Shakespeare and Emotional Expression: Finding Feeling through Colour

Shakespeare and Emotional Expression offers an exciting new way of considering emotional transactions in Shakespearean drama. The book is significant in its scope and originality as it uses the innovative medium of colour terms and references to interrogate the early modern emotional register. By examining contextual and cultural influences, this work explores the impact these influences have on the relationship between colour and emotion and argues for the importance of considering chromatic references as a means to uncover emotional significances.

Using a broad range of documents, it offers a wider understanding of affective expression in the early modern period through a detailed examination of several dramatic works. Although colour meanings fluctuate, by paying particular attention to contextual clues and the historically specific cultural situations of Shakespeare’s plays, this book uncovers emotional significances that are not always apparent to modern audiences and readers. Through its examination of the nexus between the history of emotions and the social and cultural uses of colour in early modern drama, Shakespeare and Emotional Expression adds to our understanding of the expressive and affective possibilities in Shakespearean drama.

Bríd Phillips is a senior lecturer at Edith Cowan University, Australia. She has a PhD in Shakespearean Studies and her research has been supported by the Australian Research Council, Centre of Excellence for The History of Emotions. Recent publications include Hamlet and Emotions, edited with Paul Megna and Robert White (2019) and ‘“Devils Will the Blackest Sins Put On”: The Emotional Register of Colour’ in Matters of Engagement: Emotions, Identity, and Cultural Contact in the Premodern World (2020).