Peter Holland presents this year's ACC Distinguished Lecture. 

The book we call the First Folio did not have that title at all. Instead, it sets out categories for Shakespeare's plays by genre, just like a tv channel offering me a choice of movies to watch. What were the editors of the book thinking of by giving it that title? And how might thinking about genre help us understand how the plays work?

Peter Holland was the Judith E. Wilson Reader in Drama and Theatre at the University of Cambridge (1996-1997) and Director of the Shakespeare Institute and Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham (1997-2002) before coming to Notre Dame. His first book, The Ornament of Action, was a study of Restoration comedy in performance. Subsequent work has concentrated on Shakespeare in performance and on editing Shakespeare’s plays. He is editor of Shakespeare Survey, general editor with Stanley Wells of the Oxford Shakespeare Topics series, associate general editor of the Oxford Drama Library, and series editor of Redefining British Theatre History. His article on ‘"William Shakespeare" is the longest entry in the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Other interests include David Garrick, recent British drama, performance theory, and English pantomimes.

“Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies”  is presented as part of UofL’s sponsorship of Will In the Ville.  Find out more about this collaborative commemoration of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death at www.LFPL.org/WillintheVille including information about The First Folio, arriving in Louisville in November 2016.

Sponsored by the Department of English, Liberal Studies Project, Commonwealth Center for the Humanities & Society and the Speed Art Museum.