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The essays in Word and Self Estranged in English Texts, 1550-1660, consider diverse historical contexts for writing about 'strangeness'. They draw on current practices of reading to present contrasts and analogies within and between various social understandings. In so doing they reveal an interplay of thematic and stylistic modes that tells us a great deal about how, and why, certain aspects of life and thinking were 'estranged' in sixteenth and seventeenth century thinking. The collection's unique strength is that it makes specific bridges between contemporary perspectives and early modern connotations of strangeness and inhibition. The subjects of these essays are 'strange' to our ways of thinking because of their obvious distance from us in time and culture. And yet, curiously, far from being entirely alien to these texts, some of the most modern thinking-about paradigms, texts, concepts-connects with the early modern in unexpected ways. Milton meets the contemporary 'competent reader', Wittgenstein meets Robert Cawdrey, Shakespeare embraces the teenager, and Marvell matches wits with French mathematician René Thom. Additionally, the early modern texts posit their own 'others', or sites of estrangement-Moorishness, Persian art, even the human body-with which they perform their own astonishing maneuvers of estrangement and alignment. In reading Renaissance works from our own time and inviting them to reflect upon our own time, Word and Self Estranged in English Texts, 1550-1660 offers a vital reinterpretation of early modern texts. Contents: Introduction: word and self estranged: topographies on meaning in early modern England, Philippa Kelly and L.E. Semler; Part 1 The Two-Way Mirror: the Natural and the Strange: Wittgenstein and early English dictionaries, 1604-1658, Julian Lamb; The ruins of Persepolis: grotesque perception in Thomas Herbert's Travels, L.E. Semler; Intimate converse with nature: body and touch in Harvey's way of inquiry, Alan Salter; Dipsas and traditions of the serpent-woman in early modern literature, Alison V. Scott. Part 2 Shakespeare's Estranged Words: Shakespeare and authenticity: teaching the real thing, Jean E. Howard; Estranging word and self in Twelfth Night, R.S. White; Desdemona's wooing: towards a pre-1538 Othello, Lawrence Warner; A mind diseased: reading Lady Macbeth's madness, Chris Couche. Part 3 Re-Sounding Words: Topographies of space, time and disciplinarity in early modern English: the case of Andrew Marvell, Bob Hodge; The text estranged: topographies of irony in Chaucer and Milton, Ronald Bedford; Sounds of elevation in Paradise Lost: God's commendation of Abdiel, William Walker; By the rivers of Babylon: Biblical allusion and the politics of pastoral in Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, Kirsten Tranter; 'Transitory hieroglyphiques': deaf people and signed communication in early modern theories of language, Susannah Macready; Index. Philippa Kelly is the author of three books on King Lear, two co-authored books on the subject of early modern individuality, and many articles about Shakespeare and the early modern world. She currently lives in Berkeley, California, and works as resident dramaturg for the California Shakespeare Theater, also teaching part-time for the Osher Foundation at UC Berkeley. Liam E. Semler teaches early modern literature in the Department of English, University of Sydney, and is author of The English Mannerist Poets and the Visual Arts (1998) and editor of critical (2001) and facsimile (2003) editions of Eliza's Babes; Or, The Virgin's Offering (1652).

Personal form of criticism, focusing on the wide-ranging issues of identity and history raised by King Lear by exploring Australians' engagements with the play.

Central to all of the contributions is the question: how can we understand the relationships between natural, political, cultural, fictional, literary, linguistic and virtual worlds, and why does this matter?.

Since women dominate ticket-buying audiences and plays by female writers apparently make more money, the stage ought to take this into consideration and reflect their experiences with more dedication and depth. (244) Since the audiences of the ancient Greeks were primarily comprised of Greek men, the theatre of the time clearly catered to the identity, concerns, and interests of its audience. Since the audiences of the twenty-first-century United States are differently comprised, it would be a benefit for this difference to be reflected in the season offerings of regional theatres. \"15 Edwards's injection of humor into the production offered a means of interrupting accepted patriarchal ways of thinking. Since such times, it has been quite common for women to direct King Lear and even to play the role, with a benefit to be gained by handing off the play to ambitious women directors in the hope of ameliorating, in the audience's response, the sexist rampages of Shakespeare's thunder- ous octogenarian. With Laura Hope, she is currently writing a book titled Adventures in Feminist Dramaturgy: The Road Less Traveled. Besides her work with Cal Shakes, she has been pro- duction dramaturg for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Word for Word Theater Company.

To a tenured academic whose contact with prisons takes place on the fringes of the correctional system, a number of questions might be posed. Kelly highlights the unacknowledged limitations that are encoded in some familiar teaching practices. Among other things Kelly discuss the teaching of Shakespeare in prisons by drawing on her teaching experiences in context with current theory on education and dramatherapy in locked facilities.

Discusses the review of a recent performance of Shakespeare's \"King Lear\" by the Sydney Corps in which the character Cordelia, who is supposed to be dead, laughed in the face of Lear. Looks at this scene in terms of Australia's reception, interpretation, and criticism of Shakespeare in general. Looks at the ways in which Australian critics have questioned the value of canonical literature, as well as the \"universality\" of Shakespeare's plays. Includes notes.

Kelly examines the role of women in William Shakespeare's \"King Lear\" and offers a feminist reading of the tragedy. By drawing attention to critical approaches to \"King Lear\" that favor or naturalize masculinity, several productions of the \"King Lear\" during the late 20th and early 21st century wrested the play from its traditional focus on the patriarchal character of Lear and opened the play up to alternate interpretations that emphasized the actions of its female characters. Various stagings of \"King Lear\" are analyzed, including a production at Wellesley College in Massachusetts directed by Maureen Shaw and a production at London's Young Vic Theatre directed by Helena Kaut-Howson.