Shakespeare’s Virtuous Theatre

Kent Lehnhof is professor of English at Chapman University. He is author of some two dozen articles on early modern literature and culture and is co-editor (along with Moshe Gold and Sandor Goodhart) of the essay collection Of Levinas and Shakespeare: “To See Another Thus” (2018). His articles have appeared in such journals as Shakespeare Quarterly, Renaissance Drama, English Literary Renaissance, ELH, SEL, Modern Philology, and Criticism. He is currently working on a book-length study of vocality and ethics in Shakespeare’s late plays. Julia Reinhard Lupton is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author or co-author of five books, including Shakespeare Dwelling: Designs for the Theater of Life (2018), Thinking with Shakespeare (2015), and Citizen-Saints (2012). She has edited or co-edited many volumes and special issues, including Shakespeare and Virtue: A Handbook (with Donovan Sherman), and Shakespeare’s Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity, and the Good (with Kent Lehnhof and Carolyn Sale), Shakespeare and Hospitality (with David Goldstein), and Face to Face with Shakespeare (with Matthew Smith). She is a former Guggenheim Fellow and a former Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America. Carolyn Sale is Associate Professor in the Department of English, Film and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta. Her work on early modern writers and the law includes The Law in Shakespeare (2007), Shakespeare and the Law (2008), The History of British Women’s Writing, 1500–1610 (2010), Shakespeare and Judgment (2016), The Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature, 1500–1700 (2017) and Shakespeare and Wisdom: Ecological, Ecumenical, and Ethical Horizons (2024). She also co-edited Shakespeare’s Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity and the Good (2023) with Julia Reinhard Lupton and Kent Lehnhof.

This virtuosic collection of essays focuses on the virtues tending us towards co-operative and collective life. An absorbing, intelligent and original book, and an important addition to literary and intellectual history.

• AcknowledgementsSeries Editors' PrefaceIntroduction – Kent Lehnhof, Julia Reinhard Lupton and Carolyn SalePart I: Ecologies of Virtue 1. Cordelia’s Fire – Carolyn Sale 2. Voice, Virtue, Veritas: On Truth and Vocal Feeling in King Lear – Katie Adkison 3. Reading Virtues: Shakespeare’s Animals – Karen Raber Part II: Virtue’s Performances4. Shakespeare and the Virtue in Complaining – Emily Shortslef 5. Masculine Virtù and Feminine Virtue in Much Ado About Nothing – Kristina Sutherland 6. The Virtue of Humour in King Lear – Kent Lehnhof 7. Vita Energetica: Love’s Labour’s Lost and Shakespeare’s Maculate Theatre – Ian MunroPart III: Virtue in Transit8. Cymbeline and the Renewal of Constancy – Jesse M. Lander 9. Cymbeline and the ‘Swan’s Nest’ of Britain: Insularity, Chastity and Innogen’s Greater Transnational Virtues – Michael Gadaleto10. Sufi Theoroticism, the Sophianic Feminine, and Desdemona’s Tragic Heroism – Unhae Park LangisPart IV: Sustaining Virtue11. Enduring the Eventual: A Virtuous Way of Reading Shakespeare – Thomas J. Moretti12. Sustaining Courage in the Humanities: The Example of Hamlet – Daniel Juan Gil13. On the Virtue of Grief – Michael BristolAfterword – Kevin CurranNotes on ContributorsBibliographyIndex