It’s an honor to be researching in the Folger Shakespeare Library archives this summer, working on my project about early modern legal violence. In the picture left, I’m reading a 1580 letter from Anne Broughton to her father Richard Bagot about a jury who committed what we would call “jury nullification.” Anne writes,

this day a Jurie of glomer went on p..ression to the aboutes westner hall being m..shalled with tipstases with goodlie paper hatbandes for acquinting a prisoner at glourer that had killed on medlictmer Atkinsons man in glom..

At first I interpreted that the jury might be marching in protest, perhaps because they had been forced to acquit someone they believed to be guilty; juries’ decisions were often subordinate to the assize bench, and juries could be kept without food, fire, tobacco, and water until the judge deemed their verdict was “just.” But Richard Crompton, in L’authoritie et Jurisdiction des Courts, sheds light on what must be the same jury:

Eleven of a Jury… did acquite one Hodye of Felony before Sir Roger Manwood Chiefe Baron in his Circuit in Somersetshire against apparent evidence: they were fined in Star-chamber, and did weare papers in Westminster hall, circa 22.Eliz. the which my selfe-saw.

“22 Eliz.” is the twenty-second year of Elizabeth’s reign, or 1580, the Bagot family lived near Somersetshire, and as the jury “did weare papers in Westminster Hall,” it seems to be the jury that Anne describes. Crompton writes that the jury acquitted the defendant “against apparent evidence,” perhaps because they believed he killed “Atkinson’s man” in self-defense and that manslaughter was a more just verdict than murder. Eleven of the jury were thus sent to the Star Chamber,  convicted of perjury, fined, and forced

to march in a public shame procession, being marshaled by the court bailiffs (tipstaffs) while wearing paper hats (“goodlie paper hatbandes”) that likely read “for wilful perjury.” If convicted of jury nullification, jurists could be whipped, pilloried, have their ears cut off, be imprisoned, or “sometimes by more of these punishments joined together.” Their verdict provides insight into what juries were willing to do to push back against the law’s violence.

Juries could be indicted for their verdicts until 1670, when it was ruled that juries could no longer be compelled to vote against their conscience.

“Humanity does not gradually progress from combat to combat until it arrives at universal reciprocity, where the rule of law finally replaces warfare, humanity installs each of its violences in a system of rules and thus proceeds from domination to domination”

Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”

Shakespeare’s lines reverberate not only on stages, movie screens, and in classrooms, but also in courtrooms: he has been cited in more than 800 judicial opinions. This course will explore three of Shakespeare’s plays through the lens of the law, examining the ways in which justice, punishment, and litigation are a cultural practice often rooted in our shared stories. More specifically, all three of our plays this semester − King Lear, Measure for Measure, and Merchant of Venice − center around themes of the law’s violence. How violent does the law need to be to control violence? That’s the question that Shakespeare investigates, and one that we will consider in the context of our own legally violent society.

(The Chandos Portrait of William Shakespeare, c. 1600-1610, attributed to John Taylor. National Portrait Gallery, London.)

William Blake, Satan Watching Endearments of Adam and Eve. 1816.

For 350 years, John Milton’s Paradise Lost has awed, angered, and inspired its readers. It’s a poem of enormous ambition and profound beauty, one that novelists, classical composers, punk rock bands, political radicals, and contemporary filmmakers have engaged with in creative and provoking ways.  Written by one of the most brilliant and educated men of the English Renaissance, this epic poem probes the core human experiences — from the sweetness of romantic love to the corruption of the political state — all the while demanding that its readers make active choices.

“Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties,” Milton writes in Aeropagetica. Our course will center on knowing, uttering, and arguing freely about Paradise Lost and all that it enkindles.

This semester’s course emerges from a collaboration with Dr. Patricia Taylor. More than one hundred students in five classes will study Paradise Lost this spring.

Blake, William. Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve. 1816. Blake Archive. Illustrations to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Huntington Library. Web. 27 Dec. 2015.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays explore concerns about “faking it”: the anxious feeling people have about the authenticity of their social interactions. This course will examine three of Shakespeare’s plays (a comedy, a tragedy, and a history) through the lenses of authenticity and identity.   Students will learn to formulate and defend their points of view via written essays, oral presentations, visual analysis, and through electronic and nonverbal communication. We will engage with Shakespeare through new media (data-mining, info graphics, and digital research) as well as through traditional aesthetics (films, handmade paper, book art, and palimpsests).

Twelfth Night: Or What You Will 

The Life of Henry V

Mass incarceration, police brutality, torture, and botched executions raise questions about the violence of the law: Must the law be violent to control violence? Does the law’s violence promote justice or disrupt it? How are law and punishment portrayed in literature, media, and art? We will analyze theory, literature, and visual imagery of the law’s violence ranging from Supreme Court Cases to Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan to photographs from Ferguson, Missouri.

“Springes to catch woodcocks…”  This course will examine three of Shakespeare’s plays (a comedy, a tragedy, and a history) through the lens of authenticity and identity. Shakespeare lived in a time when it was crucial to put forth the right image in order to profit socially, politically, and materially, so late Elizabethans and early Stuarts were often torn between competing needs to protect and display themselves. Our current social media culture requires a similar crafting of public identity. This course will consider the ways that Shakespeare’s plays still speak to the ethics of authenticity. We will actively engage with Shakespeare through new media (data-mining and infographics) as well as through an aesthetic approach (film adaptations and book art).