Jean E. Howard is the George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, USA. Author of Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration, The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England, Engendering a Nation (with Phyllis Rackin, 1994) and Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy (2001), she has edited six collections of essays, including the four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works (2003). General Editor of the Bedford contextual editions of Shakespeare, Howard is Past President of the Shakespeare Association of America. She has received numerous fellowships and awards including Guggenheim, ACLS, NEH, Folger, Huntington, and Newberry Library Fellowships. At Syracuse University she received the Wasserstrom Prize for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and at Columbia University the University Graduate Mentoring Award.

How I wish I could take a class with Jean Howard! She is the perfect guide to the complexities and demands of King Lear. Throughout, this book is wise and inviting, subtle and engaging, provocative and helpful. This is a perfect book for students – but not only for students: everyone will learn from and be made to think by reading it, however well we suppose ourselves to know this astonishing play.

• Series Preface IntroductionI. Language in PrintII. Language: Forms and UsesIII. Language Through TimeIV. Writing and Language SkillsSuggestions for Further ReadingIndex

Jean E. Howard is the George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, USA. Author of Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration, The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England, Engendering a Nation (with Phyllis Rackin, 1994) and Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy (2001), she has edited six collections of essays, including the four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works (2003). General Editor of the Bedford contextual editions of Shakespeare, Howard is Past President of the Shakespeare Association of America. She has received numerous fellowships and awards including Guggenheim, ACLS, NEH, Folger, Huntington, and Newberry Library Fellowships. At Syracuse University she received the Wasserstrom Prize for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and at Columbia University the University Graduate Mentoring Award.

How I wish I could take a class with Jean Howard! She is the perfect guide to the complexities and demands of King Lear. Throughout, this book is wise and inviting, subtle and engaging, provocative and helpful. This is a perfect book for students – but not only for students: everyone will learn from and be made to think by reading it, however well we suppose ourselves to know this astonishing play.

• Series Preface IntroductionI. Language in PrintII. Language: Forms and UsesIII. Language Through TimeIV. Writing and Language SkillsSuggestions for Further ReadingIndex

Jean E. Howard is the George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, USA. Author of Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration, The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England, Engendering a Nation (with Phyllis Rackin, 1994) and Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy (2001), she has edited six collections of essays, including the four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works (2003). General Editor of the Bedford contextual editions of Shakespeare, Howard is Past President of the Shakespeare Association of America. She has received numerous fellowships and awards including Guggenheim, ACLS, NEH, Folger, Huntington, and Newberry Library Fellowships. At Syracuse University she received the Wasserstrom Prize for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and at Columbia University the University Graduate Mentoring Award.

How I wish I could take a class with Jean Howard! She is the perfect guide to the complexities and demands of King Lear. Throughout, this book is wise and inviting, subtle and engaging, provocative and helpful. This is a perfect book for students – but not only for students: everyone will learn from and be made to think by reading it, however well we suppose ourselves to know this astonishing play.

• Series Preface IntroductionI. Language in PrintII. Language: Forms and UsesIII. Language Through TimeIV. Writing and Language SkillsSuggestions for Further ReadingIndex