Mini Symposium: The Wise Woman of Hoxton

Scholars will present talks on The Wise Woman of Hoxton, a vibrant, early 17th-century English city comedy by playwright Thomas Heywood that centers on a shrewd, cunning title character who operates in the shady, festive outskirts of London. This event complements Lord Denney’s Players' production of the play, which will be performed the same weekend.

Written around 1604, the play follows the exploits of a slippery con artist and fortune teller who routinely outsmarts both gullible citizens and rakish gentlemen. Through clever use of disguises and theatrical trickery, the eponymous "wise woman" navigates the complexities of class conflict and marital deception to expose the wrongdoings of the young male leads. Its significance lies in its vivid, gritty portrayal of low-level early modern London life, serving as a celebrated example of domestic comedy that frequently draws comparisons to the works of Ben Jonson.

Event Speakers:

Elizabeth E. Tavares is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama with the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies. Specializing in early English drama, her research foci include playing companies, theatre history, and Shakespeare in performance. Her award-winning research has appeared in Early Theatre and Shakespeare Quarterly, among others, as well as several edited collections. Playing the Repertory Before Shakespeare, her book on the origins and affordances of the repertory system—in movement and music, for prop- and race-making—is forthcoming this spring from the University of Pennsylvania Press. A scholar-dramaturg, Tavares is director of research for the Alabama Shakespeare Project. 

Jean Howard is a George Delacorte Professor Emerita in the Humanities at Columbia University. Specializing in Shakespeare and early modern drama, her research foci include feminist and Marxist theory, new historicism, and the history play. Her award-winning scholarship includes Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy 1598-1642, which received the Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Theater History, as well as Engendering a Nation (with Phyllis Rackin), The Stage and Struggle in Early Modern England, and Marxist Shakespeares (with Scott Shershow). She is a co-editor of The Norton Shakespeare and General Editor of the Bedford Contextual Editions of Shakespeare. Her most recent book, King Lear: Language and Writing, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021, and she is completing Staging History, on the history play in contemporary Britain and the US. A celebrated teacher and mentor, Howard has received Columbia’s Presidential Teaching Award and Graduate Mentoring Award, and has served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America and as Columbia’s first Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives.

Christopher Highley is a professor of English and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at The Ohio State University. He specializes in Early Modern literature, culture and history. He has written three books: Shakespeare, Spenser, and the Crisis in Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 1997), Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2008), and Blackfriars in Early Modern London: Theater, Church, and Neighborhood (Oxford University Press, 2022).  He continues to work on Early Modern London, as well as on the posthumous image of Henry VIII. Highley is also the Department of English's Study Abroad Programs Coordinator and an Editorial Board Member of The Map of Early Modern London.

Let us know you're interested!

Co-sponsored by Lord Denney's Players, the Department of English, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Humanities Institute.