The Course of Recognition in Cymbeline

One of the stated aims of this collection of essays is to bring some of the offerings of performance studies to bear on matters of ethics in Shakespearean drama. Thinking with the preposition – face to face, intentionally omitting the hyphens in noun and adverb forms – invites us to consider, for instance, how certain phenomenological approaches to the human face both inform and change when subjected to the performativity of theatre. The appearance of a face in Shakespeare’s plays differs in important ways from the appearance of a face in philosophical reflection. When a face features in drama it