Music in Shakespeare's Rome
About the lecture
How did generations of theatre audiences imagine ancient Rome? For many of them, the answer was Shakespeare's Roman plays. For many years, I have explored Shakespeare's Roman plays as a "small canon within the canon": a laboratory where classical antiquity was continually reimagined for new audiences across media and performance. This lecture turns to one aspect that has received far less attention: music. Focusing on Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra as a dramatic diptych tracing Rome's passage from Republic to Empire, it explores how military signals, ceremonial flourishes, songs, and musical instruments shape political imagination, cultural identity, and dramatic action. Music reveals a Shakespearean Rome that was meant not only to be seen, but also to be heard.
Event details
Date: Thursday 20 August 2026
Time: 5:30pm for 6pm lecture, followed by light refreshments from 7-8pm
Location: Terrace Room, Level 6, Sir Llew Edwards Building (Building 14), UQ (view map)
All are welcome to attend our free event.
Enquiries: engagement@hass.uq.edu.au
About our speaker
Professor Maddalena Pennacchia (Roma Tre University, Italy)
Maddalena Pennacchia is Full Professor of English Literature at Roma Tre University (Italy). Her research focuses on Shakespeare, particularly the Roman plays, intermediality and adaptation, applied Shakespeare, and more recently sound studies and Practice as Research. She is the author of Shakespeare Intermediale. I drammi romani (2012) and has published widely in international journals including Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare, Intermédialités, and Cahiers Élisabéthains. She is Principal Investigator of the national research project Applied Shakespeare, Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Encore performance series at Teatro Palladium in Rome, and President of the Italian Association of Shakespeare and Early Modern Studies (IASEMS).
About Lloyd Davis
This lecture hosted by UQ's School of Communication and Arts is supported by the Lloyd Davis Memorial Fellowship.
The University of Queensland created this Visiting Professorship for leading Shakespeare scholars in 2006, in memory of Associate Professor Lloyd Davis, who died in 2005.
In announcing the Visiting Professorship in 2005, then UQ Vice Chancellor Professor Hay, AC, said the following.
“UQ is committed to the long-term expansion of Shakespeare studies, to build on our international reputation for excellence and the momentum of next year's events. The Lloyd Davis Memorial Visiting Professorship will bring one major world scholar to UQ each year, beginning in 2006, to teach and share their scholarship with our own Shakespeareans.”
Lloyd Davis and Professor Richard Fotheringham secured the VIII World Shakespeare Congress held at Brisbane City Hall in July, 2006 for Brisbane and The University of Queensland.
To find out more about the Lloyd Davis Memorial Fellowship, visit our website.