W102 | Shakespeare and the Law: The First Thing We Do, Let's Praise All The Lawyers | Phil McKnight


Wednesdays 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. | Five Sessions - 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16

In-person at Williams College

Limit: 50



This course will consist of five lectures. It will begin with an analysis of the social, political and, most importantly, religious framework of the Elizabethan world into which Shakespeare was born in 1564. We will examine the development of the English common law from its earliest origins in medieval times through Shakespeare's day and then analyze the relationship of a number of his early history plays to the Elizabethan concept of law and social order. We will consider several plays, including but not limited to, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter's Tale, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Measure for Measure, to learn how Shakespeare used the law and legal principles in those works. Among the questions to be examined are how faithful was he to the law as he understood it? What dramatic licenses did he take? What did his use of the law tell us about Shakespeare the playwright and the dramatist? Film clips from Royal Shakespeare Company productions of the trial scenes in several of the plays listed above will be utilized to demonstrate the legal principles under discussion.

In addition, we will take up the infamous “Authorship Question” much beloved by under-employed PhD candidates. Was William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon the author of the plays, a man all but unknown outside of Oxfordshire, obscure, almost an historical nonperson, who could not even spell his own name the same way on any page of his last will and testament? Or was the true author one of several much more prominent Elizabethans, who by birth, education and experience far outshone the Stratfordian and who had every compelling reason to keep his (or her!) authorship a secret? We will examine carefully the evidence to reach a fair and just conclusion, and in the last class I will reveal for the first time in history to a mathematical certainty  the real author of the plays.

Philip R. McKnight, Esq., (JD, University of Chicago Law School), trial and appellate attorney in New York, Connecticut and Europe; Adjunct Professor, Williams College and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, teaching environmental law and environmental history; frequent OLLI lecturer on environmental law, Shakespeare and the law, and the role of the law in American democracy.

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