Shakespeare and Emotions ― Inheritances, Enactments, Legacies

This collection of original essays by established and emerging scholars approaches the works of Shakespeare from the topical perspective of the History of Emotions. What emerges is not a single paradigm or 'grand narrative', but a variety of approaches, ranging from the historical to the interpretive, illuminating the primacy of emotions in Shakespearean scholarship and theatre. The section 'Emotional Inheritances' looks back to Shakespeare's sources and cultural backgrounds, showing that some aspects of his representations of emotions come from the classics and medieval world; 'Shakespearean Enactments' presents essays that analyse a range of emotional states and issues in the plays themselves; while 'Legacies and Re-Enactments' traces aspects of his influence through later times and down to the present day. Taken together these diverse but related essays present a kaleidoscope of suggestive approaches to the potentially endless subject of emotions in Shakespeare.

R. S. White is a Chief Investigator for the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, and Leader of the Centre's Meanings Programme. He is also an Australian Professorial Fellow and Winthrop Professor of English at the University of Western Australia. He has published books and articles on Shakespeare and the Romantics, and among his recent works are Pacifism in English Poetry: Minstrels of Peace (2008) and John Keats: A Literary Life (2010) (which has been reissued in paperback). He is a past President of the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association and a fellow of the Australian Humanities Academy.

Mark Houlahan is Senior Lecturer in the English Programme in the School of Arts, where he teaches Shakespeare and his Contemporaries, and Literary Theory. He has a special interest in the place of Shakespeare in New Zealand, and the use of adaptations and appropriations in Shakespeare performance, and has published numerous groundbreaking essays on these subjects. Currently he is editing "Twelfth Night" for the Internet Shakespeare Editions (ise.uvic.ca); when completed this will appear live and free to air, and also be published in the Broadview Shakespeare Series.

Katrina O'Loughlin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, 1100–1800 (CHE), at The University of Western Australia. Her area of research is English literature, particularly eighteenth-century writing, travel writing, cultural history, gender, and cultural exchange. She has published on various aspects of the history of literature and the emotions, including eighteenth-century satire, and representations of war in landscape; her monograph Women's Travel Writing of the Eighteenth Century: 'The Paper Globe' is forthcoming. Her current research explores the forging of international intellectual and emotional bonds among women in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Her next research project, for which she has recently been awarded an Australia Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA 2015-17), explores the forging of international intellectual and emotional bonds among women in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.