Booth studied at Harvard University (A.B., Ph.D.) and the University of Cambridge (B.A., M.A.) where he was a Marshall Scholar.[2] He was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1968 and a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1970-71. In 1991, Georgetown University gave him an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters. He received the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1995.[3]
Booth first attracted attention with his controversial 1969 essays On the Value of Hamlet and An Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets. He pointed out the "mental gymnastics" of close reading.[4] He notes that "all of us were brought up on the idea that what poets say is sublime – takes us beyond reason; my commentary tries to describe the physics by which we get there."[5]Frank Kermode praised On the Value of Hamlet in the New York Review of Books in 1970 as being worth several full books of Shakespeare studies.[6]
In 1977 he published an edition with "analytic commentary" of the sonnets for which he won both the 1977 James Russell Lowell Prize and the 1978 Explicator Prize.[7]Shakespeare's Sonnets, Edited with Analytic Commentary was well-received, described as a "heroic enterprise" and "something of a miracle."[8][9] Paul Alpers, a pre-eminent scholar of the English Renaissance said that Booth's close readings are the "equivalent of a scientific breakthrough." G. F. Waller, of the Dalhousie Review, said his edition "constitute[d] a landmark in Shakespearean criticism... [It] is a work of first-rate importance, hopefully a precursor of a long-needed revolution in our understanding of reading Shakespeare."[10]
Booth published King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy in 1983, probably his best-known work after the study of the sonnets. His most recent book, Precious Nonsense: The Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's Epitaphs on His Children, and Twelfth Night explores "what is it we value literature for. And what is it in the works we value most highly that makes us value them above others like them."[11] These questions are central to his literary analysis.
Worksedit
Among Booth's published works are:
The Book Called Holinshed's Chronicles: An Account of Its Inception, Purposes, Contributors, Contents, Publication, Revision, and Influence on William Shakespeare. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1969.
"On the Value of Hamlet" in Reinterpretations of Elizabethan Drama: Selected Papers from the English Institute, ed. Norman Rabkin, 137-176. New York: Columbia U P, 1969.
An Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969 [paperback, 1972].
"Shakespeare at Valley Forge: The International Shakespeare Association Congress, 1976." Shakespeare Quarterly 27, no. 3 (1976): 231-42.
"Syntax as Rhetoric in Richard II," Mosaic, 10:3 (Spring 1977), 87-103.
"Shakespeare in California and Utah." Shakespeare Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1977): 229-44.
Shakespeare's Sonnets, Edited with Analytic Commentary. New Haven, 1977 (Rev. ed., 1978; paperback, 1979; Rev.ed., 2000). (excerpts at Google Books)
"Seven Directors at a Blow." Shakespeare Quarterly 29, no. 2 (1978): 308,10, 312-14.
"Shakespeare in the San Francisco Bay Area." Shakespeare Quarterly 29, no 2 (1978): 267-78.
"Speculations on Doubling in Shakespeare’s Plays," in Shakespeare: The Theatrical Dimension. Ed. Philip C. McGuire, David A. Samuelson (AMS Studies in the Renaissance, 1979).
"Henry IV, Part Two and the Aesthetics of Failure" in The Shakespeare Plays: A Study Guide for the Second Season. Ed. John F. Andrews. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1980, 89-93.
"Exit Pursued by a Gentleman Born" in Shakespeare's Art from a Comparative Prospective, ed. W.M. Aycock (Lubbock, 1981), 51–66.
"Milton's 'How Soon Hath Time': A Colossus in a Cherrystone." ELH 49 no. 2 (1982): 449-67 (with Jordan Flyer).
"King Lear," "Macbeth," Indefinition and Tragedy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
"The Shakespearean Actor as Kamikaze Pilot." Shakespeare Quarterly 36, no. 5 (1985): 553-70.
"Twelfth Night 1.1.: The Audience as Malvolio," in Shakespeare’s ‘Rough Magic’: Renaissance Essays in Honor of C. L. Barber. Ed. P. Erickson & C. Kahn (University of Delaware Press, 1985), 149-167.
"The Best Othello I Ever Saw", Shakespeare Quarterly 40, no. 3 (1989): 332-36.
"Liking Julius Caesar." Living with Shakespeare [pamphlet]. Ashland, Oregon: Southern Oregon State College Center for Shakespeare Studies, 1991.
"Close Reading without Readings" in Shakespeare Reread: The Texts in New Contexts, ed. Russ McDonald (Ithaca: Cornell, 1994), 42–55. (excerpts at Google Books)
"The Coherences of 1 Henry IV and of Hamlet" in Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Hamlet and 1 Henry IV, ed. Peggy O'Brien (New York: Washington Square Press, 1994), 32–46.
