This book expands upon recent historical analysis of Shakespeare’s Othello, which has foregrounded issues of race, colonialism, and feminism, in order to show how the discourse of religion might affect our understanding of this play. It specifically looks at how the discourse of Catholicism, itself a highly contested topic in Shakespeare’s world, affects our understanding of Desdemona, whom the play so directly compares to perhaps the most divisive and controversial figure of the entire ‘Reformation’ period, Mary the Mother of God. Explaining how this comparison is developed and clarified by Shakespeare, this book explores the difference our interpretation of Desdemona’s ‘Marian’ dimension might make to critical understanding of the tragedy of Othello.

If Is the Only Peacemaker explores the drama of Shakespeare through a cultural lens that can be shown to be central to the formation of this theatrical art: fourteenth- to sixteenth-century Catholic Humanism. Part I of this book traces this tradition through key figures in Medieval and Renaissance Humanism, including Dante, Chaucer, Erasmus, and Thomas More. The latter two, especially, convey Catholic Humanism to Shakespeare's England, and help to establish a rhetorical ideal: the union of eloquentia and sapientia, of wit and wisdom. Part II then closely reads one of Shakespeare's major comedies, As You Like It, through this ideal, finding in this play an outstanding example of the Catholic Humanist rhetoric central to Shakespeare's art. This part of the book also mingles rhetorical and performance criticism, citing six different productions of As You Like It.

Starting with the premise that clothing is political and that analysing clothing can enhance understanding of political style, this collection explores the relationships among political theory, dress, and self-presentation during a period in which imperial and colonial empires assumed their modern form. Organised under three thematic clusters, the volume’s chapters range from an analysis of the uniforms worn by West India regiments stationed in the Caribbean to the smock frock donned by rural agricultural labourers, and from the self-presentations of members of parliament, political thinkers, and imperial administrators to the dress of characters and caricatures in novels, paintings, and political cartoon. With its interdisciplinary approach, the book will appeal to nineteenth-century cultural and social historians and literary critics as well as advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students whose research and teaching interests include gender, politics, material culture, and imperialism.

A wide-ranging yet accessible investigation into the importance of religion in Shakespeare's works, from a team of eminent international scholars.

This book is an anthology of critical essays written about English literature during the Renaissance (or the 'early-modern' period). It focuses on Shakespeare's poetry and plays, including the 'Sonnets', 'The Phoenix and the Turtle', 'The Rape of Lucrece', 'King Lear', 'Othello', 'Measure for Measure', and 'Timon of Athens'. Also examined are the publication of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, William Cartwright's play 'The Royal Slave', and James Halliwell-Phillips, one of the central figures in the Shakespearean textual tradition.

This landmark interdisciplinary study shines the light of religious Hermetism on Love’s Labour’s Lost, King Lear, Othello and The Tempest and reveals the ‘religion of the mind’ found in the Corpus Hermeticum to be a source of Shakespeare’s understanding of human psychology.

A collection of critical essays on the Shakespeare play, Othello, arranged in chronological order of publication.