- E-poststuart.sillars@uib.no
- BesøksadresseSydnesplassen 7HF-bygget5007 Bergen
- PostadressePostboks 78055020 Bergen
Stuart Sillars has been Professor of English Literature at Bergen since 1999, having previously been a member of the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. His research has mainly focussed on the relations between literature and the visual arts, on which he has written and lectured extensively. His earlier publications were on literature and art during the two world wars, and illustration in the novel, but he has also written on the contention between modernism and tradition in the early twentieth century. He now works largely in the area of Shakespeare and the visual arts, in particular the exchange of concept and technique between theatre, illustration and painting, as well as Shakespeare and the idea of character in the early modern theatre. His teaching in Bergen involves all areas, from first year survey courses to doctoral supervision, and he also travels extensively to lecture and teach throughout Europe and the USA. From 2011 to 2013 he was Professor II at the University of Agder.
Professor Sillars is joint general editor of Early Modern Culture Online, associate editor of Cahiers elisabethains, and editorial board member of The Nordic Journal of English Studies; American, British and Canadian Studies (Romania); Oasis (New Delhi); and Countertext (Malta). He is on the editorial board of The Greenwood Shakespeare Encyclopedia, for which he is also illustrations editor.
He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences; a Visiting Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; and an Honoraray Research Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham
Teaching ranges across periods and levels, from the 100-level survey course to doctoral supervision.
Courses at 200 level have included work on Shakespeare and Modernism, and at 300 level the early Twentieth-century English novel, Shakespeare and the visual sense, Shakespeare and the Victorians, metaphysical poetry, and the long eighteenth century.
MA theses supervised have included topics from a wide diversity of genres and periods, from Chaucer through seventeenth-century poetry and Shakespeare to recent and contemporary film adaptations.
I am always happy to discuss ideas for Master's theses that discuss aspects of English writing from all periods, with a particular interest in those that combine literature with the visual arts or music.
Doctoral thesis supervision has covered the poetry of Paul Muldoon, the teaching of English poetry in Norwegian schools, African tragedic theatre and the poetry of Ezra Pound, and aspects of Shakespeare's plays in visual form.
- (2016). Remembering Shakespeare. The Use of English. 47-53.
- (2015). 'Shakespeare in Colour: Illustrated Editions, 1908-14'. Yearbook of English Studies. 216-238.
- (2015). 'Afterword: Page and Stage, Pasts and Presents'. Early Modern Culture Online (EMCO). 71-76.
- (2015). '"Louder, the Music there!": Meaning, Rhythm and Effect in Shakespeare's Language'. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen. 43-54.
- (2013). Vorticist Shakespeare: Wyndham Lewis's "Timon of Athens" Portfolio. Around the Globe. 36-36.
- (2013). Strange Nativity: Hogarth's 'Scene from "The tempest"'. Around the Globe. 31-31.
- (2013). Desolation and Distress: William Dyce's 'Henry VI at Towton'. Around the Globe. 36-36.
- (2013). Defining spaces in eighteenth-century Shakespeare illustration. Shakespeare Quarterly. 149-167.
- (2013). Defining Spaces in Eighteenth-Century Shakespeare Illustration. Shakespeare.
- (2012). En Midsommernatts Drøm, Bergen Festival 5 June 2012. Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies. 51-53.
- (2012). A Midsummer Night's Dream in Illustrated Editions, 1838-1918. Shakespeare Survey. 92-109.
- (2011). Prince of Suspense. Around the Globe. 32-33.
- (2010). Macbeth's Nightmare. Around the Globe. 22-23.
- (2010). Framing the Frame: Shakespeare and the Cadre. Early Modern Culture Online (EMCO). 1-11.
- (2010). Drawing the Void. Around the Globe. 30-31.
- (2010). Disquiet in the Bierkeller. Around the Globe. 34-35.
- (2009). Reading Illustrated Editions: Methodology and the Limits of Interpretation. Shakespeare Survey. 162-181.
- (2009). Costume, Rank and Race: Othello's Visual Identity in the Eighteenth Century. American, British and Canadian Studies Journal. 86-105.
