Classic plays / drama

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1832, Shakespeare’s Heroines is a unique hybrid of Shakespeare criticism, women’s rights activism, and conduct literature. Jameson’s collection of readings of female characters includes praise for unexpected role models as varied as Portia, Cleopatra, and Lady Macbeth; her interpretations of these and other characters portray intellect, passion, political ambition, and eroticism as acceptable aspects of women’s behaviour. This inventive work of literary criticism addresses the problems of women’s education and participation in public life while also providing insightful, original, and entertaining readings of Shakespeare’s women.This Broadview Edition includes a critical introduction that places Shakespeare’s Heroines in the context of Jameson’s literary career and political life. Appendices include personal correspondence and other literary and political writings by Jameson, examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Shakespeare criticism, and selections from Victorian conduct books.Trade Review“This edition of Anna Jameson’s Shakespeare’s Heroines fills an important gap in available resources of this significant writer in an intelligent, well-informed manner. Adept as a researcher, a literary critic, and a writer, Professor Larsen Hoeckley brings to the task at hand an admirable ability to make connections where others before have failed to see them. Broadview Press deserves commendation for putting an important literary ‘foremother’ back in the public eye with the publication of Shakespeare’s Heroines, now properly situated in its historical and critical context.” ― Carol Hanbery MacKay, University of Texas at AustinTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionAnna Murphy Jameson: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextShakespeare’s HeroinesAppendix A: Jameson’s Writing on Women, Work, and Acting From Sisters of Charity, Catholic and Protestant, Abroad and at Home (1855) From The Communion of Labour (1856) “Mrs. Siddons” in Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad (1834) Appendix B: Jameson’s Correspondence Bessie Rayner Parkes, 1856-59 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1856 Frances Anne Kemble, 1831-32 Ottilie von Goethe, 1836 Appendix C: Contemporary Reviews of Characteristics of Women The Monthly Review (1832) The Literary Gazette (1832) Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1833) Appendix D: Conduct Books From Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England:Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits (1939) From John Ruskin, “Of Queen’s Gardens” in Sesame and Lilies (1865) Appendix E: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Shakespeare Criticism From William Richardson, “On Shakespeare’s Imitation of Female Characters” in Essays on Shakespeare’s Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff and on his Imitation of Female Characters (1789) From William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817) From Frances Anne Kemble, “Notes on Macbeth No. II.” in Notes upon Some of Shakespeare’s Plays (1882) Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe Merchant of Venice is best known for its complex and ambiguous portrait of the Jewish moneylender Shylock—and of European anti-Semitism. Fascinating in its engagement with prejudice, the play is also a comedy of cross-dressing and disguise, and a dramatic exploration of justice, mercy, and vengeance.This volume contains the full text of the play with explanatory footnotes and marginal glosses for contemporary readers. An extensive introduction and well-rounded selection of background materials not only illuminate anti-Semitism in early modern England but also provide context for other facets of the play, including its comic plot of love and marriage, its examination of commerce and international trade, and its themes of revenge and the law.Trade Review“… extremely useful. The introductory materials are lucidly written and very thorough. Most impressive, I thought, was the range of background primary sources the editor provides…. The volume strikes me as suitable for courses not only in Shakespeare and early English drama but also those that look at the history of antisemitism and of Jewish-Christian relations in Europe…. The next time I teach Merchant I am definitely going to assign it!” — Lisa Lampert-Weissig, University of California, San Diego“Students and their teachers will welcome this excellent new edition of The Merchant of Venice. Julie Sutherland’s introduction to the play sets up the major issues of and conflicts surrounding Shakespeare’s representation of his Jewish character, Shylock. The volume’s carefully chosen and excerpted supporting materials supply lively perspectives on the historical, social, religious, and theatrical contexts of Shakespeare’s enigmatic and always fascinating play.” — Judith Page, University of Florida“With a sensitive scholarly introduction, well-chosen illustrations, and extensive annotations, this edition of The Merchant of Venice is accessible enough for secondary school students and challenging enough for undergraduate and even graduate students. The contextual materials on topics from ‘The Shakespearean Theater’ to ‘Jews and Christians’ to ‘Women, Family and Obedience,’ to name but a few, make this edition a superlative resource for teaching and researching one of Shakespeare’s most significant and controversial plays.” — Bernadette Andrea, University of Texas at San Antonio“…a classroom-ready Broadview edition … presented along with a rich collection of source and contextualizing materials …” — Studies in English Literature 1500-1900Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction The Merchant of Venice Appendix A: Sources and Context From Cursor Mundi (14th century) From Giovanni Fiorentino, The Simpleton (Il Pecorone) (1378) From Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta (c. 1590) Appendix B: Jews, Christians, and the Religion of Revenge Jews and Christians 1. The Geneva Bible on Jews 2. From Edward I's Edict of Expulsion (1290) 3. Anonymous, Desecration of the Host (c. 1500) 4. From Richard Morrison, A Remedy for Sedition (1536) 5. From Thomas Coryate, Coryat's Crudities (1611) 6. From Edward Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England (1642) Revenge 1.The Geneva Bible on Lex Talionis 2.Francis Bacon, ""Of Revenge,"" The Essays (1625) Appendix C: Commercial Life: Of Venice, Merchants, Usurers, and Debtors The Geneva Bible on Usury and Generosity Hieronymo Feruffino, Letter Regarding Expelling the Marranos from Venice (1550) From Zuane di Andrea Zane and Brothers, "The Activities and Misfortunes of a Merchant Family, The Zane" (1550) Pieter Brueghel, The Storm at Sea (1568) From Thomas Wilson, A Discourse upon Usury by way of Dialogue and Orations (1572) From Thomas Lupton, The Second Part and Knitting Up of the Book Entitled Too Good to Be True (1581) From Anthony Copley, Witts Fittes and Fancies (1595) From Thomas Lodge, Wit's Misery, and the World's Madness (1596) From Giovanni Botero, Relations, of the Most Famous Kingdoms and Common-weales Through the World (1611) Case 11: Courtney against Glanvil (1615; report printed 1791) From Francis Bacon, "Of Usury" (1625) Appendix D: Love and Family Friendship and Love 1.From Cicero, Of Friendship (44 BCE) 2.From Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (1594) 3.Richard Barnfield, Sonnet 8, Cynthia, with Certain Sonnets, and the Legend of Cassandra (1595) 4.From Michel de Montaigne, "Of Friendship," Essays (1580) Family and Obedience 1.From Juan Luis Vives, The Instruction of a Christian Woman (1524) 2.From Baldassare Castiglione, The Courtier (1528) 3.From Thomas Becon, The Catechism (c. 1550) 4.From Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) Works Cited and Recommended Reading

