Martha Tuck Rozett
Professor
Ph.D., Michigan
Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Humanities 352
442-4073
rozett@albany.edu
 |
Constructing a World:
Shakespeare's England and the New
Historical Fiction Martha Tuck Rozett gracefully handles a great deal of material with economy and precision, at once rehearsing traditional views of the subject while also offering an adventurous review of the con-temporary scene. Though the subject of historical fiction has been a topic of interest for many years, no one to my knowledge has managed to deal so effectively as Rozett does with the postmodern development of what she calls the New Historical Fiction. - George Garrett, author of Death of the Fox |
Taking its title from Umberto Eco's postscript to The Name of the Rose, the novel that inaugurated the New Historical Fiction in the early 1980s, Constructing a World, professor Rozett's latest study, provides a guide to the genre's defining characteristics. It also serves as a lively account of the way Shakespeare, Marlowe, Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I, and their contemporaries have been depicted by such writers as Anthony Burgess, George Garrett, Patricia Finney, Barry Unsworth, and Rosalind Miles. Innovative historical novels written during the past two or three decades have transformed the genre, producing some extraordinary bestsellers as well as less widely read serious fiction. Shakespearean scholar Martha Tuck Rozett engages in an ongoing conversation about the genre of historical fiction, drawing attention to the metacommentary contained in “Afterwords” or "Historical Notes"; the imaginative reconstruction of the diction and mentality of the past; the way Shakespearean phrases, names, and themes are appropriated; and the counterfactual scenarios writers invent as they reinvent the past.
Academic ProfileMartha Tuck Rozett is a professor of English
at the University at Albany, SUNY, where she has
taught and served in various administrative
capacities since 1973. In May 2002 she was named
a Collins Fellow, the university’s major award
for service. She received a BA in English from
Harvard University and a PhD in English from The
University of Michigan. Her teaching focuses
mainly on Shakespeare and on contemporary
historical fiction. She is active in the English
department graduate program and regularly
teaches graduate seminars on Shakespeare:
Sources and Offshoots, Writing and Revision,
Teaching Shakespeare, and The New Historical
Fiction. Rozett has served as Director of
Graduate Studies, MA Advisor, Director of
Undergraduate Studies, and Associate Dean of
Humanities and Fine Arts in the course of her
career at Albany. She also holds an affiliate
appointmen
t
in the Department of Judaic Studies. Her
activities in the Albany community include
serving on the Education Committee of Capital
Repertory Theatre and on the Board and the
Education Committee of Congregation B’nai
Shalom, and serving as a judge for the English
Speaking Union’s regional Shakespeare
competition. She is also a member of the board for Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany.
Martha publishes widely on Shakespeare and Shakespeare pedagogy and, more recently, on historical fiction. Her books include THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION AND THE EMERGENCE OF ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY (1984), TALKING BACK TO SHAKESPEARE (1994) and CONSTRUCTING A WORLD: SHAKESPEARE’S ENGLAND AND THE NEW HISTORICAL FICTION (2003). She also reviews books for Shakespeare Quarterly and performances of Shakespeare plays for Shakespeare Bulletin. She takes an active interest in the teaching of Shakespeare to young people and offers workshops for theatre-related arts-in-education programs in New York City.
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