No abstract

Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the subject of my first chapter, is a play whose metadramatic structures are entirely suffused with the figure of the unseen informer, generating a duplicitous atmosphere which is integral to the movement of the narrative. Its vicious nature obscured by its own corruption, it is so much the very air that Denmark breathes that the court’s ubiquitous ‘espials’ come to seem ‘lawful’. The chapter argues that informing overtakes authorship, and self-authorship, as the means by which narrative is generated. So, Hamlet arrives at his and Claudius’ denouement as if washed there on a tide of circumstance, lashed into place by this perfect storm of informing and duplicity. In Hamlet, informing functions as a social hamartia which the play projects from the personal experience of the character onto the world of the whole court, operating as a critique of contemporary mechanisms of authority, which are based on informing. Conversely, Hamlet’s own supposed hamartia, his vacillation and procrastination, arises in fact from a self-conscious reluctance to submit to the full implications of his own role in this homicidal system. The metadramatic carnage of the play’s ending, meanwhile, has a tale to tell about the fate of such a system.

This book explores the metadramatic plays and devices of Shakespeare and Jonson and finds at the core of their metadrama some disturbing connections, and even an uneasy sense of common practice, between authors and the shadowy figure of the informer. It offers insight into the internal workings and motivations of Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s dramatic structures and opens a new window on their ambitions, concerns and fears. In doing so, it enhances our historical understanding of the structures of authority and society within which the drama was produced, and the place of the informer in those structures.

2 3 4Tay Road Bridge is a 42-span, 2?25 km-long twin box viaduct carrying the A92 over the Tay Estuary between Dundee and Fife. Two navigation spans are located on either side of pier 32. Cargo vessels of up to 3500 DWT regularly transit the bridge inbound or outbound from Perth 33 km to the west passing under the bridge 2 h before or after high tide to complete the trips in one uninterrupted movement. The 4 kn tidal flow and the vessels' need to maintain a 'through the water' speed of 8 kn for steering combine to necessitate an unusually high 'over ground' speed of over 12 kn. Consequently, while relatively small, transitting vessels possess high kinetic energy, and in the event of collision it is this energy that has to be absorbed by the pier protection system. Assessment revealed that the consequence of ship collision would be severe, affecting structural equilibrium. The structures provided are reinforced concrete fender beams. For the most severe collision events, the tubular steel supporting piles are designed to deflect beyond the point at which the end moments cause section yielding, and it is the work done in the rotation of these plastic hinges that absorbs the majority of the collision energy. This paper describes the development and design of the protection structures, early contractor involvement, contract form and construction.

This chapter demonstrates the ways in which crossroads have long been revered as sites of magical interest and have hosted rituals important to the operation of everyday religion and superstition. It documents newly discovered early modern crossroads spells, and places them alongside a variety of crossroads rituals and practices that are described in contemporary and other historical texts. Focusing on the early modern as the era of greatest flourishing for accounts of these magical rites, it takes an isomorphic approach to exploring the unrelenting significance of the crossroads as a site of particular ritual potency.