Kent Lehnhof | Chapman University (original) (raw)

Articles/Chapters by Kent Lehnhof

Shakespeare's Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity and the Good, 2023

This chapter considers how the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear might use wit and humor to encoura... more This chapter considers how the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear might use wit and humor to encourage more virtuous ways of relating to oneself and others. Rooted in the writings of Levinas and in recent work exploring the role of humor in Levinas's radical ethical philosophy, this chapter demonstrates that the Fool's wit is profoundly virtuous in that it invites the king to laugh: both at himself (in a self-critical act of ethical abdication) and with others (in a generative opening toward interrelation). Although the king struggles to accept these invitations, the Fool relentlessly pushes the play in virtuous directions by using humor to place himself before others in a posture of vulnerability and exposure that Levinas sees as the foundation of all ethics. In this way, Shakespeare's tragedy underscores the virtuous potentiality of wit, humor, and fooling by showing how it can interrupt our egoism, abstract us from ourselves, impel us to consider other viewpoints, and open us to a more authentic connection with others.

Renaissance Drama, 2022

This essay considers the significance of voice in Coriolanus, especially the way voices are locat... more This essay considers the significance of voice in Coriolanus, especially the way voices are located within bodies. It shows how the patricians situate their voices in the "worthier" parts of the body and the citizens' voices in the "worser," leveraging anti-corporeal and anti-materialist ideologies to authorize their own speech and discredit the citizens'. Nevertheless, the voices in this play are highly mobile. They repeatedly move about within bodies and between bodies, undercutting the patricians' conservative approach and allowing us to envision radical alternatives. Invoking work by Emmanuel Levinas and Adriana Cavarero, the essay concludes by fleshing out these radical alternatives.

Shakespeare Quarterly, 2020

Few people would describe the tragedy of King Lear or the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas as funny... more Few people would describe the tragedy of King Lear or the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas as funny. To the contrary, these works feel weighty, momentous, and serious. In "Sweet Fooling," however, I use recent work on the place of humor in Levinas's ethical thought to examine the role of the Fool in Shakespeare's great tragedy. I demonstrate that the Fool's humor is profoundly ethical, inviting the king to laugh, both at himself (in a self-critical act of abdication) and with others (in a generative opening toward interrelation). The king may or may not accept these invitations, but the Fool relentlessly pushes the play in ethical directions by using humor to place himself before the other in a posture of vulnerability and exposure that Levinas sees as the foundation for all ethics. In this way, I make a case for the fool, the clown, and the comic, emphasizing the ethical importance of theatrical fooling.

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SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Apr 2020

This essay proposes that Shakespeare uses twinship and marriage in The Comedy of Errors to reflec... more This essay proposes that Shakespeare uses twinship and marriage in The Comedy of Errors to reflect on the importance of individuality and interrelation in the formation of identity. Specifically, the essay shows how Errors sets the twin relation against the marital relation, ultimately implying that marriage--imperfect, everyday marriage--has as much subjective impact as the extraordinary bond between identical twins. As wonderful as it might be to see two persons sharing "one face, one voice, one habit," Errors suggests that the twin relation does not surpass in significance the equally marvelous relation whereby husband and wife become "one flesh."

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, 2019

This essay shows how the Tudor biblical drama Jacob and Esau (1568) systematically and strategica... more This essay shows how the Tudor biblical drama Jacob and Esau (1568) systematically and strategically stages kinship connections in such a way as to justify Jacob's usurpation of the birthright blessing. It then considers one kinship connection in particular: namely, the complicated bond between twins. The essay reveals how the stageplay leverages twinship to raise pressing questions about the apportionment of wealth, affection, and opportunity among siblings, anticipating by several decades the heated debates about primogeniture that erupt in the 1630s. However, the interlude ultimately sounds a pious note, moving beyond the problems of worldly families to emphasize the blessed state of God's family, formed not by biological kinship ties but by arbitrary acts of divine adoption.