"Twelfth Night and Othello: Those Extraordinary Twins" in Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Twelfth Night and Othello, ed. Peggy O'Brien (New York: Washington Square Press, 1995), 22–32.
"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and All Others." Shakespeare Quarterly 41, no. 2 (1990): 262-68. Reprinted in Teaching Literature: A Collection of Essays on Theory and Practice, ed. L.A. Jacobus (1996).
"Precious Nonsense: The Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's Epitaphs on His Children, and Twelfth Night." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
"Shakespeare's Language and the Language of Shakespeare's Time." Shakespeare Survey 50 (1998), 1-17. (excerpts at Google Books)
"A Long, Dull Poem by William Shakespeare." Shakespeare Studies 25 (1998): 229-37. (excerpts at Google Books)
"On the Aesthetics of Acting," in Shakespearean Illuminations: Essays in Honor of Marvin Rosenberg, ed. Jay L. Halio and Hugh Richmond, 255–66. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1998.
"The Physics of Hamlet’s ‘Rogue and Peasant Slave’ Speech" in A Certain Text: Close Readings and Textual Studies on Shakespeare and Others in Honor of Thomas Clayton, ed., Linda Anderson and Janis Lull, 75–93. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2002.
"A Discourse on the Witty Partition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage, ed. Paul Menzer, 216-22. Selingrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2006.
"On the Eventfulness of Hero and Leander. In Christopher Marlowe the Craftsman: Lives, Stage and Page, ed. Sarah K. Scott and M. L. Stapleton, 125-36. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2010.
"Who Doesn't Listen in Shakespeare?" in Who Hears in Shakespeare? Auditory Worlds on Stage and Screen, ed. Laury Magnus and Walter W. Cannon, 235-40. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012.
^"Stephen Booth (1933-2020)". shaksper.net. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
^"Stephen Booth". American Shakespeare Center. July 5, 2018. from the original on October 5, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
^"Stephen Booth (1933-2020)". shaksper.net. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
^Williams, Travis D. (June 23, 2017). "Stephen Booth, Close Reading without Readings: Essays on Shakespeare and Others". Modern Philology. 115 (2): E99–E101. doi:10.1086/693144. ISSN 0026-8232.
^Shakespeare, William (2009), Tucker, Thomas George (ed.), "COMMENTARY", The Sonnets of Shakespeare, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 79–230, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511693762.004, ISBN978-0-511-69376-2, retrieved March 27, 2021
^Kermode, Frank (November 5, 1970). "A New Era in Shakespeare Criticism?". New York Review of Books. 15 (8).
^"Stephen Booth (1933-2020)". shaksper.net. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
^Barber, C. L. "'Full to Overflowing'". New York Review of Books. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
^Neely, Carol Thomas (1979). "Review of Shakespeare's Sonnets". Modern Philology. 77 (2): 210–214. doi:10.1086/390939. ISSN 0026-8232. JSTOR 437513.
^"Download Shakespearean Criticism, Volume 129: Criticism of William Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry, from the First Published Appraisals to Current Evaluations" (PDF). infinity.wecabrio.com. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
^STEPHEN., BOOTH (2021). PRECIOUS NONSENSE : the gettysburg address, ben jonson's epitaphs on his children, and twelfth... night. UNIV OF CALIFORNIA PRESS. ISBN978-0-520-36405-9. OCLC 1154111607.
Hinchliffe, Jillian; Frey, Seth (October 9, 2014). "Shakespeare's Genius is Nonsense: What the Bard can teach science about language and the limits of the human mind". Nautilus (18, Genius). ISSN 2372-1766.
