for a fresh analysis of language, history and power in The Merry Wives of Windsor and the second tetralogy. The only play in the canon to feature 'the King's English' and 'our English'two representations of ownership of the national vernacular which, I argue, are in tension in the Folio, if not the Quarto () version of the play-Merry Wives is significantly Shakespeare's one English comedy.  It is too his one essay in, or engagement with, the emergent genre of citizen comedy which appropriates centre stage for citizens and citizen ideology as, I argue, 'the King's English' is mobilised to appropriate the centre of cultural ownership for citizen 'plainness'. For 'the King's English' (or its variants, 'the Queen's English', 'the king's language') is used from the first instances, not descriptively, as scholars have assumed but as a rhetorical and ideological tool in negative performative utterances which define the centre it represents through exclusions of what it is not.   Patrick Parrinder, 'Shakespeare and (Non)Standard English', European English Messenger  (), .  As I pointed out in Chapter , the national vernacular is a focus of attention in F only. Specifically, Q features 'our English' in the important scene (.) discussed below, but not 'the King's English' (..) or the 'gallimaufry' (..), which is almost as explicit a linguistic trope. Quotations from the Q text are taken from the facsimile reproduction in The Merry Wives of Windsor, ed. Melchiori, -.  The assumption hampers the otherwise valuable work of Paula Blank who, though recognising that 'the precise nature of the King's English had yet to be articulated', consistently regards it as an elite variety of English that was actually practised at court and in the city of London, which she tends, moreover, to conflate, not recognising the crucial ideological differencesand tensionbetween the two. Blank, Broken English, . See too David Crystal, The Stories of English (London: Penguin, ), .

Although no longer American President, Donald Trump still manages to upstage the current administration. An explanation for his "sinister aesthetics", to use Joel Elliot Slotkin's concept, can be seemingly found in developing a comparison with the eponymous king of Shakespeare's Richard III, who masterfully employs soliloquies and asides to draw the audience and reader into his evil plots and dealings. Donald Trump also managed something similar by means of Twitter, constantly tweeting out vicious comments and insults, which kept both his followers and opponents engaged. This theatrical skill is also compared to the 'heat' generated by villains in professional wrestling, whose popularity is marked by how much hatred they can produce.

There will be an attempt to demonstrate how Henry, contrary to expectations, makes profitable use of his time to "learn the ropes". Henry in his interactions with Falstaff and others employs a wide range of comic techniques: jokes, insult comedy, imitations, political satire, etc. In contrast, however, with Zelensky who has bravely rallied his country and inspired the world with resistance to a larger aggressor in a defensive war, Henry V does the exact opposite invading neighbouring France on the most flimsy of pretexts. Although lionized in many productions as a great military leader, icon of Englishness and man of the people, this paper will argue for his ultimate failure as a leader, failing to heed the lessons of his comic "apprenticeship", in stark contrast to Zelensky.

King Richard III is perhaps one of the most controversial English monarchs. Notwithstanding his short-term reign, from 1483 to 1485, the last Plantagenet king has caught the attention – and imagination – of innumerable authors throughout the centuries. Historians, biographers, playwrights, novelists, academic researchers – to mention but a few – have engaged in the Ricardian studies, hoping to throw some light upon this king’s life and reign. Ultimately, one can assume that they are all merely “looking for Richard”, as suggested in Al Pacino’s 1996 film, hoping to find the facts amidst the fiction, the truth within the myth, looking for the real Richard III. Paradoxically enough, this monarch is still an enigma, possibly due to what Jeremy Potter has acknowledged: “Myth-making is the creation of fiction more enduring than fact” (120). As Northrop Frye observed, the word ‘myth’ is used quite indiscriminately and therefore an adequate context for the use of this expression in this ess...

This paper explores the significance of analyzing William Shakespeare's play, "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar," within the context of the author's life and the historical period. It highlights Shakespeare's exceptional qualities as a playwright and the ability of his works to resonate across eras. The paper examines the limited knowledge of Shakespeare's life, the theatrical environment of his time, the influence of the Renaissance, and the themes and character complexities in "Julius Caesar." By studying these factors, the paper emphasizes the importance of understanding the play's meaning and enduring relevance.