- (2008). Sightlines: Don't mention the E Word. American, British and Canadian Studies Journal. 264-267.
- (2008). British Romanticism. The Literary Encyclopedia.
- (2008). British First World War Poetry. The Literary Encyclopedia.
- (2007). Image, Genre, Interpretation: the visual identities of The Comedy of Errors. Interfaces (Paris). 11-34.
- (2007). 'Howsoever, strange and admirable:' A Midsummer Night's dream as via stultitiae. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen. 27-39.
- (2005). Seeing, Studying, Performing: 'Bell's Edition of Shakespeare' and Performative reading. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts. 18-27.
- (2004). The notebooks: Interviews and new fiction from contemporary writers. Canadian Literature. 101-103.
- (2004). Home. Canadian Literature. 159-161.
- (2004). Entering the landscape. Canadian Literature. 101-103.
- (2004). Drying the Bones. Canadian Literature. 159-161.
- (2004). Drought' and other stories. Canadian Literature. 159-161.
- (2004). Addicted: Notes from the belly of the beast. Canadian Literature. 101-103.
- (2003). Questioning Englishness: Mark Wallinger and the Art of Instability. MANGLER.
- (2002). '_Things to Come_ and "Newsreel": Versions of Cinematic Influence'. Notes and Queries. 191-193.
- (2002). 'Translation as Process Record: the Scientific Paper as Temporary Verbal Link'. TRANS 13.
- (2001). The Praxis of Transdisciplinarity. MANGLER.
- (2001). Morton D.Paley: Portraits of Coleridge. MANGLER.
- (2001). Globalisation and the Loss of the text. MANGLER.
- (1999). Poetry 1900-1950 (Chapter XIV: 2a). Year's Work in English Studies. 653-659.
- (2019). Shakespeare and the uses of the image.
- (2018). Transformation and Variation in Shakespeare's Tragedic canon: the Roman Plays.
- (2017). What do we mean by 'King Lear'?
- (2017). Shakespeare's Creative confusions.
- (2016). Shakespeare, Illustration and Interpretation.
- (2015). Closing remarks.
- (2015). Christianity, staging and ambivalence in Shakespeare's tragedies.
- (2015). Casting the Canon: Questions and definitions.
- (2014). Shakespeare Imaged: The Shrew, The Tempest and the Workings of Comedy.
- (2014). Reading the Illustrated Shakespeare, 1709-1875.
- (2014). Macbeth and Tragedy: Imaging the Downfall.
- (2014). Closing remarks and commentary.
- (2014). 'The excellence of this Dance consisted in its intricacy'.
- (2013). Time and Trajectory: the visual image as defining force.
- (2013). The Tempest: A Visual History.
- (2013). The Movement of Tragedy: Visualising Macbeth and Hamlet.
- (2013). The Moment of Tragedy: visualising Macbeth.
- (2013). Performance and Image: the Terry-Irving Macbeth, 1888.
- (2013). Narrative, allegory, likeness: painting and drama.
- (2013). Language, Performance, Adaptation: Some Central Issues.
- (2013). Imaging Othello: Visual Directions.
- (2013). Illustration and reading in Macbeth.
- (2013). Dimensions of Time in Victorian Shakespeare Images.
- (2013). A Midsummer Night's Dream - A Visual History.
- (2013). 'Love's Labour's Lost' and Visual Composition.
- (2012). Shakespeare's Visual fractures: the Perspective and the Mirror.
- (2012). Shakespeare and Visual Structures: Reading the Shrew Induction.
- (2012). Shakespeare and European Romantic Imaging.
- (2012). Shakespeare and Aesthetic Identity.
- (2012). Eugene delacroix and Shakespearean Transculturation.
- (2012). 'Best painter's art': the Sonnets and Visual Imagination.
- (2012). 'Are ye fantastical?': a Visual History of Macbeth.
- (2011). Shakespeare, Paragone and Dramatic Composition.
- (2011). Shakespeare and Fable; reorganising time in silent films of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
- (2011). Shakespeare Painting and Aesthetic Identity.
- (2011). Shakespeare , Painting and Aesthetics.
