Dr Tom Rutter

School of English

Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama

English Tom Rutter
Profile picture of English Tom Rutter
t.rutter@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 8473
Jessop West

Full contact details

Dr Tom Rutter
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I arrived at the University of Sheffield in 2012 after six years at Sheffield Hallam University, before which I taught at University College London (where I took my PhD) and then at London South Bank University. Before that, I studied for my BA at St Johns College, Oxford.

My main area of expertise is Renaissance literature, especially drama. My PhD explored the representation of work on the early modern stage; when rewriting my thesis as a book I became increasingly interested in playing companies and how they bring together the activities of disparate groups such as dramatists, actors, audiences, patrons, theatre owners and booksellers, offering a way of linking dramatic production to wider forces in society. This 'repertory approach' informed my second monograph, which focused on a single company, the Admirals Men. My main current project is on early modern drama and science.

I am co-director of the .

Research interests

In 2017 I published a book about the Admirals Men, having produced several essays and articles about plays in their repertory. I also have a particular interest in the plays of Shakespeare (who didnt write for the Admirals Men) and Marlowe, as well as in the institutional contexts of the early modern theatre. I recently co-edited (with Lisa Hopkins of Sheffield Hallam University) a collection of essays on the Cavendish family, and I am currently writing a book on Shakespeare and science.

I am an editor of the journal Shakespeare: 

Publications

Books

  • Rutter T (2024) . Oxford University Press.
  • (2022) . Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
  • Rutter T (2017) . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Rutter TO (2012) The Cambridge Introduction to Christopher Marlowe.
  • Rutter T (2008) Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage. Cambridge University Press.

Edited books

  • (Ed.) (2022) THE ARDEN HANDBOOK OF SHAKESPEARE AND EARLY MODERN DRAMA: PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURE, PERFORMANCE AND IDENTITY..
  • Hopkins L & Rutter T (Ed.) (2020) A Companion to the Cavendishes. Arc Humanities Press.

Journal articles

  • Rutter T (2024) . Comparative Drama, 58(3), 341-366.
  • Rutter T (2021) . Comparative Drama, 55(2-3), 404-413.
  • Rutter T (2019) . English Literary Renaissance, 49(2), 248-272.
  • Rutter T (2015) . Renaissance and Reformation, 38(1), 117-139.
  • Rutter T (2013) Marlowe, _Hoffman_, and the Admirals Men. Marlowe Studies: An Annual, 3, 49-62.
  • Rutter T (2011) Introduction: The Repertory-Based Approach. Early Theatre: a journal associated with the Records of Early English Drama, 13(3), 121-132.
  • Rutter T (2010) Marlowe, the Mad Priest of the Sun, and Heliogabalus. Early Theatre: a journal associated with the Records of Early English Drama, 13(2), 109-120.
  • Rutter T (2009) Marlovian Echoes in the Admiral's Men Repertory: _Alcazar_, _Stukeley_, _Patient Grissil_. Shakespeare Bulletin: a journal of performance, criticism, and scholarship, 27(1), 27-38.
  • Rutter T (2008) . SEL - Studies in English Literature, 48(2), 283-303.
  • Rutter T (2008) . Shakespeare, 4(3), 336-350.
  • Rutter T (2007) The Actors in _Sir Thomas More_. Shakespeare Yearbook, 16, 223-240.
  • Rutter T (2006) Merchants of Venice in _A Knack to Know an Honest Man_. Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England: an annual gathering of research, criticism, and reviews, 19, 194-209.
  • Rutter T (2005) Fit Hamlet, Fat Hamlet, and the Problems of Aristocratic Labour. Cahiers Elisabethains: late medieval and renaissance English studies, 68, 27-32.
  • Rutter T () . Early Theatre, 13(2).
  • Rutter T () . Early Theatre, 13(1).

Book chapters

  • Dowd MM & Rutter T (2023) Introduction In Dowd MM & Rutter T (Ed.), The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama (pp. 1-17).
  • Rutter T (2020) The Cavendishes and Ben Jonson In Hopkins L & Rutter T (Ed.), A Companion to the Cavendishes (pp. 107-125). Leeds: Arc Humanities Press.
  • Rutter T (2020) Tamburlaine the Weather Man In McInnis D (Ed.), Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader (pp. 107-128). London: Arden Shakespeare.
  • Rutter T (2016) The Spanish Tragedy and Virgil In Rist T (Ed.), The Spanish Tragedy: A Critical Reader (pp. 153-174). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
  • (2016) , Community-Making in Early Stuart Theatres (pp. 236-256). Routledge
  • Rutter T (2016) In Johnson A, Sell R & Wilcox A (Ed.), Community-Making in Early Stuart Theatres: Stage and Audience (pp. 218-238). Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Rutter T (2015) Tamburlaine: Parts One and Two, CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE AT 450 (pp. 51-70).
  • Rutter T (2014) (pp. 181-196). Wiley
  • Rutter T (2013) The Professional Theatre and Marlowe In Smith E & Bartels E (Ed.), Marlowe in Context (pp. 262-272). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Rutter T (2011) _Englishmen for My Money_: Work and Social Conflict? In Dowd MM & Korda N (Ed.), Working Subjects in Early Modern English Drama (pp. 87-99). Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate.
  • Rutter T (2009) Adult Playing Companies 1603 to 1613, The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre (pp. 72-87). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Book reviews

