BOOK
Communal Justice in Shakespeare’s England: Drama, Law, and Emotion. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021.
The sixteenth century was a turning point for both law and drama. Relentless professionalization of the common law set off a cascade of lawyerly self-fashioning – resulting in blunt attacks on lay judgment. English playwrights, including Shakespeare, resisted the forces of legal professionalization by casting legal expertise as a detriment to moral feeling. They celebrated the ability of individuals, guided by conscience and working alongside members of their community, to restore justice. Playwrights used the participatory nature of drama to deepen public understanding of and respect for communal justice. In plays such as King Lear and Macbeth, lay people accomplish the work of magistracy: conscience structures legal judgment, neighbourly care shapes the coroner’s inquest, and communal emotions give meaning to confession and repentance.
Learn more on the publisher’s website.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
“Jurisprudence by Aphorisms: Francis Bacon and the ‘Uses’ of Small Forms.” Law, Culture and the Humanities 18.3 (2022): 674–697. Print. First published Jan. 31, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872119826455.
“On Judges and the Art of Judicature: Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2.” Studies in Philology 114.1. (Winter 2017): 97-123. Print. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/article/644550.
“Before the Right to Remain Silent: The Examinations of Anne Askew and Elizabeth Young.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 43.3 (2012): 667-679. Print. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24245546.
A Portuguese translation of the article is now available thanks to Jony Clay Borges, Estudante de Direito da Universidade do Estado do Amazonas and Professor Daniel Aquino, Professor de Direito da Universidade do Estado do Amazonas. Read “Antes do direito de permanecer em silêncio: Os inquéritos de Anne Askew e Elizabeth Young” PDF here. I’m honored.
“‘He Only Talks’: Arruntius and the Formation of Interpretive Communities in Ben Jonson’s Sejanus.” Ben Jonson Journal 18.1 (2011): 126-140. Print. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/bjj.2011.0011
ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES
“Trial by Jury in Early Modern England.” Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World. Gen. ed. Kristen Poole; topics ed. Wendy Hyman. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367347093-RERW39-1.
“Inns of Court.” Ibid.
“John Marston” (3000 words), “Sir John Davies” (1000 words), “John Dowland”(1000 words). The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature. 3 Vols. Ed. Garrett Sullivan et al. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Print and online.
REVIEWS
Rev. of Katherine Schaap Williams. Unfixable Forms: Disability, Performance, and the Early Modern English Theater. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021. Modern Philology. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1086/722265.
Rev. of Sonya Freeman Loftis. Shakespeare and Disability Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Renaissance Quarterly. Forthcoming.
Rev. of Regina Schwartz, Loving Justice, Living Shakespeare.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Syndicate. Forthcoming. https://syndicate.network/symposia/literature/loving-justice-living-shakespeare/.
Rev. of Elizabeth Scott-Baumann and Ben Burton, eds. The Work of Form: Poetics and Materiality in Early Modern Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Renaissance Quarterly 71.1 (2017): 401-2.
Rev. of Marissa Greenberg. Metropolitan Tragedy: Genre, Justice, and the City in Early Modern England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015. Renaissance Quarterly 69.3 (2016): 1188–1190.
Rev. of The Changeling. By Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. Director Joe Hill-Gibbins. Young Vic, London. 25 Feb. 2012. Cahiers Élisabéthains 81 (2012): 57-8. Print.
Penelope Geng ☞ Early Modern English Literature ☜ 