The Voice of Wilkinson had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Kent Lehnhof (English), whose new book explores the ethical and emotional power of the voice in Shakespeare’s later works. Dr. Lehnhof examines how the sound of a voice—its pitch, timbre, tone, and rhythm—can carry meaning and moral force beyond words themselves. Our discussion touched on the intersections of philosophy, performance, and literature, and on what it means to truly listen to another person’s voice.

Voice of Wilkinson: Tell me about the book, Voice and Ethics in Shakespeare’s Late Plays, and what inspired you to write it?

Kent Lehnhof: I was inspired to write this book after reading Adriana Cavarero’s For More than One Voice (2005). In that book, Cavarero emphasizes the ethical claims imposed upon us by the speech of others. But Cavarero isn’t talking about the verbal dimensions of speech (i.e., the linguistic messages that speakers convey). Rather, she’s focused on the nonverbal dimensions of speech (i.e, aspects like pitch, timbre, tone, tempo, cadence, and accent). According to Cavarero, these are the elements that make each voice distinctive, and it is this distinctiveness that solicits us to be ethically responsive. This seemed to me a promising way of approaching Shakespeare’s plays, for in many of them the mere sound of the voice seems to carry an ethical charge, irrespective of what is said. In my book, then, I draw on Cavarero to unpack the power of the voice in Shakespeare’s later works.

VoW: You’ve said before that you believe that one of the reasons that makes Shakespeare’s work “Distinctly Shakespearean” is its interest in exploring what it’s like to be in relation. Can you go a little more into detail about that?

KL: In the very first book devoted entirely to Shakespeare criticism, published in 1769, Elizabeth Montagu hailed Shakespeare as “one of the greatest moral philosophers that ever lived.” I think Montagu was spot on. (And isn’t it fantastic that the first scholarly monograph on Shakespeare was written by a woman?) Even though Shakespeare’s plays are meant to entertain, first and foremost, they are also intent on exploring the stresses and strains, joys and sorrows, and privileges and pitfalls of living with and among others. I think Shakespeare was highly sensitive to the ethical demands our relationships place upon us. In my book, then, I characterize his plays as lively enactments of ethical philosophy and interpret them accordingly.

Vow: Can you explain how the book focuses on Shakespeare’s use of the dimensions of the human voice/speech?

KL: Voice and Ethics is a book about Shakespeare and speech. However, it differs from most examinations of speech in Shakespeare by attending more to the sound of the voice than the linguistic content it conveys. My study is less concerned with matters of semantics and stylistics than it is with the sensuous and sonorous dimensions of human speech. At the core of every chapter is what Adriana Cavarero calls “the vibrating throat of flesh,” which fully expresses the uniqueness of the speaker. By attending to the ethical efficacy of the voice in Shakespeare’s late plays, my book makes the case that Shakespeare is in broad agreement with Cavarero that “the voice is always, irremediably relational,” that “the voice is for the ear.”

VoW: What plays are covered in the book and why?

KL: I focus on five plays written towards the tail end of Shakespeare’s career: Coriolanus, King Lear, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. These mature plays are entirely invested in the sound of the voice. (In Coriolanus, for instance, the word “voice” appears an astounding 42 times!) I suspect that spending so much time in the playhouse sharpened Shakespeare’s ear—because early modern playhouses were basically temples of sound. They were built to be large-scale sounding boards, engineered to amplify actors’ voices. Within this rich acoustic environment, I believe Shakespeare became uncommonly attuned to the ethical resonances of human speech. One evidence of this attunement is that Shakespeare customarily talked about “hearing a play,” whereas his peers were more likely to say “seeing a play.”

VoW: We hear another publication is coming out soon. A “guidebook” titled Understanding Shakespeare’s Plays: A Candid Companion to All the Drama. Can you speak of this?

KL: Understanding Shakespeare’s Plays will be published by Arden Shakespeare in 2026. Unlike Voice and Ethics, which was written for Shakespeare scholars, Understanding Shakespeare’s Plays was written for Shakespeare enthusiasts—or even Shakespeare beginners. It’s an easy-to-use guidebook meant to give non-specialists a way into Shakespeare’s works. I include a chapter on each play, walking you through each one with a combination of helpful information, enriching analysis, and frank discussion. Whereas other guidebooks present the plays objectively or neutrally, I admit that not everything he wrote was a perfect gem. Instead of glossing over what’s troubling or tricky, I get into it, giving you a fuller picture of each play and of Shakespeare’s overall significance. Arden is pitching it as “the book to get if you want to get Shakespeare.”

VoW: What’s next for you?   

KL: My current project is a viewer’s guide to Shakespeare films. Tentatively titled Watch Shakespeare With Me, the book will take up every cinematic treatment of a Shakespeare play since 1944. While Understanding Shakespeare’s Plays was a big project—totaling almost 190,000 words–Watch Shakespeare With Me might end up exceeding it!