Voice and Ethics in Shakespeare's Late Plays

Kent Lehnhof

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Breaking new ground in Shakespearean sound studies, Kent Lehnhof draws scholarly attention to the rich ethical significance of the voice and vocality. Less concerned with semantics, stylistics, and rhetoric than with the sensuous, sonorous, and somatic dimensions of human speech, Lehnhof performs close readings of five plays - Coriolanus, King Lear, Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest - to demonstrate how Shakespeare's later works present the act of speaking and the sound of the voice as capable of constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing interpersonal relationships and obligations. By thinking widely and innovatively about the voice and vocality, Lehnhof models a fresh form of philosophically-minded criticism that resists logocentrism and elevates the voices of marginalized groups and individuals including women, members of societal "underclasses", racialized persons and non-humans.

Book Details

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publish Date: Jan 8th, 2026
Pages: 226
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.56in - 1.04lb
EAN: 9781009613873
Categories: • English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

About the Author

Lehnhof, Kent: - Kent Lehnhof is Professor of English at Chapman University, where he has received the university's highest award for scholarship and its highest award for teaching. He has co-edited two essay collections, Of Levinas and Shakespeare (2018) and Shakespeare's Virtuous Theatre (2023), and has published two dozen articles and essays.

Praise for this book

'Kent Lehnhof has a fabulous ear for the ethical charge of voice in Shakespeare's late plays. This is a signal contribution to the study of Shakespeare and moral philosophy as well as an innovative exploration of the work of voice in social and theatrical relations.' Sarah Beckwith, Katherine Everett Gilbert Professor of English, Duke University

'Addressing the power and presence of the human voice on stage, Lehnhof shows how acts of speaking, hearing, and listening disrupt our egoism and open us to more authentic connections with others. Enunciating the multivocal wisdom of Shakespearean drama, this book will be accessible to both advanced scholars and students of literature.' Julia Reinhard Lupton, Distinguished Professor of English, The University of California, Irvine