Shakespeare at Large: Law and the First Folio

This collection celebrates the quadricentennial anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio (1623), examining the intersection of law, literature, history, and performance through eight scholarly essays and an afterword. This volume explores how the First Folio serves as a crucial lens for understanding the politico-legal implications of Shakespeare's works, addressing themes of identity, authorship, orality, and print culture in early modern England.

The collection provides an interdisciplinary analysis of legal concepts embedded in Shakespeare's plays, from constitutional questions in King John to legal theory in The Tempest. Contributors examine parliamentary representation, legal subjectivity, authorship and ownership rights, and comparative legal vulnerabilities across different cultural contexts. Each chapter demonstrates how Shakespeare's dramatic works engage with contemporary legal frameworks while remaining relevant to modern jurisprudential debates.

This volume benefits advanced students, researchers, and scholars in law and literature, Shakespeare studies, legal history, and comparative literature. It appeals to academics working at the intersection of humanities and legal studies, offering fresh perspectives on canonical texts through rigorous interdisciplinary methodology. This book was originally published as a special issue of Law & Humanities.

Matteo Nicolini, PhD, is Professor of Public Comparative Law at the Department of Law at the University of Verona, Italy, where he teaches Comparative Constitutional Traditions and Global Comparative Law. He is also Visiting Lecturer at the Newcastle University Law School, UK, as well as an External Partner of the Centre for the Study of Law in Theory and Practice (LTAP) at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. He is the author of several monographs, articles, and essays in the fields of comparative federalism, constitutional adjudication, legal geography, law and literature, and comparative legal methodology.