James P. Bednarz

James P. Bednarz is professor of English at Long Island University, USA.

Shakespeare and the Poets' War (Columbia University Press, 2001), his first book, was selected as an 'International Book of the Year' by The Times Literary Supplement. There, Jonathan Bate praised it as a 'state-of-the-art account of the pivotal "dialogic" episode' in Shakespeare's career, which 'powerfully demonstrates how Ben Jonson's arrival on the dramatic scene presented Shakespeare with his greatest challenge since the death of Marlowe'.

Shakespeare and the Truth of Love, The Mystery of 'The Phoenix and Turtle' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), his latest book, winner of the Krasnoff Award for Scholarly Achievement, examines the political, religious, and literary contexts that shaped Shakespeare's perspective as a dramatist and poet at the height of his career in 1601, when he wrote his untitled lyric masterpiece known as 'The Phoenix and Turtle'. Exemplifying a 'New Formalism', this book argues for a radical reevaluation of the poem's significance in light of the historical forces that shaped Shakespeare's profound meditation on Truth and Beauty. This study provides a comprehensive critical overview of major contemporary approaches to the poem's interpretation, while seeking to convey a sense of its enduring mystery. In her TLS review, Hazel Wilkinson writes that this study's 'delicate and nuanced investigation of the poem's philosophy' makes 'a great poem more intriguing and provocative than ever'.