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Book SynopsisFew medieval plays in English have attracted as much twenty-first-century interest as the Digby Mary Magdalene, an early-fifteenth-century drama that, as Chester Scoville puts it, is “probably the most spectacular of the late medieval English plays.” This new edition presents a modernized text of the play, with extensive annotation (both marginal glosses and explanatory footnotes), an insightful introduction, and a helpful selection of background contextual materials.Trade Review“This new Broadview edition makes medieval England’s most extraordinary play accessible to a broader audience. With modernized spelling throughout, brief yet informative notes and glosses, and an introduction that highlights the play’s extravagant dramatic complexity, Scoville’s edition welcomes students into the fascinating world of this text. Material from biblical and hagiographical sources that would have been familiar to both the playwright and his late medieval audience provide further context for understanding the female character at its center, while reproductions of two of the sole surviving manuscript’s pages offer a glimpse of the process by which the script was preserved for future generations. This is an important addition to the Broadview library.” — Joanne Findon, Trent University“Scoville’s Digby Play of Mary Magdalene offers an accessible and expertly-glossed text in modernized spelling. Its introduction discusses the play’s poetic and thematic features, along with its manuscript history, and provides production information. The explanatory and textual notes and the biblical sources enable undergraduate students to access the greatness and complexity of this play and to join the scholarly conversation about it.” — Frank Napolitano, Radford University“[The Broadview Mary Magdalene] is a text that reads well, is clear and easy to follow, and reduces the language barrier that many undergraduates find difficult to overcome. Perhaps the most pedagogically valuable part of Scoville’s edition is the ‘In Context’ section, [which]… provides some source material associated with the story of Mary Magdalene, alongside photographic facsimiles and transcriptions of two folios from the Digby manuscript. … Scoville’s edition is valuable and well suited to introducing first-year undergraduates to the play of Mary Magdalene; accessible, affordable, and with basic contextual information, it invites students to engage with this remarkable play without feeling overwhelmed by its strangeness and cultural difference.” — Speculum“I have seen enough book covers that bear little resemblance to the inside contents to appreciate one that does! But more importantly, the editing of the text is excellent and the apparatus ideal for a student or general audience. … those who choose to read or teach this text will find this edition to be a valuable tool.” — Jenny Rytting, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance TeachingTable of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction The Digby Play of Mary Magdalene In Context Source Material from the Douay-Rheims Bible from Mark 16 from Luke 7 from John 11 from John 20 from Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea(The Golden Legend ) The Manuscript Folio 95r Folio 116r

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Book SynopsisTrojan Women tells the story of the survivors of the Trojan War, the women and children taken into slavery by the victorious Greek army. Through the tragedy's central character, the matriarch Hecuba, this late play (415 BCE) demonstrates Euripides' commitment to speaking on behalf of the less powerful and offers a scathing critique of Athenian behavior as the city fought its own disastrous war with its southern neighbor, Sparta. Trojan Women features well-known characters from Greek mythology, including the prophetess Cassandra, the gods Athena and Poseidon, and most notably, the infamous Helen, the cause of the war, who must defend herself to the husband she abandoned. This new translation features a text committed to accuracy and clarity, one developed in collaboration with actors for clear reading and performance. Appendices provide other important literary treatment of the women in the play, from Homer to Shakespeare.Trade ReviewWhile Euripides' tragedies are universally celebrated, they somehow seem just beyond the typical undergraduate's appropriating grasp. This new edition of Trojan Women, by a distinguished translator and historian of ancient Greek drama, provides a point of entry to the non-specialist, and especially to those approaching classical theater for the first time. The introduction succinctly and engagingly lays out the important facts about Euripides' life, the theatrical conditions and conventions of Greek theater, and the remarkably prescient issues explored in Trojan Women for the twenty-first-century world. The text itself is the highlight, transferring Euripides' ideas, word play, even humor, into English as it channels the poetic voice and pathos of the great matriarch at the tragedy's center, Hecuba. So for today's theater practitioner, as well as for teachers and students of classical literature and theater, this edition has no rivals."- Paul Whitfield White, Purdue University; "Paul Streufert's translation of Trojan Women is a director's dream. His clear, concise language retains Euripides' soaring poetry, but it does so with a contemporary touch that is accessible to actors and audience members alike. His light and nuanced treatment of the text allows actors to navigate the play's complex spoken arias with relative ease, which frees actors to shape their characters into compelling, full-bodied humans worthy of the stage. In short, Streufert humanizes Euripides' tragic lament for our contemporary ears, which is no small feat!"- Rhett Luedtke, George Fox UniversityTable of Contents APPENDICES Appendix A: Hecuba 1. From Euripides, Hecuba 2. From Ovid, Metamorphoses 3. From William Shakespeare, Hamlet Appendix B: Cassandra 1. From Aeschylus, Agamemnon 2. From Seneca, Agamemnon Appendix C: Andromache 1. From Homer, Iliad 2. From Euripides, Andromache Appendix D: Helen 1. Lyric Poets a. Sappho, Fragment 16 b. Alcaeus, Fragment 283 c. Alcaeus, Fragment 42 2. From Gorgias of Leontini, Encomium of Helen 3. From Euripides, Helen 4. From Joseph of Exeter, Trojan War