Rocky Mountain Review, 2019

This essay reads "The Solemn Boy" as a revision of the biblical tale of Abraham and Sariah. In th... more This essay reads "The Solemn Boy" as a revision of the biblical tale of Abraham and Sariah. In this revision, however, the aged couple is gifted a son for one afternoon only, after which he is taken away. Nevertheless, Tol and Miss Minnie do not become bitter. By graciously accepting their loss, the couple models for us the humility that is central to Berry's thought and that comes--in his estimation--from working the soil. Tol and Miss Minnie are the salt of the earth, and they become such by tilling the earth. Their saintliness is an effect of their agrarianism.

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Of Levinas and Shakespeare: "To See Another Thus", 2018

This essay observes that Cordelia figures into Shakespeare's King Lear much as autrui figures int... more This essay observes that Cordelia figures into Shakespeare's King Lear much as autrui figures into Levinas's philosophy. She is the one who overawes, obsesses, and afflicts Lear. She is the one who summons and solicits him from "beyond being." She is the one who "disincarnates" the divine in a non-systematic and non-thematizable way. This is not to say, however, that Lear is simply a Levinasian fable. Rather, it is to suggest that Shakespeare was every bit as invested in the interpersonal relationship as was Levinas and appears to have entertained a number of similar ideas, including the idea that transcendence is not an effect of ecstasy or apotheosis but of interrelation.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The Definitive Shakespeare Companion, 2017

This contribution to The Definitive Shakespeare Companion gives readers a wealth of materials to ... more This contribution to The Definitive Shakespeare Companion gives readers a wealth of materials to guide them in their study of Coriolanus

Criticism, 2016

In the present essay I contest the prevailing view, promulgated by critics like Jonas Barish and ... more In the present essay I contest the prevailing view, promulgated by critics like Jonas Barish and Laura Levine, that early modern antitheatricalism is intrinsically irrational. By carefully parsing the antitheatricalists' claims and clarifying their connections to Protestant theology, humoral theory, faculty psychology, and early modern epidemiology, I assert the basic integrity of antitheatrical thought. This effort has to principal objectives. The first is to send us back to the antitheatrical tracts of early modernity, with a more generous spirit and a more careful eye to what they can teach us. The second is to sharpen our sense of the acute moral and ethical problems playacting posed in early modern England. I submit that antitheatrical fears were not so much idiosyncratic or extreme as they were straightforwardly indicated by various early modern orthodoxies.

Renaissance Drama, 2014

This essay begins with the observation that the antitheatrical pamphlets of Stephen Gosson are od... more This essay begins with the observation that the antitheatrical pamphlets of Stephen Gosson are oddly anti-nautical as well. Gosson frequently expresses anxiety about sailing ships and rolling seas. On one level, this hydrophobic imagery is symptomatic of an early modern investment in solidity: Gosson wants social status to be stable and fixed, firmly grounded in lineage and land. But Gosson's imagery is also implicated in ideas of sexual difference, for Renaissance conceptualizations of the female body consistently characterize it as a leaky vessel, overflowing with tears, blood, breastmilk, and urine. This notion of feminine fluidity underwrites Gosson's aversion to water as well as his opposition to the stage. In Gosson's imagination, the Elizabethan playhouse and the open sea converge insofar as each operates as an effeminating space that imperils men by dissolving important social and moral distinctions. In this manner, Gosson's anti-nautical imagery reveals the extent to which early modern antitheatricality is informed by an enduring gynophobia. Antifeminism not only drives Gosson’s antitheatricalism but also determines the particular rhetorical figures he uses to articulate it.

Modern Philology, 2014

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Shakespeare Bulletin, 2013

When Coriolanus's mother urges him to dissemble his disdain for the plebeians, the hero recoils, ... more When Coriolanus's mother urges him to dissemble his disdain for the plebeians, the hero recoils, imagining that such a role would effeminate him. His response leaves little doubt as to the antifeminist assumptions underlying his antitheatrical commitments. However, these antifeminist assumptions are undermined by the play's presentation of gender, especially as it is expressed in the figure of the young boy and the virginal woman. By way of the boy, the play intimates that masculinity is neither un- nor antitheatrical but is actually a performative effect in its own right. By way of the virgin, the play implies that the "effeminate" or "unmanly" subject positions that Coriolanus scorns are not without virtue of their own, possessing a kind of antiperformative integrity that Coriolanus never achieves. As it aggressively theatricalizing masculinity and implicitly valorizing virginity, Shakespeare's play renders its hero's antitheatrical commitments less and less compelling, less and less coherent.

Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: …, 2011

It is widely known that Renaissance women were instructed to be chaste, silent, and obedient. How... more It is widely known that Renaissance women were instructed to be chaste, silent, and obedient. However, Renaissance women were also taught that they lacked the mental and spiritual capacity to be genuinely good. Renaissance discourses, then, placed women in an inherently theatrical position, commanding them to perform a virtue they could not inwardly own. Seen in this light, the all-too-familiar prescription “chaste, silent, and obedient” does not actually insist upon women’s virtue but merely supplies them with a highly scripted role to help them fake it. Given the extraordinary interrelation of female virtue and theatricality, it should come as no surprise that both figure centrally in the first original English drama to be written by a woman. Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedie of Mariam revolves around a Jewish queen whose chastity is continually questioned. Her chastity, however, is not only uncompromised but also uncompromising. From start to finish, Mariam insists upon her purity--and she does so by insisting upon her inability to dissemble. Mariam explicitly eschews theatricality even as she embraces chastity, creating a fissure in Renaissance discourses on women that threatens to swallow up the antifeminist idea that female chastity is always and only an act.

Milton Studies, 2009

Discussions of masculinity in Milton’s Paradise Lost almost invariably focus on Adam. Following i... more Discussions of masculinity in Milton’s Paradise Lost almost invariably focus on Adam. Following in the footsteps of Judith Halberstam, my paper takes an ampler approach and considers masculinity as it is enacted in the poem by those who are not male either by birth or biology. When we attend to the masculinity of the epic’s non-male actors, we soon realize that their purely performative masculinity is more convincing and more enduring than Adam’s. This realization suggests that the masculinism traditionally attributed to Milton’s epic is not as self-assured as we’ve assumed. It also illustrates the degree to which early modern efforts to essentialize male privilege catch male subjects up in a perplexing contradiction. As Kathryn Schwarz has shown, attempts to naturalize the relationship between masculinity and maleness make for a precarious kind of manhood. Men become capable of claiming “the absolute condition of possession” only by becoming “vulnerable to absolute loss” (Tough Love 150). Because non-male agents, however, are immune to this condition of “absolute loss,” they lay claim to a more durable kind of masculinity. Such is the case in Paradise Lost, where the epic’s best men are not technically men at all.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 2008

Considerable evidence suggests that Philip Sidney wrote his Apologie for Poetrie as a reply to Th... more Considerable evidence suggests that Philip Sidney wrote his Apologie for Poetrie as a reply to The Schoole of Abuse, Stephen Gosson’s antipoetic pamphlet of 1579. This essay contends that the Apologie does not contest Gosson’s ideas about poetry so much as it does his ideas about women. What Sidney really resists is not the pamphlet’s antitheatricalism but its antifeminism.

The Sacred and Profane in English Renaissance Literature, 2008

This essay explores the way in which Milton’s representation of the sacred insistently enlists th... more This essay explores the way in which Milton’s representation of the sacred insistently enlists the scatological. Foregrounding the gastrointestinal imagery at the heart of the epic, the essay shows how Milton tropes the rebellion in Heaven and the Fall in Eden as instances of digestive distress. When Satan rises up against God, the “Intestine War” that he initiates is quelled when God expels the noxious influence of Satan and his hosts in an act approximating anal evacuation. When Adam and Eve join Satan in sin, they undergo a digestive debasement that causes them to give off “the smell / Of mortal change” (10.272-73). The epic anticipates, however, a time when the Son will successfully supplant the stench of sin and enable the Father to “receave / The smell of peace toward Mankinde” (11.37-38). Insofar as it merges the scatological with the sacred, Milton’s epic fully participates in the marriage of corporeality and spirituality that a growing number of cultural historians have identified with medieval and early modern devotion. In this way, Milton’s pious obscenity corroborates Richard Rambuss’s claim that the physical body constitutes “the very core of pre- and early modern religious expression.”

