Stuart Sillars is Professor of English at the University of Bergen, Norway. His publications include Shakespeare and The Victorians (2013), Shakespeare, Time and the Victorians (Cambridge, 2012), The Illustrated Shakespeare, 1709–1875 (Cambridge, 2008) and Painting Shakespeare: The Artist as Critic, 1720–1820 (Cambridge, 2006).

'Sillars' concern is with the concept of visual art as much as it is with art objects themselves. The argument that the theatre itself has a specific visual identity and that Shakespeare uses visual ideas to explore that identity is an especially fresh approach and one that works to complicate the depictions of art objects in the plays. This is a remarkable and important book and one that demonstrates compendious knowledge of both the literary and visual traditions and casts a genuinely new light on Shakespeare's works.' Dympna C. Callaghan, Syracuse University

• 1. Likeness, device, composition: Shakespeare's visual surroundings; 2. Allusion and idea in The Taming of the Shrew; 3. Visual exchange in the Poems; 4. Love's Labour's Lost and visual composition; 5. Richard II and the politics of perspective; 6. Visual identities in A Midsummer Night's Dream; 7. Emblem, tradition and invention; 8. Imagination beyond image: ethopoeia and metatheatre; 9. Defining the visual in Shakespeare; Notes; Select bibliography; Index.

Stuart Sillars is Professor of English at the University of Bergen, Norway. His publications include Shakespeare and The Victorians (2013), Shakespeare, Time and the Victorians (Cambridge, 2012), The Illustrated Shakespeare, 1709–1875 (Cambridge, 2008) and Painting Shakespeare: The Artist as Critic, 1720–1820 (Cambridge, 2006).

'Sillars' concern is with the concept of visual art as much as it is with art objects themselves. The argument that the theatre itself has a specific visual identity and that Shakespeare uses visual ideas to explore that identity is an especially fresh approach and one that works to complicate the depictions of art objects in the plays. This is a remarkable and important book and one that demonstrates compendious knowledge of both the literary and visual traditions and casts a genuinely new light on Shakespeare's works.' Dympna C. Callaghan, Syracuse University

• 1. Likeness, device, composition: Shakespeare's visual surroundings; 2. Allusion and idea in The Taming of the Shrew; 3. Visual exchange in the Poems; 4. Love's Labour's Lost and visual composition; 5. Richard II and the politics of perspective; 6. Visual identities in A Midsummer Night's Dream; 7. Emblem, tradition and invention; 8. Imagination beyond image: ethopoeia and metatheatre; 9. Defining the visual in Shakespeare; Notes; Select bibliography; Index.