Shakespeare's Craft: Eight Lectures (The Tupper Lectures on Shakespeare)

Originally prepared for the distinguished Tupper Lecture series by some of the world’s most widely recognized and respected Shake­spearian scholars.

Anne R. Barton in “Julius Caesar and Coriolanus: Shakespeare’s Roman World of Words” contends that within the Roman world of oratory lies a central question: “The ethical status of oratory.” In “Irony and Its Interrelatedness in Shakespeare,” David Bev­ington studies verbal irony, dramatic irony, and “a more embracing irony which is both a criticism of life and a principle of drama­tic structure.” Robert B. Heilman, “Shake­speare’s Variations on Farcical Style,” ex­plores the “evolution” of farcical elements in Shakespeare.

Alvin B. Kernan, “Shakespeare’s Stage Audiences: The Playwright’s Reflections and Control of Audience Response,” notes that the Renaissance dramatist was the first to have to sell his product on the marketplace. No more were they gentleman poets. In “Two Scenes from Macbeth,” Harry Levin concentrates on the porter’s scene and the sleepwalking scene. Noting that both scenes are in prose—usually reserved for lowlife comedy or for “psychic disturbance,” he shows the thematic, theological, and psychological importance of those scenes. “Looking for Shakespeare” is Samuel Schoenbaum’s at­tempt to find Shakespeare in the records and artifacts he left behind and in various docu­ments and shrines erected to immortalize him. Hallett D. Smith’s “The Poetry of the Lyric Group: Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, AMidsummer Night’sDream”examines the po­etry in scenes where dramatic action might be more appropriate. In “Shakespeare and the Ceremonies of Romance,” Eugene M. Waith examines the appeal of ceremonial scenes for Shakespeare and other Tudor playwrights.

Philip H. Highfill, Jr., is Professor of En­glish at The George Washington University.