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Book SynopsisPrince Siegfried chances upon a flock of swans while out hunting. When one of the swans turns into a beautiful woman, Odette, he is enraptured. But she is under a spell that holds her captive, allowing her to regain her human form only at night. The evil spirit Von Rothbart, arbiter of Odette’s curse, disguises his daughter Odile as Odette to trick Siegfried into breaking his vow of love. Fooled, Siegfried declares his love for Odile, and so dooms Odette to suffer under the curse forever. Swan Lake was Tchaikovsky’s first score for the ballet. Given its status today as arguably the best-loved and most admired of all classical ballets, it is perhaps surprising that at its premiere in 1877 Swan Lake was poorly received. It is thanks to the 1895 production by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov that Swan Lake has become part of not only ballet consciousness but also wider popular culture. That success is secured not only by the sublime, symphonic sweep of Tchaikovsky’s score but also by the striking choreographic contrasts between Petipa’s royal palace scenes and the lyric lakeside scenes created by Ivanov. Swan Lake has had a special role in the repertory of The Royal Ballet since 1934. Since then there has been a succession of productions, the most recent of which was overseen by Anthony Dowell. This 2019 Season sees a new production with additional choreography by ROH Artist-in-Residence Liam Scarlett. Scarlett, while remaining faithful to the Petipa-Ivanov text, will bring fresh eyes to the staging of this classic ballet, in collaboration with his long-term designer John Macfarlane. This beautifully produced new Royal Ballet branded book with photographs by Bill Cooper is a collection of exclusive photographs which shines the spotlight on Swan Lake. These exquisite photos feature some of the finest dancers on stage today and give an exclusive insight into the Royal Ballet’s work.Table of ContentsForeword by Kevin O'Hare Introduction by Liam Scarlett Prologue Act I Act II Act III Act IV Production Afterword by John Macfarlane 2017/18 Season Image Captions

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Book SynopsisLatinx peoples and culture have permeated Shakespearean performance in the US for over 75 years - a phenomenon that, until now, has been largely overlooked. Carla Della Gatta argues that theatre-makers and historians must acknowledge this presence and influence in order to truly engage the complexity of American Shakespeares.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Latinx Shakespeares1 Division: The West Side Story Effect2 Aurality: Hearing Ethnicity3 Identity: Remapping Latinidades4 Decoloniality: Theatrical Bilanguaging5 El Público: Healing and Spectatorship6 Futures: Shakespearean Critical HistoryEpílogoBibliography

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Book SynopsisTwelfth Night has seldom been off the stage since Shakespeare’s day. It has been performed for its romantic high comedy and its boisterous low comedy; with an emphasis on farce or on autumnal melancholy; as straightforward celebration of heterosexual love and marriage or as exploration of the complexity of gender. David Carnegie and Mark Houlahan’s introduction to the play provides a lively discussion of the play’s performance history and encourages readers to think about stagecraft and the play as a performance text, while the historical appendices provide materials that illuminate different thematic elements of the play. Extended notes interleaved throughout the play present relevant illustrations and expand on mythological, historical, and religious references in the play. The accompanying online text will offer additional commentary on staging alternatives and more extensive visual materials.A collaboration between Broadview Press and the Internet Shakespeare Editions project at the University of Victoria, the editions developed for this series have been comprehensively annotated and draw on the authoritative texts newly edited for the ISE. This innovative series allows readers to access extensive and reliable online resources linked to the print edition.Trade Review“Here is a text of Twelfth Night with a ‘broad view’ in more than name. There is, it seems, something for everyone in this edition, from the performer to the prosodist, and the pedant to the pupil. The edition is lavishly supplemented by other texts—some familiar, some surprising. Those appendices allow the reader to trace Twelfth Night’s narrative and intellectual affiliations, enabling the reader to track not just the play’s debts but its contribution to Renaissance preoccupations with music, friends, gender, and more. The text itself is amply illustrated, coherently lineated, and admirably glossed. In the notes, the reader will discover editors with a nuanced touch for performance. These are seasoned theatrical veterans with a deft ear for verse and a fine eye for staging possibilities. Used in synch with the internet Shakespeare’s on-line resources, this edition both takes and offers a broad view of Twelfth Night.” — Paul Menzer, Mary Baldwin CollegeTable of ContentsFOREWORDACKNOWLEDGEMENTSINTRODUCTIONSHAKESPEARE’S LIFESHAKESPEARE’S THEATREWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A BRIEF CHRONOLOGYA NOTE ON THE TEXTA NOTE ON THE MUSIC AND SONGSABBREVIATIONSTWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILLAppendix A : SOURCES From Barnabe Riche, “Of Apollonius and Silla” (1581) From Gl’Ingannati—the Deceived (1531) Appendix B: RENAISSANCE SHIPWRECKS From Heliodorus, An Aethiopian History, trans. Thomas Underdowne (1587) From Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593) Appendix C: TWINS AND AFFINITY From Plautus, Menaechmi, trans. William Warner (1595) From William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (c. 1593) From George Puttenham, “Hendiadys, or The Figure of Twins” (1589) From Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship,” trans. John Florio (1603) From Richard Brathwaite, The English Gentleman (1633) APPENDIX D: GENDER AND DISGUISE From Plato, The Symposium (c. 380 BCE) From John Lyly, Galatea (1592) William Shakespeare, Sonnet 20 (1609) From Stephen Gosson, Plays Confuted in Five Actions (1582) From Hic Mulier: Or, The Man-Woman (1620) APPENDIX E: MANNERS AND CODES From Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Sir Thomas Hoby (1561) From Giles Rose, A Perfect School of Instructions … (1682) From Henry Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, or Matrimonial Contracts (1686) APPENDIX F: FOOLS, FESTIVITY, AND MISRULE From Robert Armin, Fool upon Fool (1600) From Robert Armin, Quips upon Questions (1600) From Philip Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses (1583) From Thomas Nashe, Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1600) From Revels Office Documents on the Lord of Misrule (1551) From the Records of Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1566) From Shropshire Parish Documents (1556-1635) From Sir John Harington, “On the entertainment for the King of Denmark” (1606) From “King James, Declaration to the Bishop of Chester, 24 May 1618” From Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Le Prince d’Amour: Or, The Prince of Love (1660) APPENDIX G: PURITANISM From The Pilgrimage to Parnassus (c. 1598-1602) From Thomas Nashe, The Return of the Renowned Cavaliero Pasquil of England (1589) From Thomas Nashe, Martin’s Month’s Mind (1589) From Thomas Nashe, A Countercuff Given to Martin Junior (1589) APPENDIX H: MUSIC From Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium (1474) From Cicero, On the Commonwealth and on the Laws (c. 50 BCE) From Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Mind in General (1604) WORKS CITED AND BIBLIOGRAPHYFILMOGRAPHY

