Decoding Shakespeare: The Cryptographic Renaissance

English Faculty - University of Oxford

This series of talks will be given by Professor Bill Sherman, Director of the Warburg Institute, as part of the Oxford Wells Lecture Series.

St Cross Building (Lecture Theatre 2) and online

Cryptography, the art and science of secret communication, is part of what made the Renaissance the Renaissance. More surprisingly, early modern ciphers have shaped what modern readers have made of Shakespeare—and even shaped modernity itself. These lectures will provide an introduction to the new technologies of secrecy that left their mark on many aspects of Renaissance culture, including the development of diplomacy and the waging of war, the creation of a postal system, the invention of short-hand and sign language, and the search for hidden meanings in art and literature. And they will trace the rebirth of those technologies, and the questions they raise, in the twentieth century. It will be a tale of two Williams, William Shakespeare and William Friedman—whose search for ciphers in Renaissance texts helped the Allies to win World War II.These events are part of the Oxford Wells Lecture Series, which was established jointly by Oxford University Press and the Oxford English Faculty, in recognition of Professor Wells’ contribution to Shakespeare scholarship, both as general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare Series, and, with Gary Taylor, John Jowett and William Montgomery, as co-editor of The Complete Works of Shakespeare and its accompanying volume of commentary, a major landmark in Shakespeare scholarship. In addition Professor Wells has written a wide range of books and studies devoted to Shakespeare and the drama and theatre in the early modern period.This is the second lecture in the Decoding Shakespeare series, please see below for details of other lectures in the series:16 November: Friedman v. Arensberg18 November: Of Anagrammatology

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