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book: Mediatic Shakespeare
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Mediatic Shakespeare

The Dynamics of Orality, Script and Print in the Plays and Poems
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025

About this book

Shakespeare produced his works during a media shift that was unmatched – until our own.

Mediatic Shakespeare by media theorist Richard Cavell examines how Shakespeare’s writing engaged with the cultural upheaval of an era shifting rapidly from spoken traditions towards print materials. Cavell argues that print was an active cultural force that was in the process of reshaping Shakespeare’s world and work. Nostalgic for oral communality, Shakespeare engaged guardedly with print, producing a media dynamic that resonates throughout his work.

Drawing on media theorists from Marshall McLuhan to Friedrich Kittler and Bernhard Siegert, Cavell traces Shakespeare’s engagement with the effects of a media ecology in which knowing and being were aggressively in flux.
Structured across four chapters, Mediatic Shakespeare explores Shakespeare’s media ecology, the unsettling interfaces of orality and literacy, the breakdown of the sensus communis, and the implications for his work of the printing involution.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Richard Cavell Richard Cavell is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia and co-founder of their media studies program.

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  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    vii
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    List of Illustrations

    ix
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    Acknowledgments

    xi
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    Introduction Mediatic Shakespeare

    1
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    Chapter One “Offices ... of mediation”: Shakespeare’s Media Ecology

    9
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    Chapter Two “Speech ... well penned”: Interfaces of Orality and Literacy

    41
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    Chapter Three “Th’untuned and jarring senses”: The Breakdown of the Sensus Communis

    88
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    Chapter Four “A copie out of mine”: The Printing Involution

    131
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    Conclusion From the Songs of Apollo to the Words of Mercury

    168
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    Notes

    175
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    Bibliography

    249
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    Index

    273
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 31, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781487565374
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
304
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https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487565374
eBook ISBN: 9781487565374
Keywords for this book
Shakespeare; media revolution; print culture; orality and literacy; early modern England; media theory; Marshall McLuhan; Friedrich Kittler; textual authority; media effect; literacy transition; print technology
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
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