(M) Othering the nation: constructing …, 2008

The essay observes that the poem’s depiction of chaste women oddly associates them with incest. T... more The essay observes that the poem’s depiction of chaste women oddly associates them with incest. To account for this convergence of chastity and incest, I point to heightened concerns about racial purity caused by Queen Elizabeth’s colonial endeavors. Insofar as incest rules out the possibility of racial mixing, it ensures the purity of the English blood and for this reason figures into Spenser’s poem as a form of chastity.

All's Well, That Ends Well": New Critical Essays, 2007

ELR, 2007

In his classic study, The Dialectics of Creation, Michael Lieb foregrounds the myriad ways in whi... more In his classic study, The Dialectics of Creation, Michael Lieb foregrounds the myriad ways in which Milton uses scatology throughout Paradise Lost to describe the depravity of the devil. But Satan is not the only character in the epic to be associated with excretion. Milton’s angels and Milton’s God are also implicated in the operations of the lower bodily stratum. In these instances, however, allusions to the evacuative functions attest to an exalted divinity rather than a disgusting diabolism. Evacuation in Paradise Lost is thus a highly complex signifier. Not simply a pejorative pointing inevitably at a damnable degradation, scatology can also signal a sublime goodness. This essay draws upon humoral theory and socio-cultural studies of manners to both emphasize and account for the richly multivalent meaning of evacuation in Milton’s epic.

ELH, 2006

Incest appears throughout Book III of The Faerie Queene, the very book wherein Spenser purports t... more Incest appears throughout Book III of The Faerie Queene, the very book wherein Spenser purports to portray the virtue of Chastity. The present essay investigates this apparently illogical interpenetration of incest and chastity, ultimately arguing that the imperialist logic underpinning the epic is tied to an intense fear of miscegenation that, in turn, privileges endogamous relations as a way of warding off foreign invasion and contamination. For Spenser, incest comes to signify an admirable commitment to one’s own kind that constitutes—in a colonial context—the highest form of chastity and the greatest guarantor of national and individual purity.

Shakespeare's Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity and the Good, 2023

This chapter considers how the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear might use wit and humor to encoura... more This chapter considers how the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear might use wit and humor to encourage more virtuous ways of relating to oneself and others. Rooted in the writings of Levinas and in recent work exploring the role of humor in Levinas's radical ethical philosophy, this chapter demonstrates that the Fool's wit is profoundly virtuous in that it invites the king to laugh: both at himself (in a self-critical act of ethical abdication) and with others (in a generative opening toward interrelation). Although the king struggles to accept these invitations, the Fool relentlessly pushes the play in virtuous directions by using humor to place himself before others in a posture of vulnerability and exposure that Levinas sees as the foundation of all ethics. In this way, Shakespeare's tragedy underscores the virtuous potentiality of wit, humor, and fooling by showing how it can interrupt our egoism, abstract us from ourselves, impel us to consider other viewpoints, and open us to a more authentic connection with others.

Renaissance Drama, 2022

This essay considers the significance of voice in Coriolanus, especially the way voices are locat... more This essay considers the significance of voice in Coriolanus, especially the way voices are located within bodies. It shows how the patricians situate their voices in the "worthier" parts of the body and the citizens' voices in the "worser," leveraging anti-corporeal and anti-materialist ideologies to authorize their own speech and discredit the citizens'. Nevertheless, the voices in this play are highly mobile. They repeatedly move about within bodies and between bodies, undercutting the patricians' conservative approach and allowing us to envision radical alternatives. Invoking work by Emmanuel Levinas and Adriana Cavarero, the essay concludes by fleshing out these radical alternatives.