This essay explores Heywood’s treatment of spatial and economic mobility in The Two Parts of King Edward IV , in a plot that, I argue, pivots on the tension between domesticity and travel. I show that Matthew Shore, like the male householders in A Woman Killed with Kindness and The English Traveller, seeks to maintain traditional hierarchical relationships, values, and virtues inherent in home-dwelling and stasis, on the one hand; yet, on the other hand, his civic and vocational “callings” require mobility and occasion absence. Rather than static binaries, domesticity and travel shift as both settings for action and as containers of signification. I argue that Heywood uses the ‘dramaturgy of the doorway’ to locate immediate domestic conflict and broader cultural concerns about the impact of commercial expansion on the family and the nation. Heywood’s windows, city gates, and domestic thresholds are (literally) multivalent sites for theatrical and social possibility. In this way, my ...

Shakespeare’s tragedies are among the most analyzed and discussed literary works. In his tragedies Shakespeare follows the Aristotelian pattern of drama, so it is easy to notice there all the elements of a tragedy presented in Aristotle’s Poetics. In this paper I will define what climax in literature is and explore the climax of one of the four great tragedies of Shakespeare, that of King Lear. As a masterfully structured play, the central part of the play is the climax itself. But what is the climax of this play, how is it presented, does it have any impact on the characters, how does it change the course of events, etc? Answers to these questions will be given here. As an example of the interactions between men and weather conditions in Shakespeare’s drama, I will explore climate as climax. The climactic moment of the play is the storm, in the 3rd act, when we see the psychological rage of King Lear. Unsurprisingly, Shakespeare exposes the issue of how the local weather durably af...

Qconsidering the %la tionship of $Barto and_7iolio S x t s of Richard I11 Contemporary critical editions and textual analyses ofRichardIII repeatedly return to D. L. Patrick, The Textual History of Richard III (Stanford University Publications in Language and Literature, 6 [1936; rpt. New York AMS Press, 1%7]), as the source of methodology and conclusions about the relationships between the two substantive texts of this play, the 1597 Quarto and the 1623 Folio. Patrick argued that the Quarto was a "memorial reconstruction" of the text found in the Folio, and therefore the Quarto is removed further from Shakespeare's own work on the play is than the Folio. Among the contemporary editors of the play who base their editions on Patrick's theory are G. Blakemore Evans in the Riverside Shakespeare, David Bevington in the Scott Foresman text, and Antony Hammond in the New Arden edition. One scholar, Kristian Smidt, initially argued that the Quarto represents an authorial revision of the Folio version, but he later amended his analysis of the texts to accommodate the view that at least some of the variants represent memorial reconstructions while others are authorial changes. Smidt nevertheless agrees with Patrick's view that the Folio version was the prior text and the Quarto followed from it.* *From time to time, English Literary Rewissance publishes textual studies as well as rare and inaccessible texts.-& Editors.

In the summer of 1483, two young boys locked in the tower of London were critical in determining the future of the British throne. England was nearing the conclusion of a thirty-year civil war between the House of York and the House of Lancaster, during which the crown changed hands nine times. In 1471 Edward IV (1442-1483) of the Yorkist line defeated the Lancastrian forces and ruled until his death in 1483. Political instability was still rampant and intensified upon the sudden death of Edward IV. Before dying, he named his twelve-year-old son, Edward V, his successor and named his brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester (1452-1485), the Lord Protector until his son was old enough to rule on his own. However, at just twelve years old, King Edward V was a threat to his paternal uncle, Richard Duke of Gloucester. Edward's loyalties were with the maternal side of his family due to his growing up under the guardianship of his maternal uncle Lord Rivers. The maternal side of the family, including the recently widowed queen, did not support the protectorate of Richard Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester had watched his brother, Edward IV, lose and regain his throne in a struggle for power with the deposed Henry VI (1421-1471) and understood that-as a Lord Protector who

