A collection of works by early modern men writing in women’s voices.This anthology gives students and scholars access to a body of texts that provide a clearer understanding of what life was like for early modern women by presenting hundreds of little-known primary texts that contain details about early modern women’s work, relationships, emotional and intellectual development, friendships, and daily struggles. He Words Me brings together work from a variety of genres in which male authors adopt the voice of a female narrator and use that voice to provide intimate details about the lives of women. These works introduce modern readers to less familiar genres, complement or contradict portrayals of women in canonical texts, and raise compelling questions about who speaks for women and when women can speak for themselves. Through these women’s voices, readers can encounter characters and experiences that will broaden their understanding of early modern English literature and culture, and of the history of women in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Shaping Shakespeare for Performance: The Bear Stage collects significant work from the 2013 Blackfriars Conference. The conference, sponsored by the American Shakespeare Center, brings together scholars, actors, directors, dramaturges, and students to share important new work on the staging practices used by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The volume’s contributors range from renowned scholars and editors to acclaimed directors, highly-trained actors, and budding researchers. The topics cover a similarly wide range: a close reading of an often-cut scene from Henry V meets an account of staging pregnancy; a meticulous review of early modern contract law collides with an analysis of an actor in a bear costume; an account of printed punctuation from the 1600s encounters a study of audience interaction and empowerment in King Lear; the identification of candid doubling in A Comedy of Errors meets the troubling of gender categories in The Roaring Girl. The essays focus on the practical applications of theory, scholarship, and editing to performance of early modern plays.

A collection of works by early modern men writing in women’s voices.This anthology gives students and scholars access to a body of texts that provide a clearer understanding of what life was like for early modern women by presenting hundreds of little-known primary texts that contain details about early modern women’s work, relationships, emotional and intellectual development, friendships, and daily struggles. He Words Me brings together work from a variety of genres in which male authors adopt the voice of a female narrator and use that voice to provide intimate details about the lives of women. These works introduce modern readers to less familiar genres, complement or contradict portrayals of women in canonical texts, and raise compelling questions about who speaks for women and when women can speak for themselves. Through these women’s voices, readers can encounter characters and experiences that will broaden their understanding of early modern English literature and culture, and of the history of women in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Shaping Shakespeare for Performance: The Bear Stage collects significant work from the 2013 Blackfriars Conference. The conference, sponsored by the American Shakespeare Center, brings together scholars, actors, directors, dramaturges, and students to share important new work on the staging practices used by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The volume’s contributors range from renowned scholars and editors to acclaimed directors, highly-trained actors, and budding researchers. The topics cover a similarly wide range: a close reading of an often-cut scene from Henry V meets an account of staging pregnancy; a meticulous review of early modern contract law collides with an analysis of an actor in a bear costume; an account of printed punctuation from the 1600s encounters a study of audience interaction and empowerment in King Lear; the identification of candid doubling in A Comedy of Errors meets the troubling of gender categories in The Roaring Girl. The essays focus on the practical applications of theory, scholarship, and editing to performance of early modern plays.