  • Rutter T (2024) Bradley J. Irish, Shakespeare and Disgust: The History and Science of Early Modern Revulsion (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2023). Debapriya Sarkar, Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023). Early Modern Literary Studies, 23(2).
  • Rutter T (2023) . The Review of English Studies, 74(314), 357-359.
  • Rutter T (2022) Shakespeare's Englishes: Against Englishness.. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 117, 112-113.
  • Rutter T (2020) . Renaissance Studies, 34(3), 490-492.
  • Rutter T (2020) 'A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels' by George North: A Newly Uncovered Manuscript Source for Shakespeare's Plays. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 115, 152-153.
  • Rutter T (2020) Shakespeare's Two Playhouses: Repertory and Theatre Space at the Globe and the Blackfriars, 1599-1613. COMPARATIVE DRAMA, 54(1-2), 123-126.
  • Rutter T (2019) . Shakespeare, 15(4), 453-454.
  • Rutter T (2016) . Comparative Drama, 50(1), 123-125.
  • Tom Rutter (2015) . The Modern Language Review, 110(3), 823-823.
  • Tom Rutter (2012) . The Modern Language Review, 107(2), 610-610.
  • Rutter T (2011) Shakespeare, the Queen's Men, and the Elizabethan Performance of History. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 106, 227-228.
  • Rutter T (2011) Political Economy and the States of Literature in Early Modern England. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 106, 226-227.
  • Rutter T (2010) Review of Robert A. Logan, Shakespeares Marlowe: The Influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeares Artistry (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Early Modern Literary Studies, 15(2).
  • Rutter T (2010) . Notes and Queries, 57(2), 259-260.
  • Rutter T (2010) Shakespeare's Companies: William Shakespeare's Early Career and the Acting Companies, 1577-1594. NOTES AND QUERIES, 57(1), 129-131.
  • Rutter T (2010) Three Renaissance Usury Plays: 'The Three Ladies of London' by Robert Wilson, 'Englishmen for my Money' by William Haughton and 'The Hog Hath Lost his Pearl' by Robert Tailor. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 105, 218-219.
  • Rutter T (2010) Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. NOTES AND QUERIES, 57(1), 129-131.
  • Rutter T (2009) The Cartographic Imagination in Early Modern England: Re-writing the World in Marlowe, Spenser, Raleigh and Marvell. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 104, 1109-1110.
  • Rutter T (2009) Shakespeare's Ideas: More Things in Heaven and Earth. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 104, 1110-1111.
  • Rutter T (2009) Review of Labor and Writing in Early Modern England, 1567-1667. By LAURIE ELLINGHAUSEN.. Modern Language Review, 1(104).
  • Rutter T (2008) . Notes and Queries, 55(4), 528-530.
  • Rutter T & Fumerton P (2008) . The Modern Language Review, 103(2), 508-508.
  • Rutter T (2008) . Notes and Queries, 55(1), 92-94.
  • Rutter T (2008) Review of Fiona McNeill, Poor Women in Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007). Early Modern Literary Studies, 13(3).
  • Rutter T (2008) English Renaissance drama. NOTES AND QUERIES, 55(1), 92-94.
  • Rutter T (2007) . Modern Language Review, 102(1), 206-207.
  • Rutter T (2006) Reading, society and politics in early modern England.. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 101, 221-222.
  • Rutter T (2005) Threshold poetics: Milton and intersubjectivity.. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 100, 774-777.
  • Rutter T (2005) Imagining death in Spenser and Milton.. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 100, 774-777.
  • Rutter T (2005) The baroque in English neoclassical literature.. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 100, 774-777.
  • Rutter T (2005) Better a shrew than a sheep: Women, drama, and the culture of jest in early modern England.. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, 100, 778-779.
  • Rutter T & Cunningham K (2004) . The Modern Language Review, 99(2), 461-461.
  • Rutter T, McMullan G, Rose MB & Scholz S (2004) . The Modern Language Review, 99(1), 155-155.
  • Rutter T & Eggert K (2002) . The Yearbook of English Studies, 32, 286-286.
  • Rutter T () . Early Theatre, 18(1).
  • Rutter T () . Early Theatre, 17(1).
  • () .
  • () .

Other

  • Rutter T (2008) . Shakespeare, 4(4), 422-424.
Research group

I am currently supervising PhDs on Renaissance literature and the Gothic, and on Shakespeare and the elements. Recent PhDs include dissertations on cloth in the plays of Thomas Middleton and an edition of Samuel Daniels Cleopatra.

I would welcome applications to do postgraduate work on Renaissance drama, particularly in the areas of Shakespeare, Marlowe, repertory studies, and early modern science.

Teaching activities

I teach on the following modules:

  • LIT113: Foundations in Literary Study
  • LIT114: Shakespeare
  • LIT120: Renaissance to Revolution
  • LIT254: Christopher Marlowe
  • LIT6047: Early Modern Books
  • LIT646: Renaissance Transformations  
  • EGH601: Shakespeare and Early Women Dramatists
  • EGH602 Research Methods In English Studies 
  • EGH629: Pastoral Literature


I am also programme director for the MA English Literature programme.