Renaissance Papers
collects the best scholarly essays submitted each year to the Southeastern Renaissance Conference
.
The 2024 volume features essays from the conference held at The Citadel, as well as essays submitted directly to the journal. The opening essay focuses on an idiosyncratic strategy used for fundraising by the English Crown: Queen Elizabeth's "poetry" lottery. Five essays on Shakespeare probe the complexity of his plays. The first is a Jungian analysis of how the archetype of the dragon manifests itself in
King Lear
. It is followed by a study of how early modern exercise culture constructs masculinity and health in
As You Like It
. A provocative reinterpretation of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
then illuminates the culturally subversive way in which Shakespeare portrays his fairies. The fourth and fifth essays examine the implications of female political agency in
Measure for Measure..