VII: "Shakespeare," The Year's Work In English Studies for  2020,  p.417. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the English Association.

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Hugh Macrae Richmond, Shakespeare Relocated: Studies in Historical Psychology, New York: Peter Lang, 2018.

On the theme of Shakespeare’s response to the Reformation, Shakespeare Relocated: Studies in Historical Psychology is a collection of Hugh Macrae Richmond’s previously published essays. Richmond’s attempt to plot the development of classical, medieval, and early modern literature through a critical lens he calls ‘syncretic criticism’... In the application of his syncretic critical approach to Shakespeare, Richmond’s essays read in much the same manner as cultural materialists and new historicists through the past forty years - with careful attention to historical, sociopolitical and religious contextualization, and a imaginative flair for close reading.                                        

One such example is Richmond’s attention to parallels between Richard III and medieval morality plays that complicate the role of the Vice. He notes Shakespeare’s anti-hero as displaying signs of Calvinist ‘self-indictment’ and ‘damning self-awareness’ that associate the fifteenth-century king with proto-Puritan beliefs of universal weakness. While the collection of essays claims to ‘relocate’ Shakespeare, this publication is more a case of ‘locating Richmond’ within the six decades of his academic endeavour.

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                                                         Shakespeare Relocated :  Studies in Historical Psychology

                                                             Hugh M. Richmond,  New York; Bern:  Peter Lang, 2018.

            "Hugh Richmond extends his previous published essays to illustrate the development of modern attitudes to religion, politics and sexuality. He traces the complex evolution from classical and medieval sources to Reformation and Renaissance ones by reviewing literary themes, style, and attitudes. He stresses Shakespeare's unique place in this evolution in Historical Psychology as an author profoundly affected by the Reformation. This study of developing sensibility employs a method of critical analysis bridging the apparent gap between scholarly research and practical criticism, and transcending the discontinuities and tensions in modern literary theory. He seeks to harmonize the critical alertness of the New Critics with the traditional scholarship of their opponents, while avoiding the narrowness of many fashionable modern methodologies such as the New Historicism, Neo-Freudianism, Radical Feminism, etc. This historical perspective involves a comparative critical procedure defined as "Syncretic Criticism." It combines close reading and a comprehensive historical perspective over previous literary analogues, in order to identify distinctive progressions towards many modern attitudes about politics, morality, sexuality, and fashion."

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

I.1 Shakespeare Relocated: Studies in Historical Psychology

II: HISTORICAL PSYCHOLOGY VERSUS “LITERARY” CRITICISM

II.1 “New Criticism” as a Humanist Fallacy

II.2 Personal Identity and Literary Personae

II.3 Shakespeare and “Globe”-alization

II.4 Shakespeare and Prehistory

II.5 Richard III and the Reformation

III. HOW TO WRITE A RENAISSANCE PLAY

III.1 Amatory Magnetism: Shakespeare’s Algorithm

III.2 Feminist and Gay Readings of Shakespeare Performances

III.3 The Triple Bond: Cinthio, Lope De Vega, and Shakespeare

III.4 Romeo and Juliet and Lope de Vega’s Castelvines y Monteses

IV. COMICAL-HISTORICAL

IV.1 Shakespeare’s Navarre

IV.2 Comical Historical: Literary History beyond Historicism

IV.3 Shakespeare’s Anti-Reformation Comedies

IV.4 Ethnic Conflict in Much Ado

IV.5 Much Ado in Context

V. “REFORMED” LOVE POETRY

V.1 The Dark Lady as Reformation Mistress

V.2. Shakespeare’s Emilias

V.3 Aretino Bettered: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130

V.4 Donne’s Master: the Young Shakespeare

V.5. Proto-Feminism: Seductions in Shakespeare and Milton

VI. TRAGEDY TRANSCENDED

VI.1 “To be or not to be…” Reinterpreted

VI.2 Iago as Director

VI.3 Enjoying King Lear

VII. INDEX