René Weis

René Weis , Professor of English and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University College London was educated at the University of Edinburgh, the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, and at University College London, where he has worked since 1980.

His main area of research is Shakespeare, which he teaches extensively both at undergraduate level and on the Shakespeare MA. Among his other interests are the classical background of English literature, particularly Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, and Ovid; and modern drama from Ibsen and Chekhov to Miller, Williams, Pinter, and Mamet. Over the years he has supervised doctoral students on a diverse range of topics, including Shakespeare and Brecht, work and play on the Shakespearian Stage, Shakespearian maternities, and the Arts Council and modern British theatre. Current projects under his supervision include one on medicine and Shakespeare and another on queenship in the period.

Audio Excerpt

Weis talks about the magic of Shakespeare’s poetry

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Weis is keen to supervise further research on any aspect of Shakespeare, and particularly in the areas of editing, bibliography, biography, topography, local history, translations, and the relevance of the sectarian divides in Shakespeare’s England to his works. Find out more about his recent book “Shakespeare Revealved: A Biography”

Interview Excerpt

ON SHAKESPEARE’S COINAGES

RENÉ WEIS: Now, Shakespeare’s coinages, I think, have been hugely overestimated.  He doesn’t coin that many phrases. […] The phrase “hugger mugger” in Hamlet is a case in point.  I mean, the hugger mugger is a phrase which seems so Shakespearian it must be Shakespeare invented it.  But in fact he didn’t.  It occurs in the treason trials of the period.  It’s used, in fact – I think I’m right in saying – in the trial of Edmond Campion.  So here’s this famous Catholic martyr and they would hugger-mugger his cast at him and it something along the lines, you know, if you had been as good a person as you say you were, why then did you come hugger-mugger to your own country unless you came to commit an act of treason.