Book Description

What makes Shakespeare centrally 'exceptional' to the current humanities curriculum, a measure and minimum unit for University administrations and the general public to recognise the activity of 'the humanities'? The contributing authors of essays in this issue of the Yearbook ask how we might push this question beyond familiar categories of the exceptional, the superlative, the above, beyond, below, or even the normative and familiar, in order to scale Shakespeare historically, canonically, and ontologically in relation to 'the human'. Each essay offers a case study devoted to Shakespeare's attentiveness to or implications for a specific location along the scala naturae -- from the wind of the coelum down to the stony lapis. Attending to locations such as these offers to displace 'the human' to a periphery, to but one among the jostling forces of life. Yet, as a centripetal figure of our culture, even of world culture, Shakespeare proves hard to displace, being engrained so deeply in our sense. Essays in the volume take up the challenge of evaluating Shakespeare’s intimate involvement with our understandings of what is or makes 'the human'. In the now-established tradition of The Shakespearean International Yearbook, the 15th issue surveys important developments and topics of concern in contemporary Shakespeare studies.