Amy Lidster
I received my first degree in English Literature from the University of London in 2013, an MA in English (Shakespeare in History) from University College London in 2014, and a PhD in English Literature from King's College London in 2017, which was funded by the AHRC. I joined Jesus College and the University of Oxford in 2021 as a Departmental Lecturer in English Language and Literature. Prior to this, I worked at King’s College London as a Postdoctoral Research Associate on a Leverhulme-funded project called 'Wartime Shakespeare'. I was a 2018/19 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Society for Renaissance Studies, and have been awarded research fellowships by the Huntington Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library. I have taught at King’s College London, Brunel University, the University of Roehampton, and Shakespeare’s Globe. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Research Interests
My principal research interests are in Shakespeare and early modern literature, with an emphasis on the conditions of theatrical and textual production and practices of historiography. My first monograph, 'Publishing the History Play in the Time of Shakespeare: Stationers Shaping a Genre', was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. It explores the relationship between the publishing of history plays and the different ways in which these plays were read and used during the early modern period. My book draws attention to the assumptions that underlie discussions of the history play as a genre, particularly in relation to the critical dominance of Shakespeare’s English histories. It concentrates on publishers and argues that these agents and their networks have controlled the survival of history plays from the commercial stages and shaped the plays’ presentation in print in ways that both disclose and direct readings of the plays.
As part of my work on ‘Wartime Shakespeare’, I explore how Shakespeare has been used in performance to inform and mobilize public opinion during periods of war and war-threatening crises from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. My research investigates the position of Shakespeare’s plays as part of wartime propaganda over the longue durée, showing how these appropriations relate to narratives of conflict, to developments in war reporting, to Shakespeare’s changing cultural capital as a figure of national and global significance, and to popular attitudes towards war efforts. A monograph based on my findings – Wartime Shakespeare: Performing Narratives of Conflict – was published by Cambridge University Press in October 2023. With Sonia Massai, I coedited a collection of essays (Shakespeare at War: A Material History, CUP 2023) and curated an exhibition at The National Army Museum, London, which will be held between October 2023 and September 2024.
I developed the research from my SRS Postdoctoral Fellowship (more details here) into a third monograph – Authorships and Authority in Early Modern Dramatic Paratexts – which is forthcoming with Routledge. This book concentrates on ideas of authorship and authority as they are explored in the paratexts of playbooks published in England between 1500 and 1660. It considers how plays from the commercial stages, re-presented as books, variously engage with questions of what it means to be an author, a reviser, a publisher, or a patron of a play and conceptualizes how a range of different agents act as ‘authorizers’. My book argues that the idea of the author (as it refers to the individual(s) who wrote a play) is subsumed within discussions of other forms of authorization – the author is one among many agents. But there is also clarity within this fragmentation of ‘authority’: some dramatists and stationers were consistently invested in putting forward their own distinctive views about playbook authorization and the monograph concentrates in particular on the influence and lasting significance of these individuals.
In addition to these three main projects, I am co-editing Edward III with Sonia Massai for Linked Early Modern Drama Online (LEMDO) and preparing the introduction for the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Henry VI Part 1.
Twitter: @amy_lidster
Address: United Kingdom
Research Interests
My principal research interests are in Shakespeare and early modern literature, with an emphasis on the conditions of theatrical and textual production and practices of historiography. My first monograph, 'Publishing the History Play in the Time of Shakespeare: Stationers Shaping a Genre', was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. It explores the relationship between the publishing of history plays and the different ways in which these plays were read and used during the early modern period. My book draws attention to the assumptions that underlie discussions of the history play as a genre, particularly in relation to the critical dominance of Shakespeare’s English histories. It concentrates on publishers and argues that these agents and their networks have controlled the survival of history plays from the commercial stages and shaped the plays’ presentation in print in ways that both disclose and direct readings of the plays.
As part of my work on ‘Wartime Shakespeare’, I explore how Shakespeare has been used in performance to inform and mobilize public opinion during periods of war and war-threatening crises from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. My research investigates the position of Shakespeare’s plays as part of wartime propaganda over the longue durée, showing how these appropriations relate to narratives of conflict, to developments in war reporting, to Shakespeare’s changing cultural capital as a figure of national and global significance, and to popular attitudes towards war efforts. A monograph based on my findings – Wartime Shakespeare: Performing Narratives of Conflict – was published by Cambridge University Press in October 2023. With Sonia Massai, I coedited a collection of essays (Shakespeare at War: A Material History, CUP 2023) and curated an exhibition at The National Army Museum, London, which will be held between October 2023 and September 2024.
I developed the research from my SRS Postdoctoral Fellowship (more details here) into a third monograph – Authorships and Authority in Early Modern Dramatic Paratexts – which is forthcoming with Routledge. This book concentrates on ideas of authorship and authority as they are explored in the paratexts of playbooks published in England between 1500 and 1660. It considers how plays from the commercial stages, re-presented as books, variously engage with questions of what it means to be an author, a reviser, a publisher, or a patron of a play and conceptualizes how a range of different agents act as ‘authorizers’. My book argues that the idea of the author (as it refers to the individual(s) who wrote a play) is subsumed within discussions of other forms of authorization – the author is one among many agents. But there is also clarity within this fragmentation of ‘authority’: some dramatists and stationers were consistently invested in putting forward their own distinctive views about playbook authorization and the monograph concentrates in particular on the influence and lasting significance of these individuals.
In addition to these three main projects, I am co-editing Edward III with Sonia Massai for Linked Early Modern Drama Online (LEMDO) and preparing the introduction for the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Henry VI Part 1.
Twitter: @amy_lidster
Address: United Kingdom
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Books by Amy Lidster
Articles by Amy Lidster
This article offers a contrastive analysis of the monarchs’ representations in selected war manuals and in Shakespeare’s 'Henry V' and the apocryphal 'Edward III'. It argues that, while the war manuals examine the legacies of Edward and Henry, they are less detailed and critical than the plays, which offer potential for radical deconstruction of monarchical authority. Mediating between celebration and criticism, the plays question two aspects that had been closely associated with the popular reputations of these monarchs: a model of kingship that relies significantly on the person of the monarch and the legitimacy and expediency of foreign conquests. As the most sustained, individual accounts of Edward III and Henry V from the last decade of the Elizabethan period, the stage plays form an important part of the historiographical tradition and evaluation of these monarchs.
Chapters by Amy Lidster
Editions by Amy Lidster
Conference Papers by Amy Lidster
This article offers a contrastive analysis of the monarchs’ representations in selected war manuals and in Shakespeare’s 'Henry V' and the apocryphal 'Edward III'. It argues that, while the war manuals examine the legacies of Edward and Henry, they are less detailed and critical than the plays, which offer potential for radical deconstruction of monarchical authority. Mediating between celebration and criticism, the plays question two aspects that had been closely associated with the popular reputations of these monarchs: a model of kingship that relies significantly on the person of the monarch and the legitimacy and expediency of foreign conquests. As the most sustained, individual accounts of Edward III and Henry V from the last decade of the Elizabethan period, the stage plays form an important part of the historiographical tradition and evaluation of these monarchs.
Available: https://medium.com/@shakespearesglobe/how-the-area-of-st-pauls-catherdral-influenced-shakespeare-s-work-5cca30a695e5
Available: http://malonesociety.com/news/john-edward-kerry-prize-guest-post-by-amy-lidster/