- (2011). Richard II and the Politics of Perspective.
- (2011). Richard II and Visual Composition.
- (2011). German Paintings and Illustrations of Shakespeare.
- (2011). Beyond Life and Death: States of Ecstasy in Shakespeare Images.
- (2010). henry Fuseli, 1741-1825: the Artist as Interpreter.
- (2010). Shakespeare, Time and the Victorian Visual Sense.
- (2010). Shakespeare and the Ambiguities of Knowledge.
- (2010). Reading Illustrated Shakespeare.
- (2010). Photography and Victorian Shakespeare.
- (2010). Ordering Time in Victorian Shakespeare Images.
- (2010). Opening and closing remarks.
- (2010). James Barry's Shakespeare Paintings.
- (2010). Images and the last plays.
- (2010). Illustrated Shakespeare and the limits of interpretations.
- (2010). Emblem and Image in Richard II.
- (2010). 'Imaging "Othello": the Play in Painting and Illustration'.
- (2009). Why The Pictures Matter: Writing /The Illustrated Shakespeare/.
- (2009). Two lectures and a seminar on Shakespeare and the visual arts.
- (2009). Time and the Visual Sense in Victorian Staging.
- (2009). Style, Rhetoric and Identity in Shakespearean Soliloquy.
- (2009). Shakespeare, Illustration and Criticism.
- (2009). Shakespeare through the Looking Glass: the Portraits, Again...
- (2009). Shakespeare in the Illustrated text: Richard III, Henry V and Romeo and Juliet.
- (2009). Shakespeare Illustration as Critical Interpretation.
- (2009). Shakespeare Atomised: Late Victorian Visual readings.
- (2009). Reading Shakespeare in the Illustrated Edition.
- (2009). Generative Imprecision: Painting, Circumstance and Fiction.
- (2009). Framing and reframing Shakespeare: Introductory thoughts.
- (2009). 'You lie, you are not he': Identity, Rhetoric and Convention in Shakespeare's Art of Lying.
- (2008). The Illustrated Shakespeare and Critical Reading.
- (2008). The Illustrated Shakespeare.
- (2008). Shakespeare, Time and Painting.
- (2008). Shakespeare and the Uses of Parody.
- (2008). Shakespeare and the Illustrator.
- (2008). Shakespeare and Painting: the plays and visual criticism.
- (2008). Reading the Illustrated Text: Towards a Methodology.
- (2008). Parody and the Erotic Beast: Relocating Titania and Bottom.
- (2008). Paradise Envisioned: Landscape, Narrative and Idea in Medina and Blake.
- (2008). Issues and Methods in reading Illustrated Shakespeares.
- (2008). Graduate seminars on Shakespeare and visual art.
- (2008). /Love's Labour's Lost/ and Visual Criticism.
- (2007). The Illustrated Shakespeare 1709-1875.
- (2007). Shakespeare,Illustration and critical reading.
- (2007). Shakespeare in the illustrated edition.
- (2007). Shakespeare and the Illustrated text.
- (2007). Shakespeare and the Illustrated Edition.
- (2007). Shakespeare and Illustration.
- (2007). Play, page and image in renaissance drama.
- (2007). Painting Shakespeare 1720-1820.
- (2006). Visiting Fellow, University of New Delhi, Nov-Dec 2006.
- (2006). Shakespeare and the Visual Sense (seminar chair).
- (2006). Shakespeare and the Eastern Mediterranean.
- (2006). Reading the Stage: The Illustrated Shakespeare.
- (2006). Reading the Stage: Shakespeare, performance and illustration.
- (2006). Boydell, Shakespeare and the Dialogues of National Identity.
- (2005). Visualising Shakespeare: the Eighteenth Century.
- (2005). Imaging Othello: Character and Play in Eighteenth-century Illustration.
- (2005). Image, Genre, Interpretation: the Visual Identities of 'The Comedy of Errors'.
- (2004). Visualising Shakespeare: the Artist as Critic 1728-1805.
- (2004). Painting Shakespeare: the Artist as Critic, 1720-1820.
- (2004). Painting Shakespeare: the Artist as Critic.
- (2003). The Art of Brevity (2).
- (2003). Sybchronous invention: Time in Eighteenth-Century Shakespeare Painting.
- (2003). Shadowed Laughter: Shakespeare's Discomfortable Comedies.
- (2003). Screen Play: Experiencing Cyberculture.
- (2003). Now and in England: Poetry, Experience and Time.
- (2003). Illustration and the English Novel.
- (2003). An Introduction to _The Taming of the Shrew_.
- (2003). 'General Ideas and the Familiar Pathetic': Hogarth, reynolds and Shakespeare.
- (2002). _The Rainbow_, History and Feeling.
- (2002). The Illustrated Short Story: Towards a Typology.
- (2002). Shakespeare's Time, Shakespeare's Space: Painting the Plays in the Eighteenth Century.
- (2002). Shakespeare and Empire (14 lectures).
- (2002). Seeing Shakespeare: Text, illustration and Performance.
- (2002). Seeing Shakespeare: Text, Illustration, Performance (14 lectures).
- (2002). Reading paintings, reading plays: Eighteenth-century Shakespeare Paintings as Literary Reinventions.
- (2002). Reading Image, Reading Text: Issues in Visual Criticism.
- (2002). Re-reading Jaques.
- (2002). Literature (6 lectures on Shakespeare and Turgenev).
- (2002). Ironising Continuity: Forster, Woolf and the Burden of Tradition.
- (2002). Introducing Literature: Shakespeare and Turgenev.
- (2002). Image and Meaning in Eighteenth-century Shakespeare Painting.
- (2002). Iconography and Appropriation: Shakespeare Painting in the Eighteenth Century.
- (2002). Cultural Undermining in First World War Poetry.
- (2002). Borrowed Attitudes: Allusion, Displacement and Appropriation in the later Eighteenth Century.
- (2002). Borrowed Attitudes (continued).
- (2002). An Introduction to _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.
- (2001). The moon as monarch in A Midsummer Night's dream.
- (2001). Rolling metaphors and megametaphors.
- (2001). Lodon, Modernism and the Idea of Change.
- (2001). England's Shakespeare: Shakespeare's England.
- (2001). A Minimalist Eventyr: King Lear in Bergen.
- (2019). Breaking the Image in the renaissance. Classiques Garnier.
- (2017). Shakespeare and the Visual arts: The Italian influence. Routledge.
- (2016). The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press.
- (2014). Shakespeare the Man. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
- (2013). The Shakespearean International Yearbook : Special Section, Macbeth. Ashgate.
- (2013). Shakespeare International yearbook. Ashgate.
- (2013). Performing Wisdom: Proverbial Lore in Modern Ugangan Society. Brill|Rodopi.
- (2012). Traditional Wisdom: Folktales from Uganda. KomMatters.
- (2011). Visions of Venice in Shakespeare. Ashgate.
- (2011). Shakespeare Closely Read: Written and Performance Texts. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
- (2011). Scholars in Shakespeare; A Postmodern Scrutiny. Shakespeare Association of India.
- (2009). Performing Change: Identity, Ownership and Tradition in Ugandan Oral Culture. Novus Forlag.
- (2008). Performing Community. Novus Forlag.
- (2016). Stuart Sillars on the Visual inShakespeare. fifteen eighty four.
- (2014). The Horror to Come. Around the Globe. 26-26.
- (2012). Through a glass darkly: Charles Knight's Twelfth Night. Around the Globe. 30-30.
- (2012). The new Machiavel: Henry Fuseli's Henry V. Around the Globe. 25-25.
- (2011). Quite Fabulous - John Dicks' Shakespeare. Around the Globe. 2 sider.
- (2011). Prince of Suspense: Daniel Maclise's painting of Hamlet. Around the Globe. 2 sider.
- (2011). Let's talk of epitaphs: Hubert Gravelot and Much Ado about Nothing. Around the Globe. 2 sider.
- (2009). Meditations on Love and Performance (two illustrations to Romeo and Juliet). Arnd the Globe. 36-37.
- (2009). His face; the facts: review of Shakespeare found!, ed Stanley Wells. Around the Globe. 44-45.