In this article, I argue that the four plays of the Henriad (Richard II, 1 and 2 Henry IV, and Henry V), as presented in the 1623 Folio, constitute a unified whole intended for reading. The plays are connected not only by the endings of one play leading directly into the beginning of the next, but they are also unified by thematic and verbal echoes. I will focus first on establishing the connections between the plays, and then on the thematic resonances. I show how the plays are connected by verbal echoes, some thematically relevant, some not. I then show how Shakespeare provides differing accounts of Richard’s fall and invites the reader the compare and contrast them with each other. Finally, I turn to Shakespeare’s treatment of the common soldier, which culminates in the confrontation between the disguised Henry V and Michael Williams, Alexander Court, and John Bates, a scene not present in the quarto version of this play. Although this scene can stand alone, one has to have read the previous chapters of the Henriad to comprehend the full force of Shakespeare’s revision.

Shakespeare’s Richard II illustrates the issue of the physical environment and the degradation of nature and how it is utilised so cynically for parochial political gain is so prominent in the play that it may be described as a tragedy of the land rather than of a tragic hero.

In his response to the Dauphin, his threats before Harfleur's walls, and his St. Crispin's Day oration, Henry V deploys what we might call proleptic histories of the present as a means of rhetorical persuasion. Henry invites his audiences, that is, to imagine themselves in the future, understanding the present as part of their own history. Henry's invocation of an imagined future that understands the present as a theoretical past betrays a surprising indebtedness to Aristotle's notion of time as "a measure of change with respect to the before and after." Drawing on Aristotle's theory that time depends upon a perceiving mind and that those unconscious of change mistakenly "join up the latter 'now' to the former and make it one," this essay argues that Henry succeeds in altering his auditors' behavior, and thus generating the history he desires, by merging their shared, lived present with his own fictive temporalities. A mode of persuasion famous in its ethical ambivalence, Henry's rhetoric reveals how the very ontological assumptions governing perceptions of time may be manipulated, for good or ill, amid audiences who fail to critically envisage their own counterbalancing, imaginative histories.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Henry V, time, Aristotle, ethics

Death was a frequent occurrence in Shakespeare's plays. Copious blood and violence appealed to Tudor audiences. Seventy-five deaths occurred in total, two thirds were violent, but twenty-eight were not violent from a variety of other natural causes. These deaths are analyzed in this article from the diagnostic perspective of twenty-first century pathophysiology.

