Meghan C. Andrews

This project argues that Shakespeare's social relationships and institutional affiliations greatly affected the composition of his works. Combining an examination of his intertextual engagements with an investigation of the social contexts through which he knew his fellow authors, it traces how Shakespeare's writing practice grew in a dialectical process with his peers' writing, and how institutional atmospheres such as that of the Middle Temple conditioned this dialectic. The dissertation, contending that we need to study these influences when assessing his literary agenda, reads Shakespeare's works against the backdrop of his social networks in order to achieve a fuller understanding of the works themselves, his writing practice, and his place in early modern literary culture.

This project offers a new account of Shakespeare’s career by arguing that his social networks and institutional affiliations strongly influenced his works. It demonstrates that the social environments Shakespeare inhabited possessed distinctive literary discourses to which he contributed, and generates new readings of his most enigmatic plays by placing them back in these original discursive contexts. The grant will facilitate completion of the manuscript by supporting research and writing during the summer and fall of 2019.