Allegorising Thought on the Shakespearean Stage

Claire Guéron is Senior Lecturer at the University of Burgundy (Université de Bourgogne) in Dijon, France. Her research areas are early modern stage semiotics, the ethics of spectatorship and Shakespearean detective novels. Her recent publications include ‘Figure and Figura in Henry V’, in François Laroque (ed), William Shakespeare King Henry V, Paris: Ellipses, 2020, pp.65-80, ‘Le double jeu de Nick Revill, détective Shakespearien’, Textes et Contextes, vol. 14, no. 1 , [online], June 16th, 2019. ‘”Never Shake thy Gory Locks at me”: Objecting to Gesture in Macbeth’, Interfaces: Texte, Image, Langage, vol.40, 2018. And ‘Authorizing Laughter in The Duchess of Malfi’, in Pascale Drouet and William C. Carroll (eds), Paris: Belin Education, 2018, pp. 204-19.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Lucius in Julius Caesar2. A Mind Made Up: Macbeth’s Doorways3. Tender Motions: Gesture in Cymbeline4. Crimson Veils in Troilus and Cressida5. ‘A River Runs Through It’: The Shape of Hydra in Coriolanus6. Histrionics, Restraint and Empathy in The Merchant of VeniceConclusion: Particulars and UniversalsBibliographyProductions and Films CitedIndex

The grand – and realized – ambition of Allegorising Thought on the Shakespearean Stage is to ground allegory in the warp and weft of early modern theatrical practice. Distributed across the theatrical event, Shakespeare’s mindful allegories are – in Claire Guéron’s compelling account – thickened, not thinned, by expansion.