ABSTRACT

This eighth volume of The Shakespearean International Yearbook presents a special section on 'European Shakespeares', proceeding from the claim that Shakespeare's literary craft was not just native English or British, but was filtered and fashioned through a Renaissance awareness that needs to be recognized as European, and that has had effects and afterlives across the Continent. Guest editors Ton Hoenselaars and Clara Calvo have constructed this section to highlight both how the spread of 'Shakespeare' throughout Europe has brought together the energies of a wide variety of European cultures across several centuries, and how the inclusion of Shakespeare in European culture has been not only a European but also a world affair. The Shakespearean International Yearbook continues to provide an annual survey of important issues and developments in contemporary Shakespeare studies. Contributors to this issue come from the US and the UK, Spain, Switzerland and South Africa, Canada, The Netherlands, India, Portugal, Greece, France, and Hungary. In addition to the section on European Shakespeares, this volume includes essays on the genre of romance, issues of character, and other topics.

chapter 1|20 pages

Introduction

Shakespeare and the human

chapter 2|18 pages

Airy Spirits

Winds, Bodies, and Ecological Force in Early Modern England

chapter 3|23 pages

Humans

Exceptional Humans, Human Exceptionalism, and the Shape of Things to Come

chapter 4|1 pages

Birds

Shakespeare’s Tweets: A Choir

chapter 5|15 pages

Hybrids

Animal Law and the A ctaeon myth in Titus Andronicus

chapter 6|20 pages

Fleece

The Craziest Transport: Fleecing the Non/human Merchant of Venice 1

chapter |21 pages

7 Bees

The Shakespearean Hive and the Virtues of Honey

chapter 8|23 pages

Plants

Shakespeare’s Mulberry: Eco-materialism and “Living on”

chapter 9|20 pages

Water

Absorption, Uncontainment, and Cleopatra’s Barge 1

chapter 10|17 pages

Shells

Pericles and the Fantasy of Shell-Dwelling

chapter 11|20 pages

Rocks

“Sure and Firm-Set Earth”: Shakespeare, Stone, and Structuration

chapter 12|6 pages

Tail

“poore wretch … laid all naked on the bare earth”: Human Negative Exceptionalism Among the Humanists