Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Shakespeare

Kelsey Ridge

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Hardback

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English

Routledge
18 July 2025

Literary studies: general; Literary studies: plays & playwrights; Diseases & disorders; Psychiatry; Trauma & shock

Series: Routledge Studies in Shakespeare

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Shakespeare combines literary criticism, performance studies, psychiatric literature, trauma studies, and disability studies to examine the presentation of PTSD in Shakespeare’s plays. This volume takes as case studies 1 Henry IV, Othello, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, and Troilus and Cressida. This character-based, interdisciplinary approach places Shakespeare’s texts and their production histories in conversation with current scientific research by blending literary analysis, medical and psychosocial research, memoirs and patient accounts, and performance history. This research deepens our understanding of representations of trauma in early modern literature and reveals what the artistic representations of trauma and PTSD in the early modern period can tell us about the history of this condition. It reminds us that people lived with PTSD long before the APA codified the condition in the 1980s; it places this condition in a longer historical continuity. With this knowledge, we can better consider the role Shakespeare can play in how we respond to trauma and psychological injury now.

By: Kelsey Ridge
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032612225
ISBN 10: 1032612223
Series: Routledge Studies in Shakespeare
Pages: 162
Publication Date: 18 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Kelsey Ridge is an Adjunct Professor at Alvernia University and has served as a dramaturg on opera and Shakespeare productions. She authored the book Shakespeare’s Military Spouses and Twenty- First-Century Warfare (Routledge 2021) and has published on Shakespeare's works in Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism and the Indian Theatre Journal.