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Book SynopsisThe acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series, now repackaged in award-winning modern covers to inspire Shakespearians of all ages.

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Book SynopsisThe most widely staged dramatist after Shakespeare, Chekhov left a deep mark both on the development of Russian literature and world theatre, with plays that were remarkable not just for their dialogue but their atmosphere and the tensions expressed between the lines. Collected in this volume are Chekhov's four most celebrated plays - The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard - in a brand-new translation by Hugh Aplin. In these personal stories of unfulfilled love, failed ambition and existential ennui, set against a background of unsettling social and economical change, the reader can appreciate the groundbreaking qualities of Chekhov's theatrical genius.Trade ReviewWhat writers influenced me as a young man? Chekhov! As a dramatist? Chekhov! As a story writer? Chekhov! -- Tennessee Williams

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Book SynopsisThis new edition of Much Ado about Nothing is supplemented by an updated introduction which analyses recent stage, television, film and critical interpretations of the play, and considers the play's special interest in language, bodies and gender.Table of ContentsIntroduction; The play; Supplementary notes; Textual analysis; Appendixes: 1. The time-scheme of Much Ado about Nothing, 2. Lewis Carroll's letter to Ellen Terry, 3. Benedick's song, 5.2.18-22; Reading list.

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Book SynopsisThe First Folio – the celebrated collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays – was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. It was compiled by John Heminge and Henry Condell, both actors in Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men, and originally titled Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. Many of the plays – including Macbeth, The Tempest and Twelfth Night – do not survive in any earlier printed versions. To mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio, this high-quality journal reproduces the title pages of a selection of plays, together with the famous frontispiece featuring Shakespeare’s portrait, an engraving by Martin Droeshout. Produced in hardback with ruled pages, foiled spine, gilt page edges and ribbon marker, this is an inspirational gift for Shakespeare fans and budding writers alike.

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Book SynopsisThe second play in Shakespeare''s tetralogy dealing with the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses, Henry VI Part Two is arguably the best introduction to the playwright''s genius as a writer of history plays. This Penguin Shakespeare edition is edited by Norman Saunders with an introduction by Michael Taylor.''My mouth shall be the parliament of Enland''Henry VI is tricked into marrying Margaret - lover of the Earl of Suffolk, who hopes to rule the kingdom through her influence. There is one great obstacle in Suffolk''s path, however - the noble Lord Protector, whom he slyly orders to be murdered. Discovering this betrayal, Henry banishes Suffolk, but with his Lord Protector gone the unworldly young King must face his greatest challenge: impending civil war and the rising threat of the House of York.This book includes a general introduction to Shakespeare''s life and Elizabethan theatre, a separate introduction to Henry VI, Part Two,

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Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare was born in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.Norman Sanders was Professor of Shakespeare at the University of Tennessee.Trade Review“A remarkable edition, one that makes Shakespeare’s extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever.”—James Shapiro, professor, Columbia University, bestselling author of A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599 “A feast of literary and historical information.”—The Wall Street Journal

