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Reveals that Ernst Stadler's criticisim of Christoph Wieland's translation of Shakespeare in relation to form, pathos, and craft helped shape Stadler's ideas of poetry.

Focuses on "corporal recognition" in Shakespearean plays, particularly, when "a feminine speaker addresses or describes a masculine corpse in hyperbolic terms." Argues that such rhetorical features "mobilize counterfactual histories and futurities, which disrupt the processes that absorb or discard individual persons in the name of collective survival." English summary, 439.

Draws on Stanley Cavell's understanding that King Lear presents the existential problem of a life without ground (q.v.). Compares Lear's groundless life to Nietzsche's "tragic performance" in Ecce Homo.

Explores Shakespeare's development of melancholy in Comedy of Errors, Love's Labor's Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Pericles, Winter's Tale, and Two Noble Kinsmen." Contends that Shakespeare moves away from "an individual, humoural characterization to a more spectral incarnation that engrains itself in the dramatic fabric of the plays it inhabits."

Argues that the rise of postcolonial studies has made Tempest into a new play. Considers how translations of Caliban's curses react to Prospero's power; suggests that both curses and power are challenges for translators to represent.

Considers Shakespearean tragedy in relation to modern crises of identity. Explores how Shakespeare's tragic heroes lose their identities, as well as the role of transgression and negation (or "nothingness") in tragedy.

Examines how King James I's "preternatural beliefs and epistemological constructs" influenced "Early Modern Britain's dramatic rendition of witches, . . . societal theory and praxis." With particular attention to Macbeth, argues that although the playwright is supposed to show respect to their monarchy, his play was also imbued with satirical tone through his highlighting of the brutality of man, Macbeth, "a despot who rules with tyrannical absolutism."

Examines tragic heroes in Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear that seek maternal care, as well as female characters that reject the mother role. While drawing on historical, feminist, and Freudian criticism, contends that "the three tragic heroes look to the female characters for maternal guidance, only to be disappointed."

Examines mirror scene in Richard II in relation to symbolic order and Richard's decoronation. Suggests that the questions Richard asks himself in the mirror reflect the anxieties of "an entire era."

Considers early modern "passions" and their place in Shakespeare tragedy in relation to Great Chain of Being; rule of reason; power, will, and appetite; existential uncertainty; and mutability and weak reasoning. Contends that tragedy illustrates the permeability of the human mind.