Stephen Booth (academic)

Stephen Booth is a professor of English literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He first attracted attention with his controversial 1969 essays "On the Value of Hamlet" and "An Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets", in which he reread the works in a manner considerably different from contemporary Anglo-American readings. Frank Kermode praised the former essay in the New York Review of Books in 1970 as being worth several full books of Shakespeare studies.

In 1977 he published an edition with "analytic commentary" of the sonnets, again attracting both controversy and praise within the academy for his precision and bold rereadings. In 1983 followed "King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy", probably his best-known work after the study of the sonnets. His most recent book is 1998's "Precious Nonsense: The Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's Epitaphs on His Children, and "Twelfth Night"'.

Works

Literary Criticism

(This list is not complete.)

"The Book Called" Holinshed's Chronicles. Book Club of California. San Francisco, 1969.

"On the Value of Hamlet" in "Reinterpretations of Elizabethan Drama: Selected Papers from the English Institute". Ed. Norman Rabkin. New York: Columbia U P, 1969. 137-176. (excerpts at [http://books.google.com/books?id=_W4htMy5zlcC&pg=PA225&dq=%22stephen+booth%22+shakespeare&as_brr=3&ei=0UY6R7vBMYmssgP-x_X2AQ&sig=eXWdzoT5b8TM-tOIWolHTK3UI6E Google Book Search] )

"An Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets". New Haven, 1969 [paperback, 1972] .

"A Sullied, Sallied, Solid Text," "The New York Review of Books", 21:20 (December 12, 1974) ( [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=9310 excerpt] )

"Shakespeare's Sonnets, Edited with Analytic Commentary". New Haven, 1977 (Rev. ed., 1978; paperback, 1979; Rev.ed., 2000). (excerpts at [http://books.google.com/books?id=2cY-9hOIc5IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22stephen+booth%22+shakespeare&as_brr=3&ei=0UY6R7vBMYmssgP-x_X2AQ&sig=ywuiw7hQ0baBfr8i2QxnOnvqOKg#PPP1,M1 Google Book Search] )

"Exit Pursued by a Gentleman Born" in "Shakespeare's Art from a Comparative Prospective", ed. W.M. Aycock (Lubbock, 1981), pp. 51-66.

"Milton's 'How soon hath time': A Colossus in a Cherrystone," "ELH", 49 (1982), 449-67 (with Jordan Flyer).

King Lear, Macbeth, "Indefinition, & Tragedy". New Haven, 1983.

"Poetic Richness: A Preliminary Audit" in "Pacific Coast Philology", XIX, No.1-2 (1984), 68-78.

"The Shakespearean Actor as Kamikaze Pilot", "Shakespeare Quarterly", 36 (1985), 553-70.

"The Best "Othello" I Ever Saw", "Shakespeare Quarterly", 40 (1989), 332-36.

"Liking" Julius Caesar [pamphlet] . Ashland, Oregon, 1991.

"The Shenandoah Shakespeare Express," "Shakespeare Quarterly", 43 (1992), 476-83.

"Close Reading without Readings" in "Shakespeare Reread: The Texts in New Contexts", ed. Russ McDonald (Ithaca: Cornell, 1994), pp. 42-55. (excerpts at [http://books.google.com/books?id=VFsYlXbEydsC&pg=PA42&dq=%22stephen+booth%22+shakespeare&as_brr=3&ei=0UY6R7vBMYmssgP-x_X2AQ&sig=k5wD3GVNKfDnhM5h8FP5nAtUss0#PPA42,M1 Google Book Search] )

"The Coherences of "1 Henry IV" and of "Hamlet" in "Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching" Hamlet "and" 1 Henry IV, ed. Peggy O'Brien (New York: Washington Square Press, 1994), pp. 32-46.

"Twelfth Night" and "Othello": Those Extraordinary Twins" in "Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Twelfth Night and Othello", ed. Peggy O'Brien (New York: Washington Square Press, 1995), pp. 22-32.

"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and All Others," "Shakespeare Quarterly", 41 (1990), 262-68. Reprinted in "Teaching Literature: A Collection of Essays on Theory and Practice", ed. L.A. Jacobus (1996).

"Precious Nonsense: The Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's Epitaphs on His Children, and" Twelfth Night. Berkeley, 1998

"Shakespeare's Language and the Language of Shakespeare's Time", "Shakespeare Survey" 50 (1998), 1-17. (excerpts at [http://books.google.com/books?id=Z0b5vsqmr6QC&pg=PA2&dq=%22stephen+booth%22+shakespeare&as_brr=3&ei=0UY6R7vBMYmssgP-x_X2AQ&sig=156LDcKGtgruQUTgOAF6ADrrK6A#PPA1,M1 Google Book Search] )

"A Long, Dull Poem by William Shakespeare", "Shakespeare Studies", 25 (1998), 229-37. (excerpts at [http://books.google.com/books?id=-iZhhxVqvqAC&pg=PA229&lpg=PA229&dq=%22stephen+booth%22+shakespeare&source=web&ots=96JA46Q8Qi&sig=88sLcWtOEfvKjoWvI1dJebfStwA#PPA229,M1 Google Book Search] )

"On the Aesthetics of Acting," in "Shakespearean Illuminations", ed. Jay L. Halio and Hugh Richmond (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1998), pp. 255-66.

"The Physics of Hamlet’s ‘Rogue and Peasant Slave’ Speech" in "A Certain Text: Close Readings and Textual Studies on Shakespeare and Others", ed., Linda Anderson and Janis Lull (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2002), pp. 75-93.

Honors and Awards

* [http://www.mla.org/resources/awards/awards_winners/pastwinners_annual/pastwinners_lowell James Russell Lowell Prize] from the Modern Language Association for "Shakespeare's Sonnets" (1977)
* [http://teaching.berkeley.edu/goodteachers/booth.html Distinguished Teaching Award] from the University of California at Berkeley (1982)

Persondata
NAME = Booth, Stephen
SHORT DESCRIPTION = American academic
DATE OF BIRTH = unknown
PLACE OF BIRTH = United States
DATE OF DEATH = Still alive
PLACE OF DEATH = Still alive.