Introduction: Coping with Loss

Abstract

This Introduction draws attention to the extensive losses plaguing the study of early modern culture, beyond lost plays and the study of Shakespeare alone. It considers how Classicists have dealt with the substantial gaps and lacunae in their field, in a bid to better understand how early modernists might approach the challenge of literary and archival loss. It also surveys developments in the study of early modern loss since the publication in 2014 of Lost Plays in Shakespeare’s England, and broadens the scope of the scholarly conversation to think about loss more generally, beyond drama and beyond London.