Exeter, NH (April 17, 2007)—On Monday, April 23, Phillips Exeter Academy will host a talk given by eminent Harvard Shakespearean Professor Stephen Greenblatt, called “Shakespearean Beauty Marks,” which explores Shakespeare’s idea of beauty. The event is sponsored by the Friends of the Academy Library and will be held from 8:00-9:00 p.m. in the Kaplanoff Periodicals Room, located on the ground floor of the Academy Library. The library is on Front Street. The talk is free and open to the public.

Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and author of the bestselling book Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. His areas of specialization include Shakespeare, 16th and 17th century English literature, the literature of travel and exploration, and literary theory.

Greenblatt’s published books include: Will in the World:  How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Hamlet in Purgatory; Practicing New Historicism; Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World; Learning to Curse: Essays in Modern Culture; Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England; Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare; Sir Walter Raleigh: The Renaissance Man and His Roles; and Three Modern Satirists: Waugh, Orwell, and Huxley. In addition, he is the General Editor of The Norton Shakespeare and the General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.  He is also (with Charles Mee) the author of a play, Cardenio.

Greenblatt serves on the editorial or advisory boards of numerous journals and is an editor and cofounder of Representations, an interdisciplinary journal of trend-setting articles and criticisms edited by renowned scholars. His research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Guggenheim, Fulbright, Howard and Kyoto University Foundations; and the American Council of Learned Societies. He has received the James Russell Lowell Prize of the MLA, the British Council Prize in the Humanities, and the Mellon Distinguished Humanist Award.  He is an Honorary Corresponding Fellow of the English Association, U.K.  For Will in the World, he received the 2004 Will Award from the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, and the 2005 Independent Publisher Book Award for Biography. The book was a finalist for the following awards:  the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, the National Book Critic Circle Awards, the Quills, and the Julia Ward Howe Prize of the Boston Authors Club. He has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a permanent fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. Greenblatt has also served as president of the Modern Language Association of America. 

Born in Boston, MA, Greenblatt earned bachelor’s degrees from Yale and Cambridge Universities, and a doctorate from Yale. He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley; lectured widely, and has held numerous visiting professorships. His named lecture series include the Lionel Trilling Seminar at Columbia; the Theo Crosby Memorial Lecture, Globe Theatre, London; the Clarendon Lectures at Oxford; the Carpenter Lectures at the University of Chicago; and the University Lectures at Princeton.

For further information, contact Todd Hearon, instructor in English, at (603) 777-3714 or visit the Academy Library’s webpage at http://www.exeter.edu/libraries/4513.aspx. A complete listing of upcoming events is available on the Phillips Exeter Academy public events line at (603) 777-4309 and on our website at http://www.exeter.edu/. For directions to Phillips Exeter Academy, call (603) 777-4330. To learn more about upcoming events at Exeter, check the News & Events section of the website.

Phillips Exeter Academy is a coeducational, independent preparatory school that was founded in 1781 and originated the system of instruction known as Harkness teaching in 1931. In the spirit of its charter to foster both goodness and knowledge, students come from a wide variety of geographic, economic, racial and religious backgrounds. The diverse student body comes from approximately 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and 26 foreign countries.

The talk, sponsored by the Friends of the Academy Library, is free and open to the public.

A reception at 7:30 p.m. will precede the talk.