Shakespeare Studies

Volume 54 of the academic journal devoted to Shakespeare and Early Modern English Drama, Culture and Literature, published annually with peer-reviewed articles, forums, and reviews. Shakespeare Studies is an annual peer-reviewed volume featuring the work of performance scholars, literary critics, and cultural historians. The journal focuses on Shakespeare and his contemporaries while embracing theoretical and historical studies of socio-political, intellectual, and artistic contexts that extend beyond the early modern English theatrical milieu. Shakespeare Studies also offers opportunities for intellectual exchange through its thematically focused forums and substantial reviews. An international editorial board maintains the quality of each volume so that Shakespeare Studies may serve as a reliable resource for all students of Shakespeare and the early modern period—research scholars, teachers, actors, and directors. Volume 54 includes a Forum “In Honor of Bruce R. Smith” with contributions from its editor Heather James, Katherine Rowe, Jeffrey Masten, Scott Trudell, Evelyn Tribble, Amanda K. Ruud, Kate Bank, Rachel Willie, Stephen Orgel, and Lena Cowen Orlin. It features articles by Tom Rutter (“Possible Evidence for the Early Influence of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Robert Peake’s Portrait of Edward Grimston”); Xing Chen (“‘Nothing, my lord’: A pun, King Lear, and a Defense of Rhetoric”); William Carroll (“The Wars of Love’s Labour’s Lost: Performance and Interpretation”); and Scott Maisano (“In a Berowne Study: Daydreaming in Love’s Labour’s Lost and of Love’s Labour’s Won”); a Roundtable exploring “Anne’s World: New Conversations about Anne Shakespeare”; and four talks from the 2025 Next Generation Plenary of the Shakespeare Association of America conference.