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Book SynopsisNo Hamlets is the first critical account of the role of Shakespeare in the intellectual tradition of the political right in Germany from the founding of the Empire in 1871 to the ''Bonn Republic'' of the Cold War era. In this sustained study, Andreas Höfele begins with Friedrich Nietzsche and follows the rightist engagement with Shakespeare to the poet Stefan George and his circle, including Ernst Kantorowicz, and the literary efforts of the young Joseph Goebbels during the Weimar Republic, continuing with the Shakespeare debate in the Third Reich and its aftermath in the controversy over ''inner emigration'' and concluding with Carl Schmitt''s Shakespeare writings of the 1950s. Central to this enquiry is the identification of Germany and, more specifically, German intellectuals with Hamlet. The special relationship of Germany with Shakespeare found highly personal and at the same time highIy political expression in this recurring identification, and in its denial. But Hamlet is not the only Shakespearean character with strong appeal: Carl Schmitt''s largely still unpublished diaries of the 1920s reveal an obsessive engagement with Othello which has never before been examined. Interest in German philosophy and political thought has increased in recent Shakespeare studies. No Hamlets brings historical depth to this international discussion. Illuminating the constellations that shaped and were shaped by specific appropriations of Shakespeare, Höfele shows how individual engagements with Shakespeare and a whole strand of Shakespeare reception were embedded in German history from the 1870s to the 1950s and eventually 1989, the year of German reunification.Trade ReviewIn taking this long view, Höfele rectifies any misconceptions we might have that 'right-wing Shakespeare' is purely a phenomenon of the Second World War, and in doing so he sheds fascinating light on less familiar aspects of German history in relation to right-wing politics and ideals and Shakespeare's role within these ... The position of Shakespeare comes full circle, from serving anti-democratic, racist, and fundamentalist causes, only to re-emerge as a powerful force in the midst of liberating and forward-thinking voices. Shakespeare, Hamlet, and to some extent Othello, thus become the keys to understanding German history, psyche, and identity in this powerful study. Höfele's work has all the potential to become an instant classic, a standard work for academics and teachers alike. * Alessandra Bassey, Modern Language Review *I cannot remember reading so compelling, important, and revelatory a Shakespeare book as this one ... This is a wonderfully, indeed movingly well-written book but the quality which particularly singles out No Hamlets is its intellectual and moral honesty. * Shakespeare Jahrbuch *Höfele tells a remarkable story about the way Shakespeare provides imaginative resources for some of the most challenging and troubling thought of the modern era ... also very much engaged with current conversations in early modern studies. * Kevin Curran, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note on Texts and Translations Introduction 1: Highest Formula: Nietzsche's Shakespeare 2: Shakespeare in the Master's Circle: Stefan George and the 'Secret Germany' 3: In the Master's Circle (II): Ernst Kantorowicz 4: Millions of Ghosts: Weimar Hamlets and the Sorrows of Young Goebbels 5: Little Otto: Carl Schmitt and the Moor of Venice 6: Third Reich Shakespeare 7: 'But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue': Hamlet in Inner Emigration 8: Hamlet in Plettenberg: Carl Schmitt and the Intrusion of the Time 9: Epilogue: Welcome to the Machine. Berlin 1989 Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisShakespeare: A Playgoer''s & Reader''s Guide is your essential companion to all Shakespeare''s extant works (as well as those known to be lost). Two of our most eminent Shakespeare scholars guide us through his sonnets, his poems, and his plays, providing the reader with detailed scene-by-scene plot synopses, cast lists, notes on the texts and sources, discussions of artistic features, and accounts of significant productions on stage and screen.Derived from the acclaimed Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, and fully updated to reflect the latest scholarship and most recent notable productions, it is the ideal compact guide for students and theatre-goers needing a helpful plot summary, or readers wishing to browse on fascinating background information.Trade Review...crammed with information of the most detailed kind. One particularly magnificent section gives the entire chronology of every one of the families involved in the history plays... This is a book with no messing about. It gives its information clearly and in a pithy manner which enables the reader to absorb a great deal of information without too much cerebral effort...this little book has a wonderfully powerful kick. * ON: YORKSHIRE *A thorough and accessible resource... * Nick Smurthwaite, Drama & Theatre Magazine *Distilled and updated from OUP's earlier Oxford Companion to Shakespeare , this book would be a fine starting point for anyone wanting or needing to know more about the man and his work. * Susan Elkin, School Librarian *Table of ContentsPreface All Is True All's Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It Cardenio The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Edward III First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI) Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry V Henry VI Part 1 Julius Caesar King John King Lear A Lover's Complaint Love's Labour's Lost Love's Labour's Won Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer's Night Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles The Phoenix and the Turtle The Rape of Lucrece Richard Duke of York (3 Henry VI) Richard II Richard III Romeo and Juliet Sir Thomas More Sonnets The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen Venus and Adonis The Winter's Tale A Short Life of William Shakespeare Shakespeare's Life, Works, and Reception: A Partial Chronology, 1564-2020 Family Tree of Characters in the English Histories Some Suggested Further Reading

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Book SynopsisA full-size photographic facsimile of one of the essential books of English literature and culture that has won the admiration of actors and scholars throughout the world.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Norton Critical Edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos offers an ideal introduction to the most famous and influential of all Greek tragedies. Emily Wilson’s translation is fluid and compelling, and the surrounding materials present a wealth of information and insight suited both to new and more experienced readers." -- Joshua Billings, Princeton University

