Shakespeare and Judgment - by Kevin Curran (Paperback)

About the Book

Shakespeare and Judgment gathers together an international group of scholars to address for the first time the place of judgment in Shakespearean drama. Contributors approach the topic from a variety of cultural and theoretical perspectives, covering plays from across Shakespeare's career.

Book Synopsis

Ranging widely across law, aesthetics, religion, and philosophy, this book offers the first account of the place of judgment in Shakespearean drama
Shakespeare and Judgment gathers together an international group of scholars to address for the first time the place of judgment in Shakespearean drama. Contributors approach the topic from a variety of cultural and theoretical perspectives, covering plays from across Shakespeare's career and from each of the genres in which he wrote. Anchoring the volume are two critical contentions: first, that attending to Shakespeare's treatment of judgment leads to fresh insights about the imaginative relationship between law, theater, and aesthetics in early modern England; and second, that it offers new ways of putting the plays' historical and philosophical contexts into conversation. Taken together, the essays in Shakespeare and Judgment offer a genuinely new account of the historical and intellectual coordinates of Shakespeare's plays. Building on current work in legal studies, religious studies, theater history, and critical theory, the volume will be of interest to a wide range of scholars working on Shakespeare and early modern drama.
Key Features
Provides the first account of the place of judgment in Shakespearean dramaOffers a fresh perspective on the imaginative relationship between law, religion, and aesthetics in Shakespeare's playsModels new ways of putting the plays' historical and philosophical contexts into conversation.

From the Back Cover

'"What is Judgment?", Kevin Curran asks in this volume's lucid introduction. The answers proffered here demonstrate the category's centrality to religion, law, rhetoric, ethics and philosophy, as well as to the practice of theatergoing. Shakespeare and Judgment illuminates a playwright profoundly interested in what (and how) judgment enables and disables.' Garrett Sullivan, Pennsylvania State University Ranging widely across law, aesthetics, religion and philosophy, this book offers the first account of the place of judgment in Shakespearean drama Shakespeare and Judgment gathers together an international group of scholars to address for the first time the place of judgment in Shakespearean drama. Contributors approach the topic from a variety of cultural and theoretical perspectives, covering plays from across Shakespeare's career and from each of the genres in which he wrote. Anchoring the volume are two critical contentions: first, that attending to Shakespeare's treatment of judgment leads to fresh insights about the imaginative relationship between law, theater and aesthetics in early modern England; and second, that it offers new ways of putting the plays' historical and philosophical contexts into conversation. Taken together, the essays in Shakespeare and Judgment offer a genuinely new account of the historical and intellectual coordinates of Shakespeare's plays. Building on current work in legal studies, religious studies, theater history and critical theory, the volume will be of interest to a wide range of scholars working on Shakespeare and early modern drama. Key Features - Provides the first account of the place of judgment in Shakespearean drama - Offers a fresh perspective on the imaginative relationship between law, religion and aesthetics in Shakespeare's plays - Models new ways of putting the plays' historical and philosophical contexts into conversation Kevin Curran is Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and Editor of the book series Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy. He is the author of Marriage, Performance, and Politics at the Jacobean Court (2009) and Shakespeare's Legal Ecologies: Law and Distributed Selfhood (forthcoming [hopefully we can get a pub year before publication]). Cover image: Woman Holding a Balance, c.1664, Johannes Vermeer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-1315-2 Barcode

Review Quotes

What is Judgment?, ' Kevin Curran asks in this volume's lucid introduction. The answers proffered here demonstrate the category's centrality to religion, law, rhetoric, ethics and philosophy, as well as to the practice of theatergoing. Shakespeare and Judgment illuminates a playwright profoundly interested in what (and how) judgment enables and disables.--Garrett Sullivan, Pennsylvania State University

Curran's book is a perfect example not only of how significant law was to Shakespeare but also of the theoretical and political resources it offers to literary criticism today, a lesson extended even further by a significant collection of essays that Curran has also edited on Shakespeare and Judgment.--Henry S. Turner, Recent Studies in Tudor and Stuart Drama "'SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, ' Volume 58, Number 2, spring 2018,"

Curran's Shakespeare and Judgment represents an achievement; a fresh look at judgment in Shakespeare's plays.--Thomas E Simmons, University of South Dakota "Edinburgh Law Review Vol 21"

About the Author

Kevin Curran is Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and editor of the book series "Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy." He is the author of Shakespeare's Legal Ecologies: Law and Distributed Selfhood (Northwestern, 2017) and Marriage, Performance, and Politics at the Jacobean Court (Ashgate, 2009).