Simon Palfrey is an English Scholar at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and a Fellow in English at Brasenose College,

. He specialises in

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and

Renaissance literature Renaissance literature refers to European literature which was influenced by the intellectual and cultural tendencies associated with the Renaissance. The literature of the Renaissance was written within the general movement of the Renaissance, ...

Life and career

Palfrey was born in

Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, grew up in Australia and was a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

. 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." It was listed as an "International Book of the Year" in 2004 by the '' Times Literary Supplement''. In the TLS,

Jonathan Bate Sir Andrew Jonathan Bate, CBE, FBA, FRSL (born 26 June 1958), is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, poet, playwright, novelist and scholar. He specialises in Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism. He is Foundation Profes ...

said that although the work was "sometimes wayward," the book was 'always provocative of serious thought'. Bate could think 'of no critic since Empson who has teased out so much so lucidly and (usually) so persuasively from the intricacies of Shakespearean language." Palfrey's earlier book, ''Late Shakespeare: A New World of Worlds'' was described by Ann Jennalie Cook as 'among the most significant books of the year', 'a sweeping vision of these plays' language...indispensable for its subject', and as "a valuable contribution to the political reading of Renaissance literary forms" which challenged the traditional reading of Shakespeare's four romances. Russ McDonald writing in ''Shakespeare Quarterly'' described ''Late Shakespeare'' as "original, quirky, occasionally brilliant, and almost always demanding." Palfrey's 2007 collaboration with theatre historian Tiffany Stern, ''Shakespeare in Parts'', was awarded the 2009 Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society's David Bevington Prize for best new book. Palfrey's latest work is a collaborative novel written with fellow Shakespeare scholar

Ewan Fernie Ewan Fernie is a British scholar and writer. He is professor, fellow and chair of Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. He is also director of the pioneering 'Everything to Everybody' Project, a collaboratio ...

Publications

* ''Late Shakespeare: A New World of Worlds'', Oxford University Press, (1997), . * ''Doing Shakespeare (Arden Shakespeare Third Series)'', Thomson Learning EMEA, (2004), . * "Macbeth and Kierkegaard" in ''Shakespeare Survey'', Volume 57: "Macbeth and its Afterlife," (2004), Cambridge, Edited by: Peter Holland. * 'The Rape of Marina', *Shakespeare International Yearbook 2007* * ''Shakespeare in Parts'', co-written wit
Tiffany Stern
(2007, by Oxford University Press). * ''Poor Tom: Living King Lear'', University of Chicago Press, (2014), Editor, with

, of Shakespeare Now! series:Shakespeare Now!
/ref> * ''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) * Shakespearean Metaphysics, by Michael Witmore (2008) * Shakespeare's Modern Collaborators, by Lukas Erne (2008) * Shakespeare's Double Helix, by henry S. Turner (2008)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Palfrey, Simon Australian Rhodes Scholars Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford