While Shakespeare’s plays – with some exceptions – have enjoyed continuous performance and scholarly attention in the four hundred years since his death, his poems have had a curiously erratic reception. In this special issue, we commissioned essays that take on the poems’ challenging themes of misogyny, sexual assault and racialised identity, as well as their lavish imagery and compelling personae.
Dr Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, Reader in Early Modern Literature
07 November 2024
Shakespeare's poems take centre stage in new yearbook by King's academics
Dr Hannah Crawforth and Dr Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, Readers in Early Modern Literature in the Department of English, guest edit Shakespeare Survey 77, and dedicated it almost entirely to the playwright’s poetry for the first time.
Shakespeare Survey is an internationally renowned yearbook of Shakespeare scholarship, published annually since 1948. This edition marks the first time in its 76-year history that the volume has focused solely on Shakespeare’s poems.
Dr Crawforth and Scott-Baumann edited the volume with Professor Emma Smith from the University of Oxford.
Many of the volume’s essays investigate how contemporary writers are drawn to Shakespeare, such as: Joyce Green MacDonald’s essay on Caroline Randall Williams’s Lucy Negro, Redux; Ayesha Ramachandran’s essay on Preti Taneja’s Aftermath; and Dr Crawforth and Dr Scott-Baumann’s own essay reading Sara Ahmed’s Complaint! alongside Shakespeare’s A Lover’s Complaint.
Other contributions include Will Tosh revealing the influence of Richard Barnfield’s homoerotic poems on Shakespeare, and Jane Kingsley-Smith’s historical investigation of editors ignoring race in Shakespeare’s sonnets.
This issue builds Shakespeare’s poetry into King's international reputation for work on the plays, especially through the Shakespeare Centre London.
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Reader in Early Modern Literature
Reader in Early Modern Literature