Collins, Michael J. (2014). Reading What's There: Essays on Shakespeare in Honor of Stephen Booth. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
January 01, 1970
stephen, booth, academic, stephen, booth, april, 1933, november, 2020, professor, english, literature, university, california, berkeley, leading, shakespearean, scholar, stephen, boothbornstephen, walter, booth, 1933, april, 1933new, yorkdiednovember, 2020, 20. Stephen Booth April 20 1933 November 22 2020 1 was a professor of English literature at the University of California Berkeley He was a leading Shakespearean scholar Stephen BoothBornStephen Walter Booth 1933 04 20 April 20 1933New YorkDiedNovember 22 2020 2020 11 22 aged 87 Berkeley CaliforniaOccupationScholar University of California Berkeley ProfessorLanguageEnglishEducationPhillips Academy AndoverAlma materHarvard University BA PhD Trinity College Cambridge University BA MA SubjectShakespeare RenaissanceNotable worksShakespeare s Sonnets Edited with Analytic Commentary New Haven CT Yale UP 1977 Contents 1 Life 2 Works 3 Honors and awards 4 References 5 Further readingLife editBooth studied at Harvard University A B Ph D and the University of Cambridge B A M A where he was a Marshall Scholar 2 He was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1968 and a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1970 71 In 1991 Georgetown University gave him an honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters He received the OBE Order of the British Empire in 1995 3 Booth first attracted attention with his controversial 1969 essays On the Value of Hamlet and An Essay on Shakespeare s Sonnets He pointed out the mental gymnastics of close reading 4 He notes that all of us were brought up on the idea that what poets say is sublime takes us beyond reason my commentary tries to describe the physics by which we get there 5 Frank Kermode praised On the Value of Hamlet in the New York Review of Books in 1970 as being worth several full books of Shakespeare studies 6 In 1977 he published an edition with analytic commentary of the sonnets for which he won both the 1977 James Russell Lowell Prize and the 1978 Explicator Prize 7 Shakespeare s Sonnets Edited with Analytic Commentary was well received described as a heroic enterprise and something of a miracle 8 9 Paul Alpers a pre eminent scholar of the English Renaissance said that Booth s close readings are the equivalent of a scientific breakthrough G F Waller of the Dalhousie Review said his edition constitute d a landmark in Shakespearean criticism It is a work of first rate importance hopefully a precursor of a long needed revolution in our understanding of reading Shakespeare 10 Booth published King Lear Macbeth Indefinition and Tragedy in 1983 probably his best known work after the study of the sonnets His most recent book Precious Nonsense The Gettysburg Address Ben Jonson s Epitaphs on His Children and Twelfth Night explores what is it we value literature for And what is it in the works we value most highly that makes us value them above others like them 11 These questions are central to his literary analysis Works editAmong Booth s published works are The Book Called Holinshed s Chronicles An Account of Its Inception Purposes Contributors Contents Publication Revision and Influence on William Shakespeare San Francisco Book Club of California 1969 On the Value of Hamlet in Reinterpretations of Elizabethan Drama Selected Papers from the English Institute ed Norman Rabkin 137 176 New York Columbia U P 1969 An Essay on Shakespeare s Sonnets New Haven Yale University Press 1969 paperback 1972 A Sullied Sallied Solid Text The New York Review of Books 21 no 20 December 12 1974 excerpt Shakespeare in California 1974 75 Shakespeare Quarterly 27 no 1 1976 94 108 Shakespeare at Valley Forge The International Shakespeare Association Congress 1976 Shakespeare Quarterly 27 no 3 1976 231 42 Syntax as Rhetoric in Richard II Mosaic 10 3 Spring 1977 87 103 Shakespeare in California and Utah Shakespeare Quarterly 28 no 2 1977 229 44 Shakespeare s Sonnets Edited with Analytic Commentary New Haven 1977 Rev ed 1978 paperback 1979 Rev ed 2000 excerpts at Google Books Seven Directors at a Blow Shakespeare Quarterly 29 no 2 1978 308 10 312 14 Shakespeare in the San Francisco Bay Area Shakespeare Quarterly 29 no 2 1978 267 78 Speculations on Doubling in Shakespeare s Plays in Shakespeare The Theatrical Dimension Ed Philip C McGuire David A Samuelson AMS Studies in the Renaissance 1979 Henry IV Part Two and the Aesthetics of Failure in The Shakespeare Plays A Study Guide for the Second Season Ed John F Andrews Dubuque IA Kendall Hunt 1980 89 93 Exit Pursued by a Gentleman Born in Shakespeare s Art from a Comparative Prospective ed W M Aycock Lubbock 1981 51 66 Milton s How Soon Hath Time A Colossus in a Cherrystone ELH 49 no 2 1982 449 67 with Jordan Flyer King Lear Macbeth Indefinition