Shakespeare Quarterly, 2020

Few people would describe the tragedy of King Lear or the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas as funny... more Few people would describe the tragedy of King Lear or the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas as funny. To the contrary, these works feel weighty, momentous, and serious. In "Sweet Fooling," however, I use recent work on the place of humor in Levinas's ethical thought to examine the role of the Fool in Shakespeare's great tragedy. I demonstrate that the Fool's humor is profoundly ethical, inviting the king to laugh, both at himself (in a self-critical act of abdication) and with others (in a generative opening toward interrelation). The king may or may not accept these invitations, but the Fool relentlessly pushes the play in ethical directions by using humor to place himself before the other in a posture of vulnerability and exposure that Levinas sees as the foundation for all ethics. In this way, I make a case for the fool, the clown, and the comic, emphasizing the ethical importance of theatrical fooling.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Apr 2020

This essay proposes that Shakespeare uses twinship and marriage in The Comedy of Errors to reflec... more This essay proposes that Shakespeare uses twinship and marriage in The Comedy of Errors to reflect on the importance of individuality and interrelation in the formation of identity. Specifically, the essay shows how Errors sets the twin relation against the marital relation, ultimately implying that marriage--imperfect, everyday marriage--has as much subjective impact as the extraordinary bond between identical twins. As wonderful as it might be to see two persons sharing "one face, one voice, one habit," Errors suggests that the twin relation does not surpass in significance the equally marvelous relation whereby husband and wife become "one flesh."

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, 2019

This essay shows how the Tudor biblical drama Jacob and Esau (1568) systematically and strategica... more This essay shows how the Tudor biblical drama Jacob and Esau (1568) systematically and strategically stages kinship connections in such a way as to justify Jacob's usurpation of the birthright blessing. It then considers one kinship connection in particular: namely, the complicated bond between twins. The essay reveals how the stageplay leverages twinship to raise pressing questions about the apportionment of wealth, affection, and opportunity among siblings, anticipating by several decades the heated debates about primogeniture that erupt in the 1630s. However, the interlude ultimately sounds a pious note, moving beyond the problems of worldly families to emphasize the blessed state of God's family, formed not by biological kinship ties but by arbitrary acts of divine adoption.

Rocky Mountain Review, 2019

This essay reads "The Solemn Boy" as a revision of the biblical tale of Abraham and Sariah. In th... more This essay reads "The Solemn Boy" as a revision of the biblical tale of Abraham and Sariah. In this revision, however, the aged couple is gifted a son for one afternoon only, after which he is taken away. Nevertheless, Tol and Miss Minnie do not become bitter. By graciously accepting their loss, the couple models for us the humility that is central to Berry's thought and that comes--in his estimation--from working the soil. Tol and Miss Minnie are the salt of the earth, and they become such by tilling the earth. Their saintliness is an effect of their agrarianism.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Of Levinas and Shakespeare: "To See Another Thus", 2018

This essay observes that Cordelia figures into Shakespeare's King Lear much as autrui figures int... more This essay observes that Cordelia figures into Shakespeare's King Lear much as autrui figures into Levinas's philosophy. She is the one who overawes, obsesses, and afflicts Lear. She is the one who summons and solicits him from "beyond being." She is the one who "disincarnates" the divine in a non-systematic and non-thematizable way. This is not to say, however, that Lear is simply a Levinasian fable. Rather, it is to suggest that Shakespeare was every bit as invested in the interpersonal relationship as was Levinas and appears to have entertained a number of similar ideas, including the idea that transcendence is not an effect of ecstasy or apotheosis but of interrelation.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The Definitive Shakespeare Companion, 2017

This contribution to The Definitive Shakespeare Companion gives readers a wealth of materials to ... more This contribution to The Definitive Shakespeare Companion gives readers a wealth of materials to guide them in their study of Coriolanus

Criticism, 2016

In the present essay I contest the prevailing view, promulgated by critics like Jonas Barish and ... more In the present essay I contest the prevailing view, promulgated by critics like Jonas Barish and Laura Levine, that early modern antitheatricalism is intrinsically irrational. By carefully parsing the antitheatricalists' claims and clarifying their connections to Protestant theology, humoral theory, faculty psychology, and early modern epidemiology, I assert the basic integrity of antitheatrical thought. This effort has to principal objectives. The first is to send us back to the antitheatrical tracts of early modernity, with a more generous spirit and a more careful eye to what they can teach us. The second is to sharpen our sense of the acute moral and ethical problems playacting posed in early modern England. I submit that antitheatrical fears were not so much idiosyncratic or extreme as they were straightforwardly indicated by various early modern orthodoxies.

