, the William L. Safire Professor of Modern Letters in the , has plenty to say about William Shakespeare, as the world marks the 400th anniversary of his death in 2016. She returned to campus last fall, after spending a year studying and writing about the author during her travels to Italy, California and Australia.
Dympna Callaghan
The last 20 years have seen an “explosion of textual, literary and historical scholarship鈥� on the Bard of Avon, says Callaghan, who is based in the Department of English. 鈥淎 lot of it is just really digging and sustained research,鈥� she explains. 鈥淲e know vastly more about the context in which he wrote. We know more about London as a city and the theaters and how he worked.鈥�
Callaghan has two books about Shakespeare coming out this semester. One just out is (Bloomsbury, 2016), which she has co-edited with Suzanne Gossett. The book is a project of the Shakespeare Association of America, which Callaghan presided over from 2012-2013. The publisher calls the essay collection a “‘state of the nation’ look at Shakespeare criticism鈥� and a “stimulating exploration of where Shakespeare studies will go next.鈥�
Due out next month is a new edition of “A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), another collection that Callaghan edited. The book鈥檚 10 new essays include one by Amanda Eubanks Winkler, professor of music history and cultures in Arts and Sciences, who writes about Shakespeare鈥檚 music. Amy Burnette, a graduate student in English, writes about “The Winter鈥檚 Tale” for the anthology.
The first leg of Callaghan’s leave was a fellowship at the Bogliasco Centre for Arts and Humanities in Bogliasco, Italy. She spent a month at the Liguria Study Center on the Italian Riviera, working with religious historian Lori Anne Ferrell on a project examining Shakespeare and religion.
鈥淭his is a big and important topic,鈥� Callaghan says. 鈥淪cholars have been reticent to claim Shakespeare鈥檚 treatment of religion as relevant in any substantive way to the present.鈥� She points out that 鈥淪hakespeare wrote about the major belief systems of his day鈥擨slam and Judaism and, most obviously, Christianity, the European faith so badly fractured by the advent of the Reformation.鈥�
Callaghan and her co-author set out to make a bold claim. 鈥淲e may never know Shakespeare’s own religious temperament,鈥� Callaghan says. 鈥淲e can discern, however, the specter of sectarianism that underwrites Shakespeare鈥檚 plots. [Polish political activist] Jan Kott once famously claimed that, in violent, incomprehensible and arbitrary times, Shakespeare is our contemporary. Yet too few scholars dare to make and sustain this claim today鈥攐n behalf of literature, on behalf of the humanities, on behalf of Shakespeare.鈥�
In the next stop on Callaghan鈥檚 leave, she served as a visiting professor at Claremont Graduate University, and pursued research at San Marino鈥檚 Huntington Library, which holds early editions of Shakespeare鈥檚 works. Callaghan’s book “Hamlet: Language and Writing” (Bloomsbury, 2015) was published last spring. While at the Huntington, she gave several lectures, including 鈥淢urder Most Foul: What Makes Hamlet Great.鈥� At the California Shakespeare Festival, she delivered a keynote address about freedom of speech in Shakespeare鈥檚 England.
Callaghan concluded her travel with a visit to Australia, where she gave a presentation at the University of Melbourne, and was the Lloyd Davis Memorial Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland. There, she taught a graduate seminar on the relationship between poetry throughout history and political and personal freedom. She also delivered the 10th anniversary memorial public lecture for Davis, an expert in the verse, drama and prose of the English Renaissance, who died in 2005.
Callaghan’s whirlwind career reflects the eternal interest in Shakespeare, she says. The question that spurs her work is 鈥淗ow is it that a world before democracy, before freedom of speech, before freedom of religion produced the greatest writer that ever lived?鈥�
Scholars and theater-lovers remain interested in Shakespeare because of universal ideas he wrote about and the language in which he expressed them, she explains. Amid social, religious and political turmoil during England鈥檚 Reformation, Shakespeare 鈥渇ound a place for discourse in theater,鈥� she says. 鈥淔or example, Montague is the name of a prominent Catholic family in Elizabethan England,” she notes, referring to “Romeo and Juliet.” 鈥淭he most obvious feud in that time was religion,鈥� she says, “and the play raises questions about arranged marriages, sexual choice, identity鈥攖opics in the news today. A 2012 Iraqi production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as Sunni vs. Shiite, for example, shows the deep animosity people harbor on the grounds of race and religion. We can still learn from that.鈥�
“Othello”鈥檚 focus on racism reminds us that 鈥測ou can’t read what’s in someone’s heart,鈥� she says. 鈥淧eople who are different from you are either hated or desired.鈥� With so much discord in the world, 鈥淭hat’s where we should address our controversies鈥攊n art, not on the battlefield,鈥� she says.
In addition to her scholarship, Callaghan is working on the strategic plan for Arts and Sciences. She served as interim director of the Humanities Center, which is administered by Arts and Sciences, from 2013-2014. A highlight of her fall semester was introducing Stephen Greenblatt, a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary scholar, at the Rosamond Gifford Lecture Series in 黑料不打烊. Greenblatt, a Harvard University professor who contributed an essay to “Shakespeare in Our Time,” spoke to her class about “Twelfth Night.”
In 2019-20, Callaghan will return to the Huntington Library, where she has been awarded the Fletcher-Jones Distinguished Fellowship, an endowed position that honors a leading specialist in history or literature.
In the meantime, Callaghan is working on a book on Shakespeare’s poetry and the form of his verse, and is finishing up a new edition of “Romeo and Juliet: Texts and Contexts” (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003), due out this spring. She鈥檚 also working with Carol Faulkner, professor of history in the , on a project about the reception of Edwin Booth鈥檚 “Hamlet” during the Civil War. Booth鈥檚 acclaimed performance as Shakespeare鈥檚 Danish prince coincided with his brother John Wilkes Booth鈥檚 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
鈥淪hakespeare is so unique in his expression of ideas,鈥� Callaghan says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 still so much to learn.鈥�
