New Essays on History and Form in Early Modern Literature

This volume convenes eight noted scholars with varied positions at the interface of formal and historical literary criticism. The editors’ introduction--a far-reaching account of how both methods have intersected in studies of early modern English texts since the 1990s--is the first such survey in more than 15 years, making it invaluable to scholars entering this area. Three essays address foundational questions about genre, fictionality, and formlessness; five feature close readings of texts or passages ranging from the more canonical (Shakespeare, Herbert, Milton) to the less so (an official record of the 1604 Hampton Court Conference). For scholars and students alike, the book thus models a variety of ways both to conceptualize and to analyze the value of literature at the formal-historical interface. Encompassing drama, lyric, satirical and polemical prose, and metrical as well as rhetorical and logical forms, the collection closes with an afterword by theorist Caroline Levine.

Nick Moschovakis has published essays on Shakespeare and early modern English literaure in Shakespeare Quarterly, in Milton Quarterly, in College Literature, and in edited volumes including Shakespeare and Historical Formalism, ed. Stephen Cohen (Ashgate, 2007). He edited Macbeth: New Critical Essays (Routledge, 2008) and co-edited, with Sean Keilen, The Routledge Research Companion to Shakespeare and Classical Literature (2017). Working as a writing instructor and consultant to international organizations, he has also taught literature and academic writing at several colleges and universities, including most recently the American University of Paris. From 2015-2019 he served on Shakespeare Quarterly’s Editorial Board.

Gail Kern Paster is Director Emerita of the Folger Shakespeare Library and Editor Emerita of Shakespeare Quarterly. Her publications include The Body Embarrassed: Drama and theDisciplines of Shame in Early Modern England (1993) and Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage (2004). She was named to the Queen’s Honours List in 2011.