- (2009). Affection or Affectation (A nineteenth-century Troilus and Cressida illustration). Around the Globe. 32-33.
- (2009). A Turbulent Pastoral: West's painting for /As You Like It/. Around the Globe. 23-23.
- (1999). James A Davies: "A Reference Companion to Dylan Thomas". Westport, Conn. and London: Greenwood Press, 1998. Notes and Queries. S. 555.
- (2022). The Victorian Cult of Shakespeare: Bardology in the Nineteenth Century. Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History. 239-242.
- (2019). England, Whose England? Early Modern Culture Online (EMCO). 9 sider.
- (2012). Shakespeare and the medieval world [review of three books]. Shakespeare. 470-474.
- (2008). review of 'The Artis as Original Genius' by William Pressly. Shakespeare Quarterly. 356-358.
- (2008). Compound Visions: henry Fuseli's /Midsummer Night's dream/ Paintings. Around the Globe. 22-24.
- (2008). 'Early but Late' (Review of /Two Gentlemen of Verona/, ed. Michael Warren, The Oxford Shakespeare. Around the Globe. 54-54.
- (2007). Review of Lindley, /Shakespeare and Music/ and Clausen, /Macbeth Multiplied/. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen. 412-414.
- (2005). Shakepeare's Visual Theatre. Shakespeare Quarterly. 240-243.
- (2005). Shadowplay. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). 166-168.
- (2010). Extending the Book: The Art of Extra-Illustration.
Se fullstendig oversikt over publikasjoner i CRIStin.
Books
Shakespeare and the Victorians (Oxford Shakespeare Topics) Oxford University Press, 2013
Shakespeare, Time and the Victorians: A Pictorial Exploration Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011
The Illustrated Shakespeare, 1709-1875 Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008
Fields of Agony: British Poetry of the First World War Penrith, Cumbria: Humanities Ebooks, 2007
also available as a Kindle
Painting Shakespeare: The Artist as Critic, 1720-1820 Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006
Structure and Dissolution in English Writing, 1910-1920 London: Macmillan and New York: St Martin's Press, 1999
Visualisation in English Fiction, 1840-1940 London and New York: Routledge, 1995
also available as an e-book
British Romantic Art and the Second World War London: Macmillan and New York: St Martin's Press, 1992
Art and Survival in First World War Britain London: Macmillan and New York: St Martin's Press, 1987
Articles and reviews in Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare Quarterly, Archiv, Interfaces, English Studies and numerous other journals
For a full list of articles and contributions to collections, see FRIDA via the link above
Professor Sillars is the founder and director of the Bergen Shakespeare and Drama Network, a group of international scholars that meets regularly to exchange research and develop new projects and activities in which research students are fully involved as equal members. For more information, see https://www.uib.no/rg/bsdn
From 2007 to 2012 he was the Norwegian co-ordinator of a five-year research project funded by NUFU, in collaboration with Makerere University, Uganda, on Ugandan oral forms as a repository of traditional wisdom. The project has produced three volumes of essays,a collection of folktales in translation and an archive of text and video material housed in Makerere.
He was also the co-curator, with Dr Erin Blake, of 'The Extra-Illustrated Shakespeare' exhibition, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 24 January - 25 May 2010.
Forthcoming publications
Shakespeare and the Visual Imagination Cambridge University Press (in production, due 2015)
Multiple contributions to The Greenwood Shakespeare Encyclopedia
Macro entry on Shakespeare and visual art and micro entry on Photography for The Cambridge World Shakespeare Encyclopedia, New York: Cambridge University Press
Articles on the Shakespeare paintings of Man Ray; the mirror in Elizabethan drama; Shakespeare, rhythm and music.
Current writing
Eden at Half-Time, a study of ideas of England in word and image, 1918-39, for Oxford University Press.
Collection of essays, some new, some reprinted, for Cambridge University Press.
Commissioned articles on illustration in the sixteenth-century English Romance; illustrated editions of Shakespeare, 1910-20.
BA (Combined Honours) English and Music, University of Exeter
MA University of Wales, Aberystwyh
PhD University of Amsterdam