By exploring Shakespeare's use of law and justice themes in the context of historical and contemporary criminological thinking, this book challenges criminologists to expand their spheres of inquiry to avenues that have yet to be explored or integrated into the discipline. Crime writers, including William Shakespeare, were some of the earliest investigators of the criminal mind. However, since the formalization of criminology as a discipline, citations from literary works have often been omitted, despite their interdisciplinary nature. Taking various Shakespearean plays and characters as case studies, this book opens novel theoretical avenues for conceptualizing crime and justice issues. What types of crimes did Shakespeare's characters commit? What were the motivations put forth for these crimes? What type of social control did Shakespeare advocate? By utilizing a content analysis procedure, the author confirms that many of the crimes that plague society today were also prevalent in Shakespeare's time. She gleans twelve criminological theories as motivations for character deviance. Character analysis also provides valuable insight into Shakespeare's notions of formal and informal social control.

Criminals as Animals from Shakespeare to Lombroso demonstrates how animal metaphors have been used to denigrate persons identified as criminal in literature, law, and science. Its three-part history traces the popularization of the 'criminal beast' metaphor in late sixteenth-century England, the troubling of the trope during the long eighteenth century, and the late nineteenth-century discovery of criminal atavism. With chapters on rogue pamphlets, Shakespeare, Webster, Jonson, Defoe and Swift, Godwin, Dickens, and Lombroso, the book illustrates how ideologically inscribed metaphors foster transfers between law, penal practices, and literature. Criminals as Animals concludes that criminal-animal metaphors continue to negatively influence the treatment of prisoners, suspected terrorists, and the poor even today.

This book speaks to those interested in where and why Shakespeare’s work is used to capture the transformative intentions of different areas of Applied Theatre practice (Prison, Disability, Therapy), representing a foundational study which considers subsequent histories and potential challenges when engaging with Shakespeare’s work. This is grounded in a case study analysis of three salient British Theatre Companies: The Education Shakespeare Company (prison), the Blue Apple Theatre Company (Disability), and the Combat Veteran Players (therapy).

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Crime has been present in all cultures and societies, since the beginning of time. This work focuses on the punishments common in England around the time of Shakespeare and Milton, presenting descriptions of more than fifty criminal cases. Information comes from narratives printed for the popular news media at the time of the event. Details of everyday life in England and facts about the English legal environment of the era are brought to light. Also revealed through the narratives are issues present in society today--i. e., the status of women, poverty, and corruption. Individual cases are discussed under chapters devoted to specific types of crimes.

A social history of how murder was committed, investigated, and punished in Stuart England examines a range of specific cases while discussing the seventeenth-century public's fascination with violence as reflected in its overflowing courtrooms and numerous crime-inspired works of art.

Italians found another way to engage with Shakespeare besides opera. In 1923, Italian intellectual Piero Gobetti wrote that his age would be remembered as a curious chapter in the reception history of Shakespeare, when the Bard got entangled with ideas of criminal anthropology. In fact, the uses of Shakespeare by Lombroso’s school are now forgotten. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Shakespeare began to be portrayed as a genius who anticipated the findings of the Italian Positivist School, or, alternatively, as an authority who could debunk them. Shakespeare’s own psyche and the characters of his plays were explored and pathologised. These studies occasionally percolated into the practices of courthouses, prisons, hospitals, and asylums, and had an impact on the performance of Shakespeare’s plays. This volume provides an edition of hitherto uncollected primary sources which document these uses of Shakespeare. Each text has a parallel English translation, and is introduced by a preface providing details about the context and its main discursive stances. The volume also features a critical introduction and explanatory notes.