Simon Palfrey

Simon Palfrey is an English Scholar at Oxford University and a Fellow in English at Brasenose College, Oxford University. [ [http://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/prospectus/as/index.html List of Brasenose Fellows] ] He specialises in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature. [ [http://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/prospectus/ug/english.html English at Brasenose College] ]

Palfrey was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, grew up in Australia and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He is known for his approach to Shakespeare's work, in which he discusses the dynamism of the playwright's language, its psychological effects and the actorly and bodily decisions generated by word-use.

His book "Doing Shakespeare" has been called "an original and long-overdue resource for theatre scholar-artists." [Review by Adrianne Adderley, " [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1457/is_200601/ai_n18834174 Theater History Studies] " January 2006] It was listed as an "International Book of the Year" in 2004 by the "Times Literary Supplement". In the TLS, Jonathan Bate said that although the work was "sometimes wayward," Palfrey "tease [s] out so much so lucidly and (usually) so persuasively from the intricacies of Shakespearean language." [ [http://www.akademika.no/vare.php?ean=9781904271543 Review copied from the Times Literary Supplement, October, 2004] , with other reviews] His earlier book, "Late Shakespeare: A New World of Worlds" was described as "a valuable contribution to the political reading of Renaissance literary forms" and challenged the traditional reading of Shakespeare's four romances. [Stephen Cohen, review in "Sixteenth Century Journal" 29.4 (1998), pp. 1166-68.] Russ McDonald writing in "Shakespeare Quarterly" described "Late Shakespeare" as "original, quirky, occasionally brilliant, and almost always demanding." [McDonald, "Shakespeare Quarterly", 5.2 (2001), pp. 298-300. ( [http://www.muse.uq.edu.au/login?uri=/journals/shakespeare_quarterly/v052/52.2mcdonald.html Project MUSE (subscription)] )] Palfrey's methods have been both praised and deplored as a mixture, idiosyncratic, and bastardized, and even in largely positive reviews his writing has been called a "torture to read." [McDonald, "op. cit." p. 300]

Publications

* "Late Shakespeare: A New World of Worlds" , Oxford University Press, (1997), ISBN13: 9780198186892.
* "Doing Shakespeare (Arden Shakespeare Third Series)", Thomson Learning EMEA, (2004), ISBN-13: 9781904271543. [ [http://www.ardenshakespeare.com/catalogue/product.aspx?isbn=1904271545 Product Guide: Doing Shakespeare - Arden Shakespeare] ]
* "Macbeth and Kierkegaard" in "Shakespeare Survey", Volume 57: "Macbeth and its Afterlife," (2004), Cambridge, Edited by: Peter Holland. [ [http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/41207/frontmatter/9780521841207_frontmatter.pdf Shakespeare Survey, Volume 57: Macbeth and its Afterlife] ]
* "Shakespeare in Parts", co-written with [http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/Staff%20Page%20Profiles/Stern.htm Tiffany Sterne] (to be published September, 2007, by Oxford University Press). ISBN-13: 978-0199272051

Editor, with Ewan Fernie, of Shakespeare Now! series: [ [http://shakespearenowseries.blogspot.com/ Shakespeare Now!] ]
* "Shakespeare Thinking" by Philip Davis, (2007).
* "Shakespeare Inside: The Bard Behind Bars" by Amy Scott-Douglass, (2007).
* "Godless Shakespeare" by Eric Mallin, (2007).
* "To Be or Not to Be" by Douglas Bruster, (2007).

References