Intro
Note on the text
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on contributors
List of figures
List of tables
Chapter 1. "Dressed in a little brief authority": authority before, during, and after Shakespeare's plays
Part I. Defining and redefining authority. Chapter 2. Shakespeare's authorities ; Chapter 3. Inside the elephant's graveyard: revising Geoffrey Bullough's narrative and dramatic sources of Shakespeare ; Chapter 4. Author and authority in the OED: Nashe v. Shakespeare ; Chapter 5. "The King's English" "Our English?": Shakespeare and linguistic ownership ; Chapter 6. Foundations of sovereign authority: the example of Shakespearean political drama
Part II. Shakespearean authority. Chapter 7. "A trim reckoning": accountability and authority in 1 and 2 Henry IV ; Chapter 8. The King's ring: a matter of trust ; Chapter 9. "Constant in any undertaking": writing the Lipsian State in Measure for measure ; Chapter 10. Duty and authority: Malvolio, stewardship and Montague's household book ; Chapter 11. Poetic authority in Julius Caesar: the triumph of the poet-playwright-actor
Part III. Shakespeare as authority. Chapter 12. Authority of the actor in the eighteenth century ; Chapter 13. Shakespeare, rule-breaking and artistic genius: the case of Sir John Soane ; Chapter 14. Whose Gothic Bard? Charles Robert Maturin and contestations of Shakespearean authority in British/Irish Romantic culture ; Chapter 15. Authority, instrumental reason and the fault lines of modern civilization in Peter Brook's cinematic rendering of Shakespeare's King Lear ; Chapter 16. Will power: visualising Shakespeare's authority in contemporary culture
Index.