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Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist
In this 2003 study, Lukas Erne argues that Shakespeare, apart from being a playwright who wrote theatrical texts for the stage, was also a literary dramatist who produced reading texts for the page. The usual distinction that has been set up between Ben Jonson on the one hand, carefully preparing his manuscripts for publication, and Shakespeare the man of the theatre, writing for his actors and audience, indifferent to his plays as literature, is questioned in this book. Examining the evidence from early published playbooks, Erne argues that Shakespeare wrote many of his plays with a readership in mind and that these 'literary' texts would have been abridged for the stage because they were too long for performance. The variant early texts of Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Hamlet are shown to reveal important insights into the different media for which Shakespeare designed his plays.
Julius Caesar
"The First Folio of 1623 is the definitive edition of Shakespeare's plays. It is more often than not the closest we can now get to what Shakespeare actually wrote. But the Folio's antiquated typography and cramped layout make it remote and inaccessible to modern eyes. The Shakespeare Folios on the other hand offer easy access directly to the First Folio by presenting the text in modern type but otherwise unchanged. All the First Folio's idiosyncrasies of layout and spelling, even its obvious errors, have been scrupulously left intact, but the text suddenly becomes as easily legible as the script of any modern play." "As an additional aid to understanding, readers will find, printed opposite each page of the Folio, the very same passage in a modern edition. So, whenever the Folio presents a problem, the reader can refer to this parallel text for a solution, either in the text itself or in the set of notes at the end of the book. These notes draw on the long tradition of Shakespearean scholarship and include full reference to surviving Quarto texts."--BOOK JACKET.
The Taming of the Shrew
This third edition of The Taming of the Shrew, one of Shakespeare's most popular yet controversial plays, includes a new introductory section which pays lively attention to twenty-first-century stage performances, textual and critical studies. Ann Thompson describes the 'deeply problematic' nature of debates about the play and its reception.
The Tragedy of King Lear
This second edition of King Lear features a new introductory section by Jay L. Halio.
Much Ado About Nothing
This new edition features an updated introduction analysing recent critical and performance interpretations, and a revised reading list.
Shakespeare, Italy, and Intertextuality
Newly available in paperback, this collection of essays, written by distinguished international scholars, focuses on the structural influence of Italian literature, culture and society at large on Shakespeare's dramatic canon. Exploring recent methodological trends coming from Anglo-American new historicism and cultural materialism and innovative analyses of intertextuality, the volume's four thematic sections deal with 'Theory and practice', 'Culture and tradition', 'Text and ideology' and 'Stage and spectacle'.In their own views and critical perspectives, the individual chapters throw fresh light on the dramatist's pliable technique of dramatic construction and break new ground in the field of influence studies and intertextuality as a whole.A rich bibliography of secondary literature and a detailed index round off the volume.
Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Drama
This book gives a detailed and comprehensive survey of the diverse, theatrically vital formal conventions of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Besides providing readings of plays such as Hamlet, Othello, Merchant of Venice, and Titus Andronicus, it also places Shakespeare emphatically within his own theatrical context, and focuses on the relationship between the demanding repertory system of the time and the conventions and content of the plays. Lopez argues that the limitations of the relatively bare stage and non-naturalistic mode of early modern theatre would have made the potential for failure very great, and he proposes that understanding this potential for failure is crucial for understanding the way in which the drama succeeded on stage. The book offers perspectives on familiar conventions such as the pun, the aside and the expository speech; and it works toward a definition of early modern theatrical genres based on the relationship between these well-known conventions and the incoherent experience of early modern theatrical narratives.
Shakespeare's Stage Traffic
Shakespeare's unique status has made critics reluctant to acknowledge the extent to which some of his plays are the outcome of adaptation. In Shakespeare's Stage Traffic Janet Clare re-situates Shakespeare's dramaturgy within the flourishing and competitive theatrical trade of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. She demonstrates how Shakespeare worked with materials which had already entered the dramatic tradition, and how, in the spirit of Renaissance theory, he moulded and converted them to his own use. The book challenges the critical stance that views the Shakespeare canon as essentially self-contained, moves beyond the limitations of generic studies and argues for a more conjoined critical study of early modern plays. Each chapter focuses on specific plays and examines the networks of influence, exchange and competition which characterised stage traffic between playwrights, including Marlowe, Jonson and Fletcher. Overall, the book addresses multiple perspectives relating to authorship and text, performance and reception.
Shakespeare's Apprenticeship
The contents of the Shakespeare canon have come into question in recent years as scholars add plays or declare others only partially his work. Now, new literary and historical evidence demonstrates that five heretofore anonymous plays published or performed during his lifetime are actually his first versions of later canonical works. Three histories, The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, The True Tragedy of Richard the Third, and The Troublesome Reign of John; a comedy, The Taming of a Shrew; and a romance, King Leir, are products of Shakespeare's juvenile years. Later in his career, he transformed them into the plays that bear nearly identical titles. Each is strikingly similar to its canonical counterpart in terms of structure, plot and cast, though the texts were entirely rewritten. Virtually all scholars, critics and editors of Shakespeare have overlooked or disputed the idea that he had anything to do with them. This addition of five plays to the Shakespeare canon introduces a new facet to the authorship debate, and supplies further evidence that the real Shakespeare was Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford.