Renaissance Drama, 2014

This essay begins with the observation that the antitheatrical pamphlets of Stephen Gosson are od... more This essay begins with the observation that the antitheatrical pamphlets of Stephen Gosson are oddly anti-nautical as well. Gosson frequently expresses anxiety about sailing ships and rolling seas. On one level, this hydrophobic imagery is symptomatic of an early modern investment in solidity: Gosson wants social status to be stable and fixed, firmly grounded in lineage and land. But Gosson's imagery is also implicated in ideas of sexual difference, for Renaissance conceptualizations of the female body consistently characterize it as a leaky vessel, overflowing with tears, blood, breastmilk, and urine. This notion of feminine fluidity underwrites Gosson's aversion to water as well as his opposition to the stage. In Gosson's imagination, the Elizabethan playhouse and the open sea converge insofar as each operates as an effeminating space that imperils men by dissolving important social and moral distinctions. In this manner, Gosson's anti-nautical imagery reveals the extent to which early modern antitheatricality is informed by an enduring gynophobia. Antifeminism not only drives Gosson’s antitheatricalism but also determines the particular rhetorical figures he uses to articulate it.

Modern Philology, 2014

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Shakespeare Bulletin, 2013

When Coriolanus's mother urges him to dissemble his disdain for the plebeians, the hero recoils, ... more When Coriolanus's mother urges him to dissemble his disdain for the plebeians, the hero recoils, imagining that such a role would effeminate him. His response leaves little doubt as to the antifeminist assumptions underlying his antitheatrical commitments. However, these antifeminist assumptions are undermined by the play's presentation of gender, especially as it is expressed in the figure of the young boy and the virginal woman. By way of the boy, the play intimates that masculinity is neither un- nor antitheatrical but is actually a performative effect in its own right. By way of the virgin, the play implies that the "effeminate" or "unmanly" subject positions that Coriolanus scorns are not without virtue of their own, possessing a kind of antiperformative integrity that Coriolanus never achieves. As it aggressively theatricalizing masculinity and implicitly valorizing virginity, Shakespeare's play renders its hero's antitheatrical commitments less and less compelling, less and less coherent.

Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: …, 2011

It is widely known that Renaissance women were instructed to be chaste, silent, and obedient. How... more It is widely known that Renaissance women were instructed to be chaste, silent, and obedient. However, Renaissance women were also taught that they lacked the mental and spiritual capacity to be genuinely good. Renaissance discourses, then, placed women in an inherently theatrical position, commanding them to perform a virtue they could not inwardly own. Seen in this light, the all-too-familiar prescription “chaste, silent, and obedient” does not actually insist upon women’s virtue but merely supplies them with a highly scripted role to help them fake it. Given the extraordinary interrelation of female virtue and theatricality, it should come as no surprise that both figure centrally in the first original English drama to be written by a woman. Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedie of Mariam revolves around a Jewish queen whose chastity is continually questioned. Her chastity, however, is not only uncompromised but also uncompromising. From start to finish, Mariam insists upon her purity--and she does so by insisting upon her inability to dissemble. Mariam explicitly eschews theatricality even as she embraces chastity, creating a fissure in Renaissance discourses on women that threatens to swallow up the antifeminist idea that female chastity is always and only an act.