It is little known to virtually all Shakespeare scholars, the ordinary schoolmen, and the rest of the world that there exists an early manuscript version of the play Henry IV. This manuscript is the earliest extant manuscript of a Shakespeare play ever discovered, an historical landmark of the utmost importance, that one might be forgiven for thinking that it would not only be well-known and minutely scrutinised by Shakespeare scholars around the globe, as well as known to all and sundry with only the remotest interest in Shakespeare, but celebrated for what it is: a unique artefact of world-wide significance.
The reason this is not the case is because the manuscript itself conceals an explosive secret which it would be difficult to overestimate of the most far-reaching consequences which completely collapses the fiction and illusion William Shakspere of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare works and at the same time confirms the truth that Francis Bacon is our supreme poet and dramatist Shakespeare.
One hundred and twenty years after the so-called Dering MS was first discovered which was afterwards purchased in  great secrecy by Henry Folger, who secreted it away in the Folger Shakespeare Library, a Secret Baconian-Rosicrucian-Freemasonic Institution, a facsimile edition of it was published in 1974.
The edition entitled The History of King Henry The Fourth as revised by Sir Edward Dering published by the Folger Shakespeare, edited by George Walton Williams and Gwynne Blakemore Evans, is not generally well known and remains unfamiliar to the ordinary schoolmen and casual student, and is not quite what it appears to the uninstructed eye.
Its joint editor G. Blakemore Evans worked for US Intelligence serving in the Army Signal Corps alongside William Friedman at Bletchley run by British Intelligence, the centre of allied cipher and code-breaking during the Second World War. In their book The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined the Fraudulent Friedmans falsely maintained that there were no Baconian ciphers used in the Shakespeare works, in perpetrating one of the greatest academic and literary frauds of all time.
However as the present writer demonstrated in The Fraudulent Friedmans: The Bacon Ciphers in the Shakespeare Works their fraudulent book The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined is itself an elaborate cryptogram containing hidden Baconian ciphers conveying the concealed cryptographic message that Francis Bacon, Brother of the Rosy Cross, is Shakespeare. The Friedmans knew there were Baconian ciphers present in the Shakespeare works, a secret cryptically incorporated throughout their work aided by the Folger Shakespeare Library, revealing and confirming Bacon is Shakespeare.
Similarly, while in the open plain text of The History of King Henry The Fourth as revised by Sir Edward Dering its editors George Walton Williams and Gwynne Blakemore Evans himself an expert in cryptography, maintained the fiction of the so-called Dering manuscript, its title page incorporated a number of hidden Baconian ciphers, revealing and confirming that the manuscript of Henry IV was of Baconian origin and likewise that Bacon is Shakespeare. 
This whole illusory house of cards rests entirely on the presence of Dering’s hand in the manuscript. If his hand is not present, Dering self-evidently had nothing whatsoever to do with its composition, or its revision, cuts, its division into acts and scenes, its numerous additions of fifty lines and half lines, the introduction of original material in prose and verse, or its wholesale and extensive corrections. All from a person who never wrote a single drama in his entire life or is known to have heavily revised and amended any other play, never mind a Shakespeare play, in the same fashion or manner. The very premise on which this theory rests is self-evidently absurd and more importantly demonstrably false.
The large formatted edition of The History of King Henry The Fourth as revised by Sir Edward Dering totals two hundred and thirty-eight pages, comprising an introduction, a Note on the Transcription and Textual Notes, The Names of All the Characters, a facsimile and transcription with textual notes of the manuscript itself, and a Descriptive and Historical Collation. There is however one absolutely critical piece of evidence missing, namely a facsimile of Dering’s handwriting.
There is no reasonable and rational explanation whatsoever why Evans and Williams did not reproduce what constitutes the most important evidence in their whole Dering theory. By now the intelligent and alert reader will probably strongly suspect or more likely readily realise there is something wrong, something very wrong when the modern authorities on the Dering manuscript have unmistakably and very deliberately not reproduced facsimiles of Dering’s handwriting in this standard edition of the so-called Dering manuscript.
What was it then they wanted to conceal from other ordinary scholars and the rest of the Shakespearean world? Simple, the hand of Dering is nowhere present in the so-called Dering manuscript, a very simple fact which at a stroke completely and incontrovertibly exposes and collapses this whole charade and irrefutably demolishes a fraud or illusion (secretly known to some for more than a century) once and for all.   
The known and undoubted examples of Dering’s hand bears no resemblance whatsoever to the handwriting (including its corrections) to any of the handwriting in the so-called Dering manuscript, or the handwriting in the obverse and reverse of the scrap of paper. It fact not only is it manifestly plain that Dering’s known hand and the hands in the so-called Dering MS do not even remotely resemble each other, it is difficult to conceive of any other specimens of handwritings, being more different.
What then is the reason for the fraud and the false insistence on Dering’s handwriting being present in the so-called Dering MS? The reason is because it masks and conceals its true status, provenance and date. In other words it misdirects the eye away from a great historical secret, one known to some since it was first discovered, and others who were made privy to the secret afterwards.
The so-called Dering manuscript is a single-five act Shakespeare play of Henry IV and is earlier than the first printed quarto of The Historie of Henrie the fourth issued in 1598 and the quarto edition of The Second part of Henrie the fourth printed in 1600. The MS represents the play as Bacon originally composed it when it was one play and not two before developing his original version into two separate parts. Furthermore, we can be reasonably precise regarding the date of the manuscript. It is widely agreed Henry IV followed closely upon Richard II as not only is Henry IV next chronologically its predecessor Richard II clearly points to a sequel. The earlier Richard II is believed to date to around late 1595 or early 1596, and Henry IV was probably composed shortly after, sometime in 1596.
There appears to be three hands in the so-called Dering MS two of which were scribes. It appears the manuscript was copied from another MS now lost. The so-called Dering MS was begun by one scribe who copied out the whole of page one and for some unknown reason after he had completed the first page the task was turned over to a second scribe, who copied out the rest of the manuscript.
The manuscript is intimately connected to Bacon’s literary workshop of writers, scribes and copyists that produced Bacon’s Northumberland MSS, which once contained his Shakespeare plays Richard II and Richard III, that dates from around 1596/7. On the outside cover of the Northumberland MSS in a contemporary hand there are more than a dozen examples of various forms of the name Bacon or Francis Bacon and his literary mask Shakespeare or William Shakespeare. Above the entry for the Shakespeare play Richard II is written ‘By Mr. ffrauncis William Shakespeare’ and where the name ‘William Shakespeare’ has been written further down the page the word ‘Your’ is written twice across it, so thus reads ‘Your William Shakespeare’. The writing on the outer cover of the manuscript is chiefly in one hand with occasional words in another, and a few words written at angle, possibly by a third. One of the hands was undoubtedly Bacon who was also responsible for the monogram signature ‘W.S.’ at the top right hand corner. As with the so-called Dering manuscript, the main content of Bacon’s Northumberland MSS is written in two or more hands. One of the works contained within it generally referred to by the title Leicester’s Commonwealth is itself written by two different scribes whose identity remains unknown. On examining the facsimiles of the so-called Dering MS and the aforementioned work in Bacon’s Northumberland MSS it appears that one of the scribes who copied out Leicester’s Commonwealth was also responsible for copying out the so-called Dering MS from the second page onwards. It appears that in producing the so-called Dering manuscript one of these scribes was most likely working from Bacon’s original (‘foul papers’) manuscript of I Henry IV, producing an authorial fair copy of the play, which Bacon later gifted to his friend and relative Sir Edward Dering.
The so-called corrector’s hand in the so-called Dering manuscript is Bacon’s own cramped hand, as one would expect, from the author of the play.
It is now more than fitting that instead of it being referred to as the Dering manuscript it is hereafter known by its right and proper designation as Francis Bacon’s 1596 manuscript of Henry IV, the unique and earliest known extant manuscript of a Shakespeare play, the holy grail of Shakespeare scholarship.

