Brian Carroll

The State of Shakespeare

Shakespeare's Sceptered Isle November 30, 2022 What did it mean to be “English” in Shakespeare’s day? How may Shakespeare’s most patriotic play, Henry V, have shaped notions of English identity ever since? Brian Carroll’s new book, Shakespeare’s Sceptered Isle: Finding English National Identity in the Plays examines hints in Shakespeare’s text about what his audiences might have thought being “English” was – and perhaps more revealingly, what (or who) wasn’t. Click here to follow along with the text. Click here for a First Folio version of the text.