Milton Studies, 2009

Discussions of masculinity in Milton’s Paradise Lost almost invariably focus on Adam. Following i... more Discussions of masculinity in Milton’s Paradise Lost almost invariably focus on Adam. Following in the footsteps of Judith Halberstam, my paper takes an ampler approach and considers masculinity as it is enacted in the poem by those who are not male either by birth or biology. When we attend to the masculinity of the epic’s non-male actors, we soon realize that their purely performative masculinity is more convincing and more enduring than Adam’s. This realization suggests that the masculinism traditionally attributed to Milton’s epic is not as self-assured as we’ve assumed. It also illustrates the degree to which early modern efforts to essentialize male privilege catch male subjects up in a perplexing contradiction. As Kathryn Schwarz has shown, attempts to naturalize the relationship between masculinity and maleness make for a precarious kind of manhood. Men become capable of claiming “the absolute condition of possession” only by becoming “vulnerable to absolute loss” (Tough Love 150). Because non-male agents, however, are immune to this condition of “absolute loss,” they lay claim to a more durable kind of masculinity. Such is the case in Paradise Lost, where the epic’s best men are not technically men at all.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 2008

Considerable evidence suggests that Philip Sidney wrote his Apologie for Poetrie as a reply to Th... more Considerable evidence suggests that Philip Sidney wrote his Apologie for Poetrie as a reply to The Schoole of Abuse, Stephen Gosson’s antipoetic pamphlet of 1579. This essay contends that the Apologie does not contest Gosson’s ideas about poetry so much as it does his ideas about women. What Sidney really resists is not the pamphlet’s antitheatricalism but its antifeminism.

The Sacred and Profane in English Renaissance Literature, 2008

This essay explores the way in which Milton’s representation of the sacred insistently enlists th... more This essay explores the way in which Milton’s representation of the sacred insistently enlists the scatological. Foregrounding the gastrointestinal imagery at the heart of the epic, the essay shows how Milton tropes the rebellion in Heaven and the Fall in Eden as instances of digestive distress. When Satan rises up against God, the “Intestine War” that he initiates is quelled when God expels the noxious influence of Satan and his hosts in an act approximating anal evacuation. When Adam and Eve join Satan in sin, they undergo a digestive debasement that causes them to give off “the smell / Of mortal change” (10.272-73). The epic anticipates, however, a time when the Son will successfully supplant the stench of sin and enable the Father to “receave / The smell of peace toward Mankinde” (11.37-38). Insofar as it merges the scatological with the sacred, Milton’s epic fully participates in the marriage of corporeality and spirituality that a growing number of cultural historians have identified with medieval and early modern devotion. In this way, Milton’s pious obscenity corroborates Richard Rambuss’s claim that the physical body constitutes “the very core of pre- and early modern religious expression.”

(M) Othering the nation: constructing …, 2008

The essay observes that the poem’s depiction of chaste women oddly associates them with incest. T... more The essay observes that the poem’s depiction of chaste women oddly associates them with incest. To account for this convergence of chastity and incest, I point to heightened concerns about racial purity caused by Queen Elizabeth’s colonial endeavors. Insofar as incest rules out the possibility of racial mixing, it ensures the purity of the English blood and for this reason figures into Spenser’s poem as a form of chastity.

All's Well, That Ends Well": New Critical Essays, 2007

ELR, 2007

In his classic study, The Dialectics of Creation, Michael Lieb foregrounds the myriad ways in whi... more In his classic study, The Dialectics of Creation, Michael Lieb foregrounds the myriad ways in which Milton uses scatology throughout Paradise Lost to describe the depravity of the devil. But Satan is not the only character in the epic to be associated with excretion. Milton’s angels and Milton’s God are also implicated in the operations of the lower bodily stratum. In these instances, however, allusions to the evacuative functions attest to an exalted divinity rather than a disgusting diabolism. Evacuation in Paradise Lost is thus a highly complex signifier. Not simply a pejorative pointing inevitably at a damnable degradation, scatology can also signal a sublime goodness. This essay draws upon humoral theory and socio-cultural studies of manners to both emphasize and account for the richly multivalent meaning of evacuation in Milton’s epic.