Shakespeare and 'the King's English' Language, History, Power An 'antiquated phrase', as Patrick Parrinder has remarked, 'the King's' or 'the Queen's English' has nevertheless continued to exert a hold as a 'notion or fiction of cultural ownership'.  This chapter offers a history of the emergence and use of this trope as a context for a fresh analysis of language, history and power in The Merry Wives of Windsor and the second tetralogy. The only play in the canon to feature 'the King's English' and 'our English'two representations of ownership of the national vernacular which, I argue, are in tension in the Folio, if not the Quarto () version of the play-Merry Wives is significantly Shakespeare's one English comedy.  It is too his one essay in, or engagement with, the emergent genre of citizen comedy which appropriates centre stage for citizens and citizen ideology as, I argue, 'the King's English' is mobilised to appropriate the centre of cultural ownership for citizen 'plainness'. For 'the King's English' (or its variants, 'the Queen's English', 'the king's language') is used from the first instances, not descriptively, as scholars have assumed but as a rhetorical and ideological tool in negative performative utterances which define the centre it represents through exclusions of what it is not.   Patrick Parrinder, 'Shakespeare and (Non)Standard English', European English Messenger  (), .  As I pointed out in Chapter , the national vernacular is a focus of attention in F only. Specifically, Q features 'our English' in the important scene (.) discussed below, but not 'the King's English' (..) or the 'gallimaufry' (..), which is almost as explicit a linguistic trope. Quotations from the Q text are taken from the facsimile reproduction in The Merry Wives of Windsor, ed. Melchiori, -.  The assumption hampers the otherwise valuable work of Paula Blank who, though recognising that 'the precise nature of the King's English had yet to be articulated', consistently regards it as an elite variety of English that was actually practised at court and in the city of London, which she tends, moreover, to conflate, not recognising the crucial ideological differencesand tensionbetween the two. Blank, Broken English, . See too David Crystal, The Stories of English (London: Penguin, ), .

