Place-Names in Shakespeare\u27s Grand Design for the Henry VI Plays

The Henry VI plays of Shakespeare are among his earliest and first of his English history cycle. In them occur a profusion of topographical references which add an imaginative geographical dimension to the panorama of English history: the power struggle between the contending factions of Lancaster and York, the battles with France in the Hundred Years\u27 War, and the internal upheaval of the Cade revolt

Nominal Jests in Shakespeare\u27s Plays

In lieu of an abstract, this is the first paragraph of the article. Nominal jests were very popular among the literati of the English Renaissance. The plays and poems of the period are studded with name-play, and Shakespeare, with his lively mind, excelled at the game. 1 Much has been written of his jests on his own name in the Sonnets 2 and on his name usage in the plays. 3 Although much name-play may at times seem trivial or obvious, when it appears in a consistent pattern linked to the play\u27s function we may gain insight into Shakespeare\u27s method and purposes. My first two examples are of name duplication which serve as foreshadowing devices

Women\u27s Names in the English Renaissance Elegy

The funeral elegy of the English Renaissance has great onomastic interest; as a literary genre it is primarily an eponymous poem whose hero is the dead person being celebrated. The name, moreover, figures in the poet\u27s attempt to participate in a triadic process whereby as the body is buried in the ground the soul progresses toward heaven and the name of the dead subject is immortalized