ELH, 2006

Incest appears throughout Book III of The Faerie Queene, the very book wherein Spenser purports t... more Incest appears throughout Book III of The Faerie Queene, the very book wherein Spenser purports to portray the virtue of Chastity. The present essay investigates this apparently illogical interpenetration of incest and chastity, ultimately arguing that the imperialist logic underpinning the epic is tied to an intense fear of miscegenation that, in turn, privileges endogamous relations as a way of warding off foreign invasion and contamination. For Spenser, incest comes to signify an admirable commitment to one’s own kind that constitutes—in a colonial context—the highest form of chastity and the greatest guarantor of national and individual purity.

Understanding Shakespeare: An Honest and Insightful Guide to All the Plays, 2026

This is a sample chapter from my current book project, Understanding Shakespeare: An Honest and I... more This is a sample chapter from my current book project, Understanding Shakespeare: An Honest and Insightful Guide to All the Plays.

Understanding Shakespeare is an easy-to-use reference that gives you a way into every play Shakespeare wrote through a combination of enriching information, eye-opening analysis, and frank discussion. Whereas other guidebooks present the plays neutrally, this one acknowledges that not all of them are perfect gems. Understanding Shakespeare is unique-and uniquely helpful-in offering not only a sophisticated understanding of each play but also a candid review of its accomplishments and challenges, enabling you to make informed decisions about what to read or see and what to look for when you do. This is the book to get if you want to get Shakespeare.

This paper provides a brief introduction to the ethical thought of Emmanuel Levinas, discusses th... more This paper provides a brief introduction to the ethical thought of Emmanuel Levinas, discusses the connections between Levinas and Shakespeare, and makes the case for a scholarly pairing of these two great thinkers.

Shakespeare 450 Conference, Apr 2014

Although characters in King Lear repeatedly invoke the gods, the divine does not intervene direct... more Although characters in King Lear repeatedly invoke the gods, the divine does not intervene directly in the world of the play. The gods in Lear are perpetually non-present, either non-existent or apathetic or absconditas. Yet even in this world without God, a deep piety persists, particularly in connection with Lear's youngest daughter. Cordelia consistently puts us in mind of the divine, albeit inchoately and obscurely. Such a situation might seem nonsensical, but it is largely commensurate with Levinas's claim that our only access to the divine is the other (autrui), who is "in the trace of God." Indeed, there are a number of ways in which Cordelia seems to figure into Shakespeare's tragedy much as autrui figures into Levinas's philosophy. She is the one who "disincarnates" the divine in a non-systematic and non-thematizable way. She is the one who overawes, obsesses, and afflicts Lear. She is the one who summons and solicits him from "beyond being." This is not to say, however, that Lear is simply a Levinasian fable. Rather, it is to suggest that Shakespeare was every bit as invested in the interpersonal relationship as was Levinas and appears to have entertained a number of similar ideas, including the idea that transcendence is an effect of interrelation, not ecstasy or apotheosis. Pace Levinas, Shakespeare intimates in Lear that the only epiphanies we can expect in this life are interhuman--but they are no less transcendent for all that.

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This paper uses the writings of Emmanuel Levinas to consider the numinous characterization of Cor... more This paper uses the writings of Emmanuel Levinas to consider the numinous characterization of Cordelia in King Lear.

New Swan Shakespeare Festival, 2022

In this talk, I give a brief introduction to The Comedy of Errors and then discuss how its stagin... more In this talk, I give a brief introduction to The Comedy of Errors and then discuss how its staging of the twin relation raises philosophical questions about subjectivity and identity.

Shakespeare Center LA, "Bard Talks" series, 2020

Discussion of the difficult ethics of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, presented on May 30, 2020 ... more Discussion of the difficult ethics of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, presented on May 30, 2020 as part of the "Bard Talks" series at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.

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This talk, presented at a Chapman University symposium on The Merchant of Venice, discusses the t... more This talk, presented at a Chapman University symposium on The Merchant of Venice, discusses the two locales in which the action of the play is set: Venice and Belmont

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Lecture on Macbeth at a Chapman University Symposium in February 2011