Coda. Craftsman Meets Historian: Shakespeare and Material Culture

Abstract

First presented at the 2021 online edition of the “Seminario Permanente di Studi Shakespeariani”, this paper takes its cue from Gary Taylor’s 2017 essay “Artiginality: Authorship after Postmodernism” and explores the coexistence and integration of the concepts of ‘craftsmanship’ and ‘originality’ within the Shakespearean macrotext. Considering the history plays to be the locus classicus for such conflation of the artisanal and the original, the paper specifically examines Henry V, Richard III (which is contrasted with Macbeth), and Pericles. At the same time, it also traces a movement from craftsmanship to art.