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ' jacquemart' appears first in the early sixteenth century, a curious amalgam of the working class moniker 'Jack' with the French word for hammer, 'marteau'. An articulated automaton that struck a clock bell, a jacquemart is a metallic embodiment of an ideology that conflates physical labour with dehumanization. Little considered, Shakespeare's named and self-appointed 'Jacks'-Falstaff, Jaques of As You Like It, and Richard II represent 'rude mechanicals' subject to the agency of more powerful political figures. Yet the automaton jack is not merely a pawn of history; he is also associated with the inventive Vulcan and models of early modern poetry as built, fabricated, or machined. Richard II's ' hammered' thoughts or Falstaff 's multiplying buckram men help reveal the capacity for creative making within these dispossessed characters' seeming mechanicity.

Human Attitude Toward the World is Influenced by the System of Discourse. Text Analysis, better than any other Method, can Show Socio-Cultural Processes in all their Forms, with all their Nature. In this Regard, Laclau and Moff's Discourse, which is Closer to Foucault in some Respects can be Used. This Research Uses a Descriptive-analytical Method and a Discourse Analysis Approach to Analyze and Explain the Discourse fFormulations Applied by Khayyam in Nowruznameh. Using Discourse Articulation Mechanisms, this Study Indicates that the Discourse Followed by Khayam is a Material and Cultural Discourse which Plays a Significant Role in Nowrouz Discourse reproduction. Nowrouz Feast is the Cornerstone of Discourse Around which such Discourse as Medicine, Astronomy and Superstitions are Organized. Among the Discourse Elements of Nowruznameh, the Element of wine, which is Quite Intoxicating, has a Prominent Significance.

No one would deny that Shakespeare created many great characters. Major characters, like Hamlet, Othello, Lear and Macbeth have enjoyed a long history of study as have many of Shakespeare's minor characters: Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Kent and the Fool in King Lear, the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, Polonius in Hamlet, etc. Another group of characters who have not received a great deal of attention are the often ignored and certainly underappreciate bit parts that flesh out the plays, represent a particular point, comment on the main action, or highlight the impact of events upon individuals or groups peripheral to the play's plot. One example of such characters are the two gardeners in the well-known garden scene in King Richard the Second. In Act III, scene 4, Shakespeare pauses from the central action revolving around the deposition of King Richard. In the previous scene, King Richard has been captured by Henry Bolingbroke (soon to be crowned King Henry the Fourth). Now the scene shifts from one dominated by noble men to one focusing briefly on how a pair of menial workers, i.e., gardeners, interpret the actions swirling about them. The Queen, who does not know King Richard has been captured, naturally is in a state of high anxiety and has retreated with her ladies-in-waiting to a garden, seeking solace. When a gardener and his assistant enter the garden, the Queen and her companions retreat into hiding so they can overhear what the menials have to say about the state of the country. In an elegant metaphor the elder of the two laborer explains to the younger that the country is like the garden they tend. The first metaphor compares King Richard to the drooping apricots that the gardeners are there to prop up. Pulled down by the weight of the "too fast growing sprays," meaning Richard's unworthy favorites, the country is failing because of Richard's failure to tend the garden (England). The younger man asks why, when the kingdom, "our sea-walled garden" is so threatened, "full of weeds," "chok'd up," "unprun'd," "ruin'd," "disordered," and "swarming with caterpillars?" (R II, III, 4, 40-7) that they bother to tend this small garden at all. This remark changes the allusion from unruly flowers to rank weeds, growing out of control and poisoning the soil. Dismissing the younger man's objection, the elder extends the earlier metaphor, telling the younger what he, as gardener, is charged to do, and what Richard, as King, should have done: "Go thou, and like an executioner/Cut off the heads of, /That look too lofty in our commonwealth." (R II, III, 4, 33-36). He goes on to reveal that because Richard has failed to tend his garden, he is now in Bolingbroke's hands and it is now Bolingbroke who takes on the role of the kingdom's garden and executioner. This scene does little to advance the plot, but instead serves as an interpretive synopsis of what has lead up to this point in time. It also shows the play's action from a 'worm's eye-view." Allowing that this lowly worker, so far removed

No one would deny that Shakespeare created many great characters.  Major characters, like Hamlet, Othello, Lear and Macbeth have enjoyed a long history of study as have many of Shakespeare’s minor characters: Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Kent and the Fool in King Lear, the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, Polonius in Hamlet, etc.  Another group of characters who have not received a great deal of attention are the often ignored and certainly underappreciate bit parts that flesh out the plays, represent a particular point, comment on the main action, or highlight the impact of events upon individuals or groups peripheral to the play’s plot. One such character is the 13th Century populist rebel leader, Jack Cade who dominates the entire 4th Act of Henry VI, part II. Sandwiched between the end of the 100 Years War and the War of the Roses, the grivances that triggered the 1450 rebellion were shown to be remarkably similar to the grievances experience by the commons in Shakespeare's era. Shakespeare uses the 4th Act to introduce a bit of dark comedy, a bit of gory action, and a firmly anti-populist message.

Abstract

Shakespeare’s history plays have been conceived of in tetralogies that re-tell the nation’s past and champion the English monarchy. Where the nation is no longer England, but the British union, state funding for productions of these plays in ‘national’ institutions continues.
This thesis investigates the hypothesis that the idea of what nation is has impacted on representations of the history plays in production. It identifies and analyses the significance of the discourse of national identity located within the heart of the ‘national’ institutions of the National Theatre (NT) and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and explores the ways in which these institutions have re-told and re-produced the second tetralogy (Richard II, 1 and 2 Henry IV, Henry V), in the light of Britishness. 
Using archival research, this study reconstructs live performances of the second tetralogy at the NT (2003, 2005), and the RSC (2013-15) to explore the cartography of the land as mapped onto the stage. It then analyses whether the repeated binary divide (political, social and economic as ‘real’ nation, vs. discourse, culture and identity as ‘imagined’ nation), is mimicked or upset in the theatre.  Dominant trends suggest that these productions can be viewed as either reconstructive representations, creative re-imaginings, or deconstructions of an outdated mode or idea.
This analysis leads to a conclusion that a dynamic relationship exists between the staging of a production and the cartography of the land represented in the plays, and that the theatre is a unique space in which the repeated divide in nation studies can be upset. The representation of these nationalism issues points to a fundamental difference in conception of the plays overall at the NT and RSC and the need for a clear conception of what the nation is, in order to achieve a coherent representation of these history plays.

Theatre history has long interwoven with the production, consumption, and peddling of alcohol. While the seedier aspects of our past generally go unremembered, we can find traces of them in the culture of the times. If we read Shakespeare through the lens of drinking culture, what can we discover about the play and what can that tell us about how to produce his works today? By looking at the rules and customs surrounding alehouses during the English Renaissance I have analyzed the three plays contained within the Falstaffiad (1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Merry Wives of Windsor).

This paper examines Shakespeare's Henry V from the perspective of the play's deep concern with languages and with the dynamics of their interaction. The drama is characterised by linguistic heterogeneity of various kinds, from the blatant bilingualism that sets it apart from other plays in the canon, to the welter of regional dialects, personal idiolects, and stylistic registers that are also played off against one another within it. At the same time as it enacts a confrontation between the English and French tongues, and the mentalities and cultural perspectives they respectively encode, it also juxtaposes different voices articulating contrasting evaluations of events and discrepant perceptions of the protagonist himself. The linguistic multiplicity of the play is therefore part and parcel of the ambivalence of attitude with which recent criticism of the play has increasingly been concerned. At the same time, it also implicates issues having to do with translation and othe...

