My list of debts is long and I can only express my brief thanks here to some of the many people who have helped make this book possible. Most of all, I thank Curtis Perry. His scholarly example and incisive comments rest firmly at the foundation of what is of most worth in this study. My early interest in rhetoric, begun with Nancy Christiansen, deepened and matured through numerous invigorating (and generous) conversations with Sharon Crowley. I am also grateful to Bruce Young, Cora Fox, Duane Roen, Frank Whigham, Wayne Rebhorn, Jon Stone, Lynette Austin, Carol Mejia-LaPerle, and many others, particularly at various Shakespeare Association of America conferences, who have shared insights, conversations, and comments that have helped this work to grow and improve.
Jean Brink introduced me to the treasures of the Huntington Library and after her retirement continued to meet with me there. I am grateful to the library for many visits and countless requests fulfilled, not to mention beautiful work conditions. Equally I am grateful to Interlibrary Loan librarians at Florida International University and Arizona State University for service above and beyond expectation in finding so many needed materials. Thanks also to the Folger Shakespeare Library for their support when I needed it.
I am grateful to Florida International University for research grants and support as I pursued the completion of this book. Perhaps even more, I am grateful to the members of the English Department here for ongoing conversations and encouragement, particularly Andrew Strycharksi, Carmela McIntire, Meri-Jane Rochelson, Kimberly Harrison, Kathleen McCormick, and Bruce Harvey. I am especially thankful to my department chair, James Sutton, for support and wisdom throughout.
My most recent debts are to Erika Gaffney at Ashgate, who has most helpfully pursued the publication of this book, supporting me at every turn in the process, and Helen Ostovich, the General Editor of the Studies in Performance series, in which this work gratefully appears.
I feel the need to recognize two of my early mentors, Gary Hatch and O M Brack, who both passed before I could show them this completed work. I appreciate all of their guidance and wisdom shared. This work reminds me of them and their generosity.
Finally, my deepest gratitude is to my family—always examples of learning and diligence, tempered with love and fun. My thanks to my parents, to Kevin (who blazed a path and shared wise counsel and insight, no matter how late at night), and to Greg (who reminds me to unwind and find the positive aspects of life). I am most grateful to my wife, Danielle, who has learned more about Shakespeare, the Renaissance, and rhetoric than she’d ever had cared to, but has nonetheless continued to read and review countless pages and drafts and revisions—and helped me to see things from others’ perspective and with greater clarity. This work is (as I am) better because of her.
Chapter 2 first appeared in print as “‘A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant’: Emulation, Rhetoric, and Cruel Propriety in Titus Andronicus,” in Renaissance Quarterly 62.2 (Summer 2009): 376–409 and was later reprinted in Shakespearean Criticism 143 (Winter 2012): 248–66. I am thankful to reprint it here. I am also thankful to the Folger Shakespeare Library for permission to use as the cover image to this book a woodcut of an actor printed in Giovanni Paolo Trapolin’s Antigone (1581).