Stephen Orgel is Professor of English at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

. Best known as a

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, Orgel writes primarily about the

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

and

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

context of

Renaissance literature Renaissance literature refers to European literature which was influenced by the intellectual and cultural tendencies associated with the Renaissance. The literature of the Renaissance was written within the general movement of the Renaissance ...

. Orgel received his B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1954 and his Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in 1959. He has taught at Stanford since 1985. He is a noted book collector.

Selected critical works

*''The Illusion of Power.'' U California P, 1975. *''Impersonations:The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England.'' Cambridge, 1996. *''The Authentic Shakespeare.'' Routledge, 2002. *''Imagining Shakespeare.'' Palgrave, 2003. *''John Milton: The Major Works''. Edited by Orgel and

Jonathan Goldberg Jonathan Goldberg (June 11, 1943 – December 9, 2022) was an American literary theorist who was the Sir William Osler Professor of English Literature at Johns Hopkins University, and Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English ...

. Oxford, 1991.

References

American literary critics Shakespearean scholars Columbia College (New York) alumni Harvard University alumni Stanford University Department of English faculty American academics of English literature Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-English-academic-bio-stub