Books by Brian Vickers

In the 1980s influential scholars argued that Shakespeare revised King Lear in light of theatrical performance, resulting in two texts by the bard's own hand. The two-text theory hardened into orthodoxy. Here Sir Brian Vickers makes the case that Shakespeare did not cut his original text. At stake is the way his greatest play is read and performed.

Presents a study of the use of prose in the Shakespeare's plays. This book defines the different dramatic and emotional functions which Shakespeare gave to prose and verse, and proceeds to analyze the recurrent stylistic devices used in his prose.

Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609) included a poem called A Lover's Complaint, of questionable authenticity. This text, the first full study of this poem, shows that it has many un-Shakespearian features. Using detailed analysis Vickers attributes the poem to John Davies of Hereford (1565-1618). An important work which will re-define the Shakespeare canon.

Dr Vicker's purpose is to reinstate Bacon as one of the supreme masters of English prose in a period which made rich use of all the expressive resources of the medium. The study is both analytical and historical: it isolates the major features of Bacon's style, and sets them in the context of Renaissance theory and practice.

The essays in this volume present a collective study of one of the major problems in the recent history of science: To what extent did the occult 'sciences' (alchemy, astrology, numerology, and natural magic) contribute to the scientific revolution of the late Renaissance?