Cardiff School of English Communication and Philosophy

PhD Research

Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida: Audience Expectation and Matters of Taste

My research responds to the (re)turn in literary scholarship – particularly in Shakespeare studies – to the subject of audience and readers. It examines the way that Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida disconcertingly frames its audience by staging audience figures and utilising a language of taste. Images of food and cooking are employed metaphorically in the play to discuss the judgement and expectations of an audience, the thesis argues, at least half a century before “taste” becomes normalised towards the end of the seventeenth century as a normative term for aesthetic and social judgements. The thesis employs Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the literary field to gauge the way that Shakespeare’s play engages with its theatrical and literary environment, and resituates Bourdieu’s work on taste and social positioning to consider how Shakespeare’s Trojan play responds to the contingencies of audience expectation. This was an expectation for a story with famous classical, medieval and contemporary precedents, for a play to be performed by the leading theatre company of the day, written by a playwright who was also conscious of his role as a published author. The research speaks to the play’s own traversing of elite and popular culture, and the questions of legitimacy, pleasure, reputation and value that stem from this performance.

Supervisor: Professor Richard Wilson, Dr Irene Morra

Academic Background

MA English Literature (Distinction) – Cardiff University, 2007
Dissertation title: Guests, Ghosts and Hosts in Shakespearean Tragedy: the Limits of Hospitality in Performance

BA English Literature (First Class Honours) – Cardiff University, 2006

British Shakespeare Association Member: 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12
Société Française Shakespeare Member: 2010/11

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

“Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida: Visualising Expectations as a Matter of Taste”
in Shakespeare et les arts de la table: Actes du Congrès organisé par la Société Française Shakespeare, (Paris: SFS, forthcoming 2012)

“The ‘author’s drift’ in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida: A Poetics of Reflection”,
Medieval and Early Modern Authorship: SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 25,ed. Guillemette Bolens and Lukas Erne (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2011), pp. 93-106

(co-authored with Alice Leonard), “Assuming Gender in Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida: ‘are we to assume that there were women in the audience?’” in Assuming Gender, 2.2 (2010), 44-61

“Shakespeare’s ‘sugred Sonnets’, Troilus and Cressida and the Odcombian Banquet: an exploration of promising paratexts, expectations and matters of taste”, Shakespeare, 6.2 (2010), 185-208

Book Reviews

Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespeare’s Freedom, (Chicago University Press, 2010) for The Review
of English Studies, 62: 256 (2011), 650-651

Julie Sanders (ed.), Ben Jonson in Context, (CUP, 2010) for Notes & Queries, 58.2 (2011), 311-312

Lynn S. Meskill, Ben Jonson and Envy, (CUP, 2009) for Notes & Queries, 58.2 (2011), 312-13

François-Xavier Gleyzon, Shakespeare’s Spiral: Tracing the Snail in “King Lear” and Renaissance Painting (UPA, 2010) for English Studies,92.4 (2011), 465-66

Richard Meek, Jane Rickard, Richard Wilson (eds.), Shakespeare's Book: Essays in Reading,
Writing and Reception, (MUP: 2009) for English Studies, 91:3 (May 2010), 346-348

Curtis Perry and John Whatkins (eds.), Shakespeare and the Middle Ages,
(OUP: 2009) for Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Biannual Journal of English Renaissance Studies, 76 (Autumn 2009), 78-9

Theatre Reviews

Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair (Castaway Community Theatre) at Aberystwyth Arts
Centre, August 2010 for Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Biannual Journal of English Renaissance Studies,78 (Autumn 2010), 87-89

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (directed by Giulia Crossley) at Weston Studio, The
Millennium Centre, Cardiff, March 2009 for Shakespeare, 5.3 (2009), 313-315

Conferences, Symposia and Seminars

Invited to present a paper for the international conference Transmission and Transgression in
Early Modern England, which will take place at the Université de Provence
from November, 29th to December 1st, 2012. My paper is entitled, “Transgression Through Punishment: John Taylor and ‘willfull women’”.

Co-presented a paper, with Alun Thomas, on “Playing with Precedents in Shakespeare:
Expectations in Richard III and Troilus and Cressida” for the British Shakespeare
Association event: Shakespeare Sources & Adaptation Conference hosted by Cambridge University, September 2011

Chaired the session on “Shakespeare and Terry Prachett’s Discworld” at the British
Shakespeare Association event: Shakespeare Sources & Adaptation Conference hosted by Cambridge University, September 2011

Presented a paper at the Société Française Shakespeare conference: “Shakespeare et les arts de la table” in Paris in March 2011. The paper was entitled: “Shakespeare’s Troilus
and Cressida: visualising expectations as a matter of taste”

Presented a research paper at the University of Wales, Institute Cardiff on March 9th 2011.
The paper was entitled: “Being and Performing in Troilus and Cressida: ‘In faith, I lie’”

Presented a paper at the Derrida Today conference in July 2010 at Goodenough College,
London, organised by Kingston University, London and Macquarie University, Sydney
Presented a paper at the Medieval and Early-Modern Authorship Conference, University of
Geneva for 30th June – 2nd July 2010

Attended an international workshop entitled Performing the Poetics of Passion: Troilus &
Cressida / Troilus & Criseyde taking place in May 2010 at Freie Universität Berlin, who awarded me a generous travel grant

Presented papers at the Shakespeare Institute, Birmingham University (2008 and 2009)
and Cardiff University’s Assuming Gender Conference (2008)

Teaching

I have taught as a Postgraduate Tutor at Cardiff University since 2008, working as a tutor for English Literature, Medieval and Renaissance Literature, and now Shakespeare’s Tragedies.  I have also led a number of seminars on Shakespeare and Theatre History at Cardiff’s Metropolitan University and The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Please see my academia.edu profile for details.

Links

Academia.edu Profile
http://cardiff.academia.edu/JohannGregory
Cardiff Shakespeare Blog
http://cardiffshakespeare.wordpress.com/
@CardiffShakes (Twitter)
http://twitter.com/CardiffShakes
Healthy Reading, 1590-1690
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/libraries/scolar/digital/images.html#PGR1