and Tragedy New Haven Yale University Press 1983 Poetic Richness A Preliminary Audit Pacific Coast Philology XIX nos 1 2 1984 68 78 The Shakespearean Actor as Kamikaze Pilot Shakespeare Quarterly 36 no 5 1985 553 70 Twelfth Night 1 1 The Audience as Malvolio in Shakespeare s Rough Magic Renaissance Essays in Honor of C L Barber Ed P Erickson amp C Kahn University of Delaware Press 1985 149 167 The Best Othello I Ever Saw Shakespeare Quarterly 40 no 3 1989 332 36 Liking Julius Caesar Living with Shakespeare pamphlet Ashland Oregon Southern Oregon State College Center for Shakespeare Studies 1991 The Shenandoah Shakespeare Express Shakespeare Quarterly 43 no 4 1992 476 83 Close Reading without Readings in Shakespeare Reread The Texts in New Contexts ed Russ McDonald Ithaca Cornell 1994 42 55 excerpts at Google Books The Coherences of 1 Henry IV and of Hamlet in Shakespeare Set Free TeachingHamletand1 Henry IV ed Peggy O Brien New York Washington Square Press 1994 32 46 Twelfth Night and Othello Those Extraordinary Twins in Shakespeare Set Free Teaching Twelfth Night and Othello ed Peggy O Brien New York Washington Square Press 1995 22 32 The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and All Others Shakespeare Quarterly 41 no 2 1990 262 68 Reprinted in Teaching Literature A Collection of Essays on Theory and Practice ed L A Jacobus 1996 Precious Nonsense The Gettysburg Address Ben Jonson s Epitaphs on His Children and Twelfth Night Berkeley University of California Press 1998 Shakespeare s Language and the Language of Shakespeare s Time Shakespeare Survey 50 1998 1 17 excerpts at Google Books A Long Dull Poem by William Shakespeare Shakespeare Studies 25 1998 229 37 excerpts at Google Books On the Aesthetics of Acting in Shakespearean Illuminations Essays in Honor of Marvin Rosenberg ed Jay L Halio and Hugh Richmond 255 66 Cranbury NJ Associated University Presses 1998 The Physics of Hamlet s Rogue and Peasant Slave Speech in A Certain Text Close Readings and Textual Studies on Shakespeare and Others in Honor of Thomas Clayton ed Linda Anderson and Janis Lull 75 93 Cranbury NJ Associated University Presses 2002 A Discourse on the Witty Partition of A Midsummer Night s Dream In Inside Shakespeare Essays on the Blackfriars Stage ed Paul Menzer 216 22 Selingrove PA Susquehanna University Press 2006 On the Eventfulness of Hero and Leander In Christopher Marlowe the Craftsman Lives Stage and Page ed Sarah K Scott and M L Stapleton 125 36 Burlington VT Ashgate Publishing 2010 Who Doesn t Listen in Shakespeare in Who Hears in Shakespeare Auditory Worlds on Stage and Screen ed Laury Magnus and Walter W Cannon 235 40 Madison NJ Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 2012 Honors and awards editJames Russell Lowell Prize from the Modern Language Association for Shakespeare s Sonnets 1977 12 Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California at Berkeley 1982 13 References edit Stephen Booth 1933 2020 shaksper net Retrieved March 27 2021 Stephen Booth American Shakespeare Center July 5 2018 Archived from the original on October 5 2018 Retrieved October 6 2018 Stephen Booth 1933 2020 shaksper net Retrieved March 27 2021 Williams Travis D June 23 2017 Stephen Booth Close Reading without Readings Essays on Shakespeare and Others Modern Philology 115 2 E99 E101 doi 10 1086 693144 ISSN 0026 8232 Shakespeare William 2009 Tucker Thomas George ed COMMENTARY The Sonnets of Shakespeare Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 79 230 doi 10 1017 cbo9780511693762 004 ISBN 978 0 511 69376 2 retrieved March 27 2021 Kermode Frank November 5 1970 A New Era in Shakespeare Criticism New York Review of Books 15 8 Stephen Booth 1933 2020 shaksper net Retrieved March 27 2021 Barber C L Full to Overflowing New York Review of Books ISSN 0028 7504 Retrieved March 27 2021 Neely Carol Thomas 1979 Review of Shakespeare s Sonnets Modern Philology 77 2 210 214 doi 10 1086 390939 ISSN 0026 8232 JSTOR 437513 Download Shakespearean Criticism Volume 129 Criticism of William Shakespeare s Plays and Poetry from the First Published Appraisals to Current Evaluations PDF infinity wecabrio com Retrieved March 27 2021 STEPHEN BOOTH 2021 PRECIOUS NONSENSE the gettysburg address ben jonson s epitaphs on his children and twelfth night UNIV OF CALIFORNIA PRESS ISBN 978 0 520 36405 9 OCLC 1154111607 James Russell Lowell Prize Winners Past DTA Awards Recipients Stephen BoothFurther reading editHinchliffe Jillian Frey Seth October 9 2014 Shakespeare s Genius is Nonsense What the Bard can teach science about language and the limits of the human mind Nautilus 18 Genius ISSN 2372 1766 Collins Michael J 2014 Reading What s There Essays on Shakespeare in Honor of Stephen Booth Newark University of Delaware Press Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Stephen Booth academic amp oldid 1145145185, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