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Book SynopsisThis volume is a broad-ranging guide to Othello, providing an introduction to the contexts of the play, the range of critical responses to the play and the play in performance.Table of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Contexts Contextual Overview Chronology Contemporary Documents: Giraldi Cinthio, Gli Hecatommithi (1566) Leo Africanus (John Leo) The History and Description of Africa, trans. John Pory (1600) Fynes Moryson An Itinery Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell (1617) Thomas Coryat Coryat's Crudities (1611) Christopher Marlowe The Jew of Malta (c. 1590) Robert Greene Selimus, Emporer of the Turks (1594) William Shakespeare Titus Andronicus (c.1594) 2. Interpretations Critical History Early Reception: Thomas Rymer, from A Short View of Tragedy (1693) Samuel Johnson, from The Plays of Shakespeare (1765) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from 'Notes on the Tragedies' (published 1836-9) from Table Talk (1835) Edward Dowden, from Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (1875) A. C. Bradley, from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth (1904) Twentieth-Century Criticism: G. Wilson Knight The Othello Music E. E. Stoll 'Iago' (1940) William Empson Honest in Othello (1951) F. R. Leavis, from Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero (1952) Marvin Rosenberg from The Masks of Othello (1961) G. K. Hunter, Othello and Colour Prejudice (1967) Terry Eagleton Nothing (1986) Karen Newman 'And wash the Ethiop white': femininity and the monstrous in Othello (1987) David McPherson Othello and the Myth of Venice (1990) Lisa Jardine 'Why should he call her a whore?': Defamation and Desdemona's case (1990) Andrew Hadfield The 'gross clasps of a lascivious Moor': The Domestic and Exotic Contexts of Othello (1998) The Work in Performance: Virginia Mason Vaughan Othello on the English Stage 1604-1754 Sir Richard Steele The Tatler, no. 167 (2 May 1710) William Hazlitt 'Mr Macready's Othello' (13 October 1816) Virginina Mason Vaughan 'Paul Robeson's Othello' (1930, 1943) Patricia Tatspaugh 'Orson Welles Othello' (1952) Stanley Wells 'Trevor Nunn's Othello' (1989) 3. Key Passages Introduction Key Passages: Act 1, scene 1, lines 81-80, Act 1, scene 3, lines 1-294, Act 2, scene 3, lines 255-357, Act 3, scene 3, lines 90-281, Act 3, scene 3, lines 333-482, Act 4, scene 1, lines 60-142, Act 4, scene 2, lines 30-92, Act 5, scene 2, lines 257-369 Further Reading Editions and Text Collections of Essays Background Reading Critical Interpretations Stage History Index

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Book SynopsisShakespeare's Pericles has been rescued from comparative neglect and is now frequently performed. The editors regard the arguments concerning a seriously corrupt text and divided authorship as unproven and misleading. Instead they show the play to be a unified aesthetic experience.Table of ContentsIntroduction (date, sources, authorship, performance, the play); Note on the text; List of characters, The Play: Supplementary notes; Textual analysis; Supplementary notes; Textual analysis; Reading list.

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Book SynopsisThis edition of Shakespeare's King Lear is based on the first (1608) quarto and represents a significantly different version from that published in the Folio of 1623. Each has numerous unique passages and hundreds of variant readings, creating differences which affect the structure, characterisation and overall impact of the play.Trade Review"...it provides editorial assistance of every imaginable kind, textual variants, glossing of unfamiliar language." Studies in English LiteratureTable of ContentsPreface; Abbreviations and conventions; Introduction; Note on the text; List of characters; The Play; Textual notes; Appendix: Passages unique to the Folio.

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Book SynopsisFor this second edition of King Henry V, Andrew Gurr has added a new section to his introduction, which focuses on recent critical and stage interpretations and draws attention to 'secret' versus 'official' readings of the play. An updated reading list completes the edition.Table of ContentsList of illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations and conventions; Introduction: The play and its date; The coercive Chorus; Context and sources; Structure and language; Staging and stage history; Recent critical and stage interpretations; Note on the text; List of characters; The Play; Textual analysis; Appendices: Theatre sources: The Famous Victories; Historical Sources: Holinshed's Chronicles; Background sources: Richard Crompton, The Mansion of Magnanimitie; Reading list.

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Book SynopsisSelection of the works of Hrotsvit, the first-known woman dramatist, containing legends, dramas, and epics.Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (c.935 - c.975), almost certainly of noble Saxon parentage, was a canoness of the Saxon imperial abbey of Gandersheim, living and working there during its time of greatest material prosperity and cultural and intellectual pre-eminence. Her importance cannot be overestimated: she is the first poet of Saxony; the first known dramatist of Christianity (indeed the first known woman dramatist of any time); and a woman displaying erudition and wit in an essentially patriarchal age, a female author in a literary field dominated by men who insisted on re-evaluating and redrawing the literary depiction of women. Discovered in the late fifteenth century, her extraordinary oeuvre, written in medieval Latin, comprises a wide variety of genres: eight legends, six dramas, and two epics, organised into three books. The present volume contains a selection of Hrotsvit's works in Englishtranslation, together with an interpretative essay, critical introduction, and scholarly apparatus.Professor KATHARINA WILSONteaches at the University of Georgia.Trade ReviewAn invaluable resource for introducing Hrotsvit to a wide audience... Long overdue, this volume is most welcome. * SPECULUM *

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Book SynopsisA contemporary translation that emphasizes the racial malice at the heart of Shakespeare's play. In her update of Shakespeare's Othello, Mfoniso Udofia engages with the racial malice at the heart of the play. Udofia's take on this complicated story emphasizes the rhythm and lyrical patterns of Othello's speech. Opening up the text to modern ears, Udofia presents us with a code-switched Othello. This translation of Othello was written as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Play On! project, which commissioned new translations of thirty-nine Shakespeare plays. These translations present the work of The Bard in language accessible to modern audiences while never losing the beauty of Shakespeare's verse. Enlisting the talents of a diverse group of contemporary playwrights, screenwriters, and dramaturges from diverse backgrounds, this project reenvisions Shakespeare for the twenty-first century. These volumes make these works available for the first time in printa new First FolTable of ContentsAct 1Act 2Act 3Act 4Act 5

