Christopher Crosbie

@ncsu.edu

Associate Professor of English
North Carolina State University



                             

https://researchid.co/christopher_crosbie

I specialize in English Renaissance drama, ethics, and the reception of classical philosophy in the early modern era. My particular interests are in Aristotelianism (in all its variety) and moral philosophy (across various traditions). I’m especially fascinated by the ways classical philosophy finds unique expression on the popular stage — and by the ethical valences these kinds of appropriations hold. My current project, tentatively titled Shakespeare and the Communal Ethics of Intention, examines the ethical demands the unknowable intentions of others put on moral agents in Shakespearean drama.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Shakespeare, Renaissance drama, ethics, Aristotle, classical philosophy

9

Scopus Publications

103

Scholar Citations

5

Scholar h-index

4

Scholar i10-index

Scopus Publications




  • REVENGE TRAGEDY AND CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY ON THE EARLY MODERN STAGE


  • The State of the Art: Current Critical Approaches to The Revenger’s Tragedy


  • Publicizing the science of god: Milton's Raphael and the boundaries of knowledge
    Christopher Crosbie and
    Philosophy Documentation Center

  • Francis bacon and aristotelian afterlives
    Christopher Crosbie
    John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

  • The longleat manuscript reconsidered: Shakespeare and the sword of lath
    Christopher Crosbie
    University of Chicago Press
    The principal challenge posed by the Longleat manuscript, or Peacham drawing, has been to account for the few marked discontinuities that exist between an image and its accompanying patchwork of texts, components that otherwise might seem to correspond rather well. Widely considered the only illustration of a Shakespearean play from the author’s lifetime, this single folio sheet (Figure 1) apparently depicts a scene, or perhaps scenes, from Titus Andronicus. Across the top of the leaf appears a drawing of seven figures, consisting from left to right of two Roman soldiers (perhaps Titus’ sons), a victorious Titus returned from war, a kneeling Tamora, Queen of the Goths, two men (presumably her sons) bound as prisoners, and Aaron the Moor, holding in his left hand what seems to be a sword while appearing to point with his right hand at the sword, the two kneeling men, Tamora, or perhaps some combination of them. Beneath the drawing follows approximately forty lines of text, beginning with a stage direction not found in the play itself reading, “Enter Tamora pleadinge for her sonnes going to execution.” The remaining text consists of three main components: Tamora’s plea for her son, drawn from the first act of Shakespeare’s play; a short response by Titus, comprised of one line from the play and two apparently invented

  • Fixing moderation: Titus Andronicus and the Aristotelian determination of value
    Christopher. Crosbie
    Oxford University Press (OUP)
    Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus examines through its sensational horrors and multiple acts of vengeance how designations of moderation and excess may be constituted, unsettled, and reconstituted in a polity destabilized by shifting ethical referents. By examining Shakespeare's engagement with the Aristotelian ethical mean—the point of moral equilibrium between two diametrically opposed, immoral extremes—this article explains how the construal of ethical value in Elizabethan England invited contest. Titus Andronicus exhibits a preoccupation with fixing moderation, both in the sense of locating but also repairing it as well, to imagine a world in which immoderation threatens to become the norm. By treating the contextual determination of moderation and the mean's ontological fixity as compatible, Titus Andronicus creates a flexible rigidity that positions Titus as both horrible and sympathetic in his revenge, as he negotiates the shifting terms of Rome's civic contract. The play's apparent dislocation of victim and villain derives from the theatrical possibilities inherent in the mean's fluidity, yet the ethical mean paradoxically provides a readable matrix of heroism and villainy. Resituated in a world grown uncontrollably immoderate, Titus acts in direct proportion to his surrounding context, his grotesque revenge functioning, remarkably, as a brutal but necessary type of moderation-in-extremity.

RECENT SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS

  • The Closet Scenes of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge
    C Crosbie
    The Explicator 83 (1), 67-73 2025

  • Macbeth by William Shakespeare
    C Crosbie
    Comparative Drama 58 (3), 399-403 2024

  • Aristotelian Time, Ethics, and the Art of Persuasion in Shakespeare’s Henry V
    C Crosbie
    Literature 3 (1), 82-93 2023

  • “Strange Serious Wantoning”: Early Modern Chess Manuals and the Ethics of Virtuous Subterfuge
    C Crosbie
    Renaissance Papers, 1-12 2022

  • Entertaining the Idea: Shakespeare, Performance, and Philosophy. Lowell Gallagher, James Kearney, and Julia Reinhard Lupton, eds. UCLA Clark Memorial Library Series. Toronto
    C Crosbie
    Renaissance Quarterly 75 (4), 1437-1439 2022

  • Revenge Tragedy and Classical Philosophy on the Early Modern Stage
    C Crosbie
    Edinburgh University Press 2018

