Toward a Philology of Stupidity

Abstract

Abstract An overview of the organizing ideas and argument of Shakespeare Unlearned, the Introduction orients readers by making a case for taking nonsense and the lexicon of cognitive incapacity seriously in Shakespearean contexts rather than treating it as obvious, meaningless, or entirely self-explanatory. With reference to Jacques Rancière and the Erasmian inheritance of poststructural critical theory, it focuses attention on the role relations of stupidity play in our habits of thought as scholars, students, and teachers. And, drawing on ideas from disability studies, from material text studies, and from the methods of philology itself, the Introduction suggests that topics such as nonsensical language, pedantry, and obscurity are too often taken for granted in unhelpful ways in classrooms, editions, and scholarly work more generally.