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Book SynopsisEmile Zola's own stage adaptation of his taut, psychological thriller. An intense story of adultery, murder and revenge, streaked with social satire, in a translation byPip Broughton.Trade ReviewZola’s steamy story of a sexual passion that plumbs the murky depths of murder, revenge and retribution * City Limits *Broughton’s fine translation confirms this as a mesmerising drama of obsessive crime and passion committed in stultifying ambience of the Paris petite bourgeoisie * Time Out *Zola’s steamy story of a sexual passion that plumbs the murky depths of murder, revenge and retribution * City Limits *Broughton’s fine translation confirms this as a mesmerising drama of obsessive crime and passion committed in stultifying ambience of the Paris petite bourgeoisie * Time Out *Zola’s steamy story of a sexual passion that plumbs the murky depths of murder, revenge and retribution * City Limits *Broughton’s fine translation confirms this as a mesmerising drama of obsessive crime and passion committed in stultifying ambience of the Paris petite bourgeoisie * Time Out *Zola’s steamy story of a sexual passion that plumbs the murky depths of murder, revenge and retributionBroughton’s fine translation confirms this as a mesmerising drama of obsessive crime and passion committed in stultifying ambience of the Paris petite bourgeoisie‘Zola’s steamy story of a sexual passion that plumbs the murky depths of murder, revenge and retribution’ -- City Limits * City Limits *‘Broughton’s fine translation confirms this as a mesmerising drama of obsessive crime and passion committed in stultifying ambience of the Paris petite bourgeoisie’ Time Out * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisRace may dominate everyday speech, media headlines and public policy, yet still questions of racialized blackness and whiteness in Shakespeare are resisted. In his compelling new book Ian Smith addresses the influence of systemic whiteness on the interpretation of Shakespeare''s plays. This far-reaching study shows that significant parts of Shakespeare''s texts have been elided, misconstrued or otherwise rendered invisible by readers who have ignored the presence of race in early modern England. Bringing the Black American intellectual tradition into fruitful dialogue with European thought, this urgent interdisciplinary work offers a deep, revealing and incisive analysis of individual plays, including Othello, The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. Demonstrating how racial illiteracy inhibits critical practice, Ian Smith provides a necessary anti-racist alternative that will transform the way you read Shakespeare.