  • Shakespeare, intention, and the ethical force of the involuntary
    C Crosbie
    The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy, 207-219 2018

  • Renaissance Suppliants: Poetry, Antiquity, Reconciliation
    C Crosbie
    MODERN PHILOLOGY 115 (3), E219-E222 2018

  • Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World by Paul A. Cantor
    C Crosbie
    Shakespeare Quarterly 69 (3), 195-197 2018

  • Refashioning Fable through the Baconian Essay: De sapientia veterum and Mythologies of the Early Modern Natural Philosopher
    C Crosbie
    The Essay: Forms and Transformations, 15-33 2017

  • Publicizing the Science of God: Milton's Raphael and the boundaries of knowledge
    C Crosbie
    Renascence 67 (4), 239-260 2015

  • The Longleat Manuscript Reconsidered: Shakespeare and the Sword of Lath
    C Crosbie
    English Literary Renaissance 44 (2), 221-240 2014

  • Family and the State in Early Modern Revenge Drama: Economies of Vengeance
    C Crosbie
    Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 27, 255-257 2014

  • Francis Bacon and Aristotelian Afterlives
    C Crosbie
    A Companion to British Literature, 231-248 2014

  • The Comedy of Errors, Haecceity, and the Metaphysics of Individuation
    C Crosbie
    Renaissance Papers 1, 101-13 2013

  • Deathly Experiments: A Study of Icons and Emblems of Mortality in Christopher Marlowe's Plays.
    C Crosbie
    SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNAL 43 (2), 458-459 2012

  • Hughes, Thomas
    C Crosbie
    The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature 2012

  • English Revenge Drama: Money, Resistance, Equality, and: Women and Revenge in Shakespeare: Gender, Genre, and Ethics
    C Crosbie
    Shakespeare Quarterly 63 (2), 253-256 2012

  • Oeconomia and the Vegetative Soul: Rethinking Revenge in The Spanish Tragedy
    C Crosbie
    English Literary Renaissance 38 (1), 3-33 2008

  • Science, Literature and Rhetoric in Early Modern England
    C Crosbie
    Renaissance Quarterly 61 (4), 1406-1407 2008

MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS

  • Fixing Moderation:" Titus Andronicus" and the Aristotelian Determination of Value
    C Crosbie
    Shakespeare Quarterly, 147-173 2007
    Citations: 31

  • Oeconomia and the Vegetative Soul: Rethinking Revenge in The Spanish Tragedy
    C Crosbie
    English Literary Renaissance 38 (1), 3-33 2008
    Citations: 22

  • Revenge Tragedy and Classical Philosophy on the Early Modern Stage
    C Crosbie
    Edinburgh University Press 2018
    Citations: 15

  • Sexuality, Corruption, and the Body Politic: The Paradoxical Tribute of" The Misfortunes of Arthur" to Elizabeth I
    CJ Crosbie
    Arthuriana, 68-80 1999
    Citations: 15

  • Philosophies of retribution: Kyd, Shakespeare, Webster, and the revenge tragedy genre
    CJ Crosbie
    Rutgers University-Graduate School-New Brunswick 2007
    Citations: 6

  • Publicizing the Science of God: Milton's Raphael and the boundaries of knowledge
    C Crosbie
    Renascence 67 (4), 239-260 2015
    Citations: 3

  • The Longleat Manuscript Reconsidered: Shakespeare and the Sword of Lath
    C Crosbie
    English Literary Renaissance 44 (2), 221-240 2014
    Citations: 3

  • Aristotelian Time, Ethics, and the Art of Persuasion in Shakespeare’s Henry V
    C Crosbie
    Literature 3 (1), 82-93 2023
    Citations: 2

  • Goodly Physic: Disease, Purgation, and Anatomical Display in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida
    CJ Crosbie
    Renaissance Papers, 79-96 1999
    Citations: 2

  • “Strange Serious Wantoning”: Early Modern Chess Manuals and the Ethics of Virtuous Subterfuge
    C Crosbie
    Renaissance Papers, 1-12 2022
    Citations: 1

  • Entertaining the Idea: Shakespeare, Performance, and Philosophy. Lowell Gallagher, James Kearney, and Julia Reinhard Lupton, eds. UCLA Clark Memorial Library Series. Toronto
    C Crosbie
    Renaissance Quarterly 75 (4), 1437-1439 2022
    Citations: 1

  • Francis Bacon and Aristotelian Afterlives
    C Crosbie
    A Companion to British Literature, 231-248 2014
    Citations: 1

  • The Comedy of Errors, Haecceity, and the Metaphysics of Individuation
    C Crosbie
    Renaissance Papers 1, 101-13 2013
    Citations: 1