Care and Contagion in Shakespeare's Changing World

Edited book

Chalk, Darryl and Totaro, Rebecca. Chalk, Darryl and Totaro, Rebecca (ed.) 2026. Care and Contagion in Shakespeare's Changing World. United Kingdom. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Book Title

Care and Contagion in Shakespeare's Changing World

Book CategoryEdited book
ERA Publisher ID4871
AuthorsChalk, Darryl and Totaro, Rebecca
EditorsChalk, Darryl and Totaro, Rebecca
Number of Pages258
SeriesThe Arden Shakespeare
Year2026
PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
Place of PublicationUnited Kingdom
ISBN9781350425071
Web Address (URL)https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/care-and-contagion-in-shakespeares-changing-world-9781350425071/
Abstract

Circuits of disease correspond to previously unconsidered practices of caregiving in early modern English drama in this new volume by Darryl Chalk and Rebecca Totaro. They explore how the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries responded to and intersected with local and international ideas of communal care, health management, quarantine, embodiment, and theatricality.

The role of the spectators who found themselves represented in such themes of caregiving in times of crisis finds new meaning in Chalk and Totaro's framing. Foregrounded by pioneering archival research, chapters provide new insights into several Shakespeare plays performed on stages in London and at the court of King James I, as well as several plays by his contemporaries including Webster, Dekker, and Middleton. Contributors explore plague and privilege in Romeo and Juliet, servants and caregiving in King Lear, women and herbal medicine in The Winter's Tale, astrology in The Duchess of Malfi, and the humour that attaches itself to illness in The Roaring Girl. These case studies expand our understanding of the caregiving that connected people across place and time as powerfully as the lived experience of disease did.

KeywordsShakespeare; theatricality; medicine; disease; wellbeing; health; Early Modern Drama; Contagion; Care
Contains Sensitive ContentDoes not contain sensitive content
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020360403. Drama, theatre and performance studies
470504. British and Irish literature
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Byline AffiliationsUniversity of Southern Queensland
Florida Gulf Coast University, United States
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Care and Contagion in King Lear, by way of Introduction
Chalk, Darryl. 2026. "Care and Contagion in King Lear, by way of Introduction." Chalk, Darryl and Totaro, Rebecca (ed.) Care and Contagion in Shakespeare's Changing World . United Kingdom. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 1-21
Telling Tales
Batorowicz, Beata, Chalk, Darryl and Clark, Linda. 2025. Telling Tales . Toowoomba, Australia 31 Aug - 21 Dec 2025
"If all the world could have seen't": Imagination and the Unseen in The Winter's Tale
Chalk, Darryl. 2024. ""If all the world could have seen't": Imagination and the Unseen in The Winter's Tale ." Kaethler, Mark and Williams, Grant (ed.) Historicizing the Embodied Imagination in Early Modern Egnlish Literature. Switzerland. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 45-65
'You May Look Pale': Whiteness and Love Melancholia in Love's Labour's Lost
Chalk, Darryl. 2024. "'You May Look Pale': Whiteness and Love Melancholia in Love's Labour's Lost." Espinosa, Ruben (ed.) Shakespeare / Skin: Contemporary Readings in Skin Studies and Theoretical Discourse. United Kingdom. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 69-96
Like Furnace: Sighing on the Shakespearean Stage
Chalk, Darryl. 2021. "Like Furnace: Sighing on the Shakespearean Stage." Kenny, Amy and Peterson, Kaara L. (ed.) Humorality in Early Modern Art, Material Culture, and Performance. Switzerland. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 31-50
Eros and Etiology in Love's Labour's Lost
Chalk, Darryl. 2022. "Eros and Etiology in Love's Labour's Lost." Humanities. 11 (6), pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.3390/h11060152
Simular proof and senseless feeling: Synaesthetic overload in Cymbeline
Chalk, Darryl. 2020. "Simular proof and senseless feeling: Synaesthetic overload in Cymbeline." Smith, Simon (ed.) Shakespeare / Sense: Contemporary Readings in Sensory Culture. London, United Kingdom. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 245-268
Introduction: Beyond the Plague
Chalk, Darryl and Floyd-Wilson, Mary. 2019. "Introduction: Beyond the Plague." Chalk, Darryl and Floyd-Wilson, Mary (ed.) Contagion and the Shakespearean stage. Cham, Switzerland. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 1-21
Contagion and the Shakespearean stage
Chalk, Darryl and Floyd-Wilson, Mary. 2019. Contagion and the Shakespearean stage. Cham, Switzerland. Palgrave Macmillan.
Here's a strange alteration: contagion and the mutable mind in Coriolanus
Chalk, Darryl. 2014. "Here's a strange alteration: contagion and the mutable mind in Coriolanus." Prochazka, Martin, Dobson, Michael, Hofele, Andreas and Scolnicov, Hanna (ed.) Shakespeare's Renaissance/Renaissance Shakespeares: Proceedings of the Ninth World Shakespeare Congress. Newark, United States. University of Delaware Press. pp. 68-76
Make me not sighted like the Basilisk: vision and contagion in The Winter's Tale
Chalk, Darryl. 2014. "Make me not sighted like the Basilisk: vision and contagion in The Winter's Tale." Johnson, Laurie, Sutton, John and Tribble, Evelyn (ed.) Embodied cognition and Shakespeare's theatre: the early modern body-mind. Abingdon, OX. United Kingdom. Routledge. pp. 111-132
Rapt in secret studies and emergence in Shakespeare studies [Introduction]
Chalk, Darryl and Johnson, Laurie. 2010. "Rapt in secret studies and emergence in Shakespeare studies [Introduction]." Chalk, Darryl and Johnson, Laurie (ed.) Rapt in secret studies: emerging Shakespeares. Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 1-8
Contagious emulation: antitheatricality and theatre as plague in 'Troilus and Cressida'
Chalk, Darryl. 2010. "Contagious emulation: antitheatricality and theatre as plague in 'Troilus and Cressida'." Hirsch, Brett D. and Wortham, Christopher (ed.) This earthly stage: world and stage in late medieval and early modern England. Turnhout, Belgium. Brepols Publishers. pp. 75-101
To creep in at mine eyes: theatre and secret contagion in Twelfth Night
Chalk, Darryl. 2010. "To creep in at mine eyes: theatre and secret contagion in Twelfth Night." Chalk, Darryl and Johnson, Laurie (ed.) Rapt in secret studies: emerging Shakespeares. Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 171-193
A nature but infected: plague and embodied transformation in Timon of Athens
Chalk, Darryl. 2009. "A nature but infected: plague and embodied transformation in Timon of Athens." Early Modern Literary Studies: a journal of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature.