Shakespeare in Slow Motion

Abstract

ary scholars in the contexts of Shakespeare’s plays, from political, social, religious, and cultural history to biography. Studies of the court, of the “middling sort,” of women in early modern En gland, of witchcraft, of race and exoticism, of travel, of economics, of philosophy and theories of per sonhood and power, of affect and emotion in the period—all these have come increasingly to occupy the attention of scholars. Textual studies have often focused on the history of the book and the book trade, as well as on questions of editing, bibliography, authenticity, and textual variants. Stage history and the history of productions, film, and adaptation offer another kind of context through the permutations of material culture. My objective in “Shakespeare in Slow Motion” is to slow down the move to context, if not reverse it altogether, by redirecting attention to the lan guage of the plays, scene by scene, act by act, moment by moment, word by word. Let “Shakespeare” be the designation we give to the author of the plays published under his name. Let us not speculate on his personal or professional motives, his inner thoughts, his relationships with his wife or children, his cultural aspirations, his finances, his religion, or his attitude toward the reigning monarch. Let us discuss not “the opinions or creed of the being whom we sometimes oddly call ‘Shakespeare the man,’” to quote A. C. Bradley, writing skeptically about such matters a little more than a hundred years ago (6), but rather the text of the play and what it tells us.