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Book SynopsisShakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Since 1948, Survey has published the best international scholarship in English and many of its essays have become classics of Shakespeare criticism. Each volume is devoted to a theme, or play, or group of plays; each also contains a section of reviews of that year''s textual and critical studies and of the year''s major British performances. The theme for Volume 75 is ''Othello''. The complete set of Survey volumes is also available online at https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/collections/shakespeare-survey This fully searchable resource enables users to browse by author, essay and volume, search by play, theme and topic and save and bookmark their results.Table of Contents1. Understanding Iago (2009): Clientelism, Corruption, Politics Mark Thornton Burnett; 2. Circumventing marginality: The curious case of India's Othello screen adaptations Abhirup Mascharak; 3. Othello's Kin: Legacy, Belonging, and The fortunes of the Moor Patricia Cahill; 4. 'More fair than black': Othellos on British radio' Andrea Smith; 5. 'This fair paper': Othello and the Artists' book' Agnieszka Żukowska; 6. Othello: A dialogue with the built environment Yik Ling Yong; 7. '[A] maid called barbary:' Othello, Moorish maidservants, and the black presence in early modern England Iman Sheeha; 8. 'The Moor's abused by some most villainous knave, some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow': Legal spaces, Racial trauma, and Othello' Lisa R. Barksdale-Shaw; 9. Ben Jonson's Sejanus and Shakespeare's Othello: Two Plays Performed by the King's Men in c.1603 John-Mark Philo; 10. 'Lago and the clown: Disassembling the vice in Othello Nicole Sheriko; 11. Pitying desdemona in Folio Othello: Race, Gender, and the willow song Joshua Held; 12. 'Desdemona's honest friend' Jeremy Lopez; 13. 'Suffering scstasy: Othello and the drama of displacement' Jennifer J. Edwards; 14. 'Othello's sympathies: Emotion, Agency, and identification' Richard Meek; 15. 'Warning the Stage: Shakespeare's mid-scene entrance conventions' Margaret Jane Kidnie; 16. 'Looking for perdita in Ali Smith's summer' Bailey Sincox; 17. 'Grafted to the Moor: Anglo-Spanish dynastic marriage and miscegenated whiteness in The winter's tale' Zainab S. Cheema; 18. 'Rhyme, History, and Memory in A Mirror for Magistrates and Henry VI' Molly Clark; 19. 'Bad' Love lyrics and poetic hypocrisy from Gascoigne to Benson's Shakespeare' Katherine Mennis; 20. 'Viola's Telemachy' Robert B. Pierce; 21. 'New analogical evidence for Cymbeline's folkloric composition in the medieval icelandic Ála flekks saga' Jonathan Hui; 22. 'But when extremities speak': Harley Granville-Barker, Coriolanus, the world wars and the state of exception' Richard Ashby; 23. Shakespeare performances in England 2021: London Lois Potter; 24. Shakespeare performances in England 2021: outside London Peter Kirwan; 25. Professional Shakespeare productions in the British Isles, January-December 2020 James Shaw; 26. The Year's contribution to Shakespeare studies: 1. Critical Studies reviewed by Jane Kingsley Smith, 2. Performance reviewed by Russell Jackson, 3. Editions and Textual Studies reviewed by Emma Depledge.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the AEDEAN Enrique García Díez Literature Research Award 2023Shakespeare's Sublime Pathos: Person, Audience, Language breaks new ground in providing a sustained, demystifying treatment of its subject and looking for answers to basic questions regarding the creation, experience, aesthetics and philosophy of Shakespearean sublimity. More specifically, it explores how Shakespeare generates experiences of sublime pathos, for which audiences have been prepared by the sublime ethos described in the companion volume, Shakespeare's Sublime Ethos. To do so, it examines Shakespeare's model of mutualistic character, in which entangled language brokers a psychic communion between fictive persons and real-life audiences and readers. In the process, Sublime Critical platitudes regarding Shakespeare's liberating ambiguity and invention of the human are challenged, while the sympathetic imagination is reinstated as the linchpin of the playwright's sublTrade Review"Complex, far-ranging, at times dazzling, there is nothing really comparable to the sweep of this work" - Clark Hulse, University of Illinois at Chicago"This is a magnum opus in every sense of the word […] A thorough, indeed breath-takingly thorough knowledge of Shakespearean writing is everywhere in evidence"- Andrew Hiscock, Bangor University"Complex, far-ranging, at times dazzling, there is nothing really comparable to the sweep of this work"--Clark Hulse, University of Illinois at Chicago"This is a magnum opus in every sense of the word […] A thorough, indeed breath-takingly thorough knowledge of Shakespearean writing is everywhere in evidence"--Andrew Hiscock, Bangor University"Taken together, then, these two works on Shakespeare’s sublime [Shakespeare’s Sublime Ethos and Shakespeare’s Sublime Pathos] represent an outstanding contribution not only to Shakespeare studies, but more broadly to intellectual history. In seeking to make intelligible the seemingly inexplicable, Sell has succeeded in revealing the secrets of the apparent magic of the sublime."--Rocío G. Sumillera, Universidad de Granada"The powerful categorizing of the sublime’s coefficients is proof of Sell’s immense merit and designates this monograph as superior research destined to become seminal in Shakespeare studies."--Zenón Luis-MartínezTable of ContentsIntroductionAims and "ethos"Plan of the workChapter 1. The Conundrum of Character, the Sublime MistookJudith’s faceAmbiguity, realism, sublimityAmbiguity, freedom, sublimityContemptus mundiChapter 2. Hollow MenLiberal humanist characterProtean personsThe moral coreFreedom of choice?Mutualistic characterMyriad mindsChapter 3. Sympathetic Imagination Sympathy and imagination Psychology and phantasiaPassionate playgoingChapter 4. Language of PassionCause and effect"Conceit deceitful"Thought in progressBotching wordsEntangled, obscure, baroqueChapter 5. The Mutualist’s DividendGoing mad with ShakespeareTranscendence?"The sticking place"General ConclusionsThe Shakespearean sublimeShakespeare’s originalityEnter perfection? Letting in the daylightEpilogue Mechanical dreamsOrsino’s luckIndex

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Book SynopsisThis volume explores the relationship between the emphasis on performance in Elizabethan humanist education and the flourishing of literary brilliance around the turn of the sixteenth century. This study asks us what lessons we can learn today from Shakespeare's Latin grammar school. What were the cognitive benefits of an education so deeply rooted in what Demosthenes and Quintilian called actioacting? Because of the vast difference between educational practice then and now, we have not often followed one essential thread: the focus on performance. This study examines the connections relevant to the education offered in schools today. This book will be of great interest to teachers, scholars, and administrators in performing arts and education.Trade Review''I guarantee that Lessons from Shakespeare's Classroom will be the most surprising, most readable learning you will do all year, and that you will laugh out loud in every chapter. Zwounds!—hie thee to these pages most expeditiously.'' Eric Booth, Actor and author of "The Everyday Work of Art," "The Music Teachers' Bible," "Playing for Their Lives," and "Tending the Perennials."''Robin Lithgow has done anyone interested in Shakespeare or education (and more particularly those of us interested in both Shakespeare and education) a great service with her book. By detailing the classical grounding of Shakespeare’s writing she shows us the great tradition of which we are a part; a tradition that expands in its inclusivity as the world changes and evolves. This tradition is the "fertile soil" that contributed to the brilliance of Shakespeare’s generation and lights a path for our own. It is truly an "education for the benefit of the commonwealth," which we perhaps need now more than ever.'' Louis Fantasia, Artistic Associate, Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles''Lithgow’s book reanimates the Erasmian spirit of teaching in all the best ways: it’s artfully copious, humanely conversational, and models throughout a witty flair for drama. Her students were fortunate; now we are, too.''Scott Newstok, author of How to Think like ShakespeareTable of ContentsTimelineCast of CharactersAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1. Time Travel: Setting the sceneChapter 2. Engagement before Information: Instruction in both colloquial and rhetorical language in Elizabethan schoolsChapter 3. Angels and Eaglets: Schoolboy actors set the sceneChapter 4. Good Behavior and Audacity: The training up of Elizabethan schoolboysChapter 5. The Lego Snap of Learning: Research in arts education and neuroscience Chapter 6. Context: The Hatch and Brood of Time: A brief history of the English ReformationChapter 7. Erasmus’ Egg: His life and his works in support of performing arts in educationChapter 8. The Delightful Mulcaster: Playmaking schoolