Impressive Shakespeare: Identity, Authority and the Imprint in Shakespearean Drama. Harry Newman. Material Readings in Early Modern Culture. London: Routledge, 2019. xvi + 200 pp. $150.
“unmarked ideal” child and family, arguing that the play attests “to a successful transition from child to adult through forms of social acceptance” (114–16). How would some of these arguments and generalizations change, however, if Scott were to have lingered on the Indian boy and his displacement a little longer, as Margo Hendricks, Shankar Raman, Imtiaz Habib, Bindu Malieckal, Abdulhamit Arvas, and other scholars have done? That said, the ambitious and complex nature of Scott’s project does not allow for an extended analysis of each play. In building on Scott’s work, readers might consider The Child in Shakespeare alongside the aforementioned scholars and Kathryn Stockton, often taken up by queer theorists in Shakespeare studies, who emphasizes the dangers of presuming the innocence of any child—but certain children in particular. At its best, The Child in Shakespeare calls scholar-teachers working with Shakespeare to think deeply about how representations of unique and particular children and childhoods make meaning in Shakespeare’s plays and beyond—a call that is of utmost importance in this particular political moment.