Hopkins, Lisa 1962-

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Hopkins, Lisa 1962-

PERSONAL:

Born 1962.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Howard St., Sheffield S1 1WB, England.

CAREER:

Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, England, currently member of English literature faculty.

WRITINGS:

Queen Elizabeth I and Her Court, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Women Who Would Be Kings: Female Rulers of the Sixteenth Century, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1991.

John Ford's Political Theatre, Manchester University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The Shakespearean Marriage: Merry Wives and Heavy Husbands, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2000.

Writing Renaissance Queens: Texts by and about Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, University of Delaware Press (Newark, DE), 2002.

The Female Hero in English Renaissance Tragedy, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2002.

Giants of the Past: Popular Fictions and the Idea of Evolution, Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg, PA), 2004.

Screening the Gothic, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 2005.

A Christopher Marlowe Chronology, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2005.

Beginning Shakespeare, Manchester University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Shakespeare on the Edge: Border-Crossing in the Tragedies and the Henriad, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2005.

(With Matthew Steggle) Renaissance Literature and Culture, Continuum (New York, NY), 2006.

Bram Stoker: A Literary Life, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2007.

Teaching Shakespeare and Early Modern Dramatists, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2007.

Marian Moments in Early Modern British Drama, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2007.

The Cultural Uses of the Caesars on the English Renaissance Stage, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Professor Lisa Hopkins writes on such topics as Renaissance and nineteenth-century English literature. She is particularly interested in Renaissance dramas, such as the plays of William Shakespeare, but her research also includes such authors as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Bram Stoker. The greater part of her work, however, has been on the English Renaissance, including such publications as Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life, The Female Hero in English Renaissance Tragedy, Renaissance Literature and Culture, and The Cultural Uses of the Caesars on the English Renaissance Stage. In her Writing Renaissance Queens: Texts by and about Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, Hopkins tries to illuminate Renaissance attitudes about female rulers through an analysis of the literature of the time. Among her subjects is Spenser's The Faerie Queen, several of Shakespeare's plays, and Milton's Paradise Lost. Anne Lake Prescott, writing in the Renaissance Quarterly, felt that the author had selected an interesting topic, but that Hopkins comes short on her examples, use of translations, lack of sufficient primary sources, and that her arguments need "better logic." The critic, unfortunately, considered it a "slapdash book" and concluded: "Hopkins's study is worth a glance for some ingenious readings. With more care and less self-indulgence it would deserve serious attention."

Hopkins received a more positive reception to some of her books on Shakespeare. Beginning Shakespeare is the professor's attempt to reclaim the Bard as an interesting topic for students, many of whom may have been put off by dull lectures on Shakespeare's plays. A Reference & Research Book News critic appreciated the intention of exciting students by relating some of the "current critical practices" on Shakespeare's plays and encouraging students to "develop their own approach" to his dramas. Explaining the different approaches taken by critics in viewing Shakespeare's works, Hopkins covers such schools of thought as cultural materialism, new historicism, psychoanalysis, gender studies, and postcolonial criticism. She provides further suggested readings and outlines what she believes to be the weaknesses and strengths of each type of criticism. Observing that the book is not intended to be authoritative or exhaustive, Brett D. Hirsch concluded in an article posted on the University of Toronto Web site: "Judged on its individual merits, Beginning Shakespeare is an excellent handbook that belongs as required reading for any course on Shakespeare."

Shakespeare on the Edge: Border-Crossing in the Tragedies and the Henriad is a study of how the constantly changing political borders in England and Europe, and the attitudes concerning these shifts, is reflected in Shakespeare's plays, such as Macbeth and Othello. "Each of the plays Hopkins examines ‘stages and probes one of the physical frontiers of Shakespeare's England not only in its own right but also as a potent imaginative tool with which to probe its spiritual state, which … it generally finds to be wanting,’" explained Mark Taylor in the Renaissance Quarterly, quoting from the book. Fluctuations in geographical knowledge were constant, as new discoveries were being made overseas, as well as in Europe, and features such as rivers became more or less important, depending on trade routes and the prominence of certain cities. Thus, the people of the time did not take borders to be as permanent as they now seem to be regarded. Taylor particularly enjoyed chapter four of the book, which explores the role of islands, many of which are fictitious in the plays. Some islands are seen as mystical, being inhabited by gods or demons, while others are more of a political concern, such as Ireland, which was viewed as a source of Catholic invasion. The critic, calling Shakespeare on the Edge an "original and illuminating study," quoted Hopkins as saying: "‘Islands function in the Renaissance imagination as places of danger, as reminders of divine power, and above all as emblems of the uncertainties of boundaries.’"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, February, 1995, R.E. Burkhart, review of John Ford's Political Theatre, p. 934; June, 1998, L.M. Tenbusch, review of The Shakespearean Marriage: Merry Wives and Heavy Husbands, p. 1707; May, 2001, B.E. Brandt, review of Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life, p. 1628; April, 2003, B.E. Brandt, review of Writing Renaissance Queens: Texts by and about Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, p. 1366; December, 2004, S.F. Klepetar, review of Giants of the Past: Popular Fictions and the Idea of Evolution, p. 660; June, 2006, B.E. Brandt, review of Shakespeare on the Edge: Border-Crossing in the Tragedies and the Henriad, p. 1825.

Christianity and Literature, March 22, 1995, Jack Heller, review of John Ford's Political Theatre, p. 391.

College Literature, June, 1995, review of John Ford's Political Theatre, p. 184.

History Today, November, 2002, review of Writing Renaissance Queens, p. 68.

Journal of the History of Ideas, January, 1995, review of John Ford's Political Theatre, p. 169.

Reference & Research Book News, June, 1991, review of Queen Elizabeth I and Her Court, p. 5; June, 1991, review of Queen Elizabeth I and Her Court, p. 5; May, 2001, review of Christopher Marlowe, p. 221; May, 2003, review of Writing Renaissance Queens, p. 232; August, 2004, review of Giants of the Past, p. 276; February, 2006, review of Shakespeare on the Edge; May, 2006, review of Beginning Shakespeare.

Renaissance Quarterly, spring, 2004, Anne Lake Prescott, review of Writing Renaissance Queens; fall, 2006, Mark Taylor, review of Shakespeare on the Edge.

Review of English Studies, February, 1999, Leah Scragg, review of The Shakespearean Marriage, p. 87.

Shakespeare Quarterly, summer, 2007, Garrett A. Sullivan, review of Shakespeare on the Edge.

Sixteenth Century Journal, fall, 1991, Ronald Fritze, review of Queen Elizabeth I and Her Court; winter, 1992, Charmarie J. Blaisdell, review of Women Who Would Be Kings: Female Rulers of the Sixteenth Century; fall, 2002, review of Christopher Marlowe.

Times Educational Supplement, July 6, 1990, Christopher Haigh, review of Elizabeth I and Her Court, p. 27.

Times Literary Supplement, December 20, 2002, review of The Female Hero in English Renaissance Tragedy, p. 26; April 7, 2006, Andrew Had-field, review of Shakespeare on the Edge, p. 33.