Shakespeare and the Visual Imagination

Reviews / Votes

'Sillars' concern is with the concept of visual art as much as it is with art objects themselves. The argument that the theatre itself has a specific visual identity and that Shakespeare uses visual ideas to explore that identity is an especially fresh approach and one that works to complicate the depictions of art objects in the plays. This is a remarkable and important book and one that demonstrates compendious knowledge of both the literary and visual traditions and casts a genuinely new light on Shakespeare's works.' Dympna C. Callaghan, Syracuse University 'Stuart Sillars uncovers striking parallels between Shakespeare's writing and the rich visual imagery of the period. This beautifully illustrated book offers substantial new insights to anyone interested in either mode of representation, or the relations between them.' Catherine Belsey, Swansea University 'Clearly organised, logically structured, and beautifully illustrated, Stuart Sillars' Shakespeare and the Visual Imagination is a well-documented and insightful study ... enlarging the perspective on the Shakespearean canon and opening up new ways of engaging his plays and poems.' American, British and Canadian Studies '... this is a major contribution to our understanding of Shakespeare's relationship with the visual culture of his age. Through its focus on art, rhetoric, and intermedial exchange, this beautifully produced and carefully argued book enriches our sense of the metatheatrical and metapoetic - as well as the visual - across the Shakespearean canon.' Richard Meek, Renaissance Quarterly