Although first developed for the business sector, the TOEIC is gradually affecting more university students and university curriculums. More and more students are taking the TOIEC and preparation for the TOEIC is increasingly emphasized in university curriculums. However, the TOEIC is not necessarily suited for all of the ways that it is being used, its claims as an accurate measurement of proficiency should not be accepted without question, and whether TOEIC preparation materials and classes can improve TOEIC scores or if they are the best way to improve scores needs to be examined too. This paper analyzes claims about TOEIC as a measurement of proficiency, the need for TOEIC preparation and TOEIC’s role in universities’ curriculums.

hen Phyllis first proposed a Shakespeare Association seminar on close reading, she wasn't sure it would be accepted, because although many of us continue to employ close reading in our undergraduate courses, close readings of literary texts have long fallen out of favor as subjects for academic publication. Nonetheless, the proposal was accepted, and the seminar proved so popular that a second session, which Peter agreed to lead, was required, and many applicants still had to be turned away. This is not to say that old-fashioned close reading, as it was practiced at the middle of the last century, has come back into favor as the featured subject of academic writing. Back in the 1950s the American academy looked very different from the way it looks today, and, not surprisingly, so did the intellectual interests and political allegiances of its members. Close reading was a good, safe methodology for a conservative political climate; and it's probably no coincidence that the leading advocates of close reading were white Southern men, most of them deeply devoted to what they thought of as traditional values, religious, social, and political. At its best, close reading was an attempt to demonstrate the humane value of literary study in what its proponents regarded as an increasingly fragmented, mechanistic, and inhumane world. 1 Poetry, they argued, was a unique mode of discourse, which required and rewarded a method of reading different in kind from the way we process other forms of writing, such as newspapers or scientific textbooks, simply to acquire the information they communicate. At its worst, the methodology they proposed tended to insulate the literary text from its necessary context in human life. Consideration of a writer's biography was unnecessary, perhaps even misleading, because it could contaminate a close reading by what was famously described as "The Intentional Fallacy." A companion doctrine, called "The Affective Fallacy" warned against focusing on reader response. 2 The kind of close reading that was taught in the 1950s attempted to limit the subject of literary analysis to the actual words on the page, without any regard to what were called "extraliterary" considerations. One popular poetry anthology designed for introductory classes actually suppressed the names of the authors, as well as the dates when the poems were written. 3 Needless to say, there are no signs that this old New Criticism is finding a new home at the Shakespeare Association. Probably the main reason for the surprisingly enthusiastic response to the offering of a seminar devoted to close reading is that time is short, so most members of the Association try to find a seminar to which they can submit papers based on scholarly projects in which they W

The first chapter of the volume, by Valentina Monateri, explores the Ovidian intertext of Richard III (1592-1593) and Richard II (1595), focusing on the metamorphoses of the kings’ bodies throughout the plays. The theme of the weak king frequently recurs in Shakespeare’s plays at the beginning of the 1590s: the identity of these characters is inseparable from their physical representation, gestures, and body language. Weaving Ernst Kantorowicz’s pivotal study on the representation of the king with Lynn Enterline’s theories on the emotional implications of the rhetoric of the body, this chapter analyses the relationship between the Ovidian pattern of metamorphosis, the Aristotelian concept of anagnorisis and the tragic notion of hybris in both the plays. The recognitions of Richard III – the ‘unfinished’ king – and Richard II – the king with an ‘usurped’ name – symbolise moments of self-awareness. While Richard III’s unfinished shape reflects his own cruelty, Richard II’s mirroring shows something artificial, like an inner reality: according to Monateri, the shadow of metamorphosis is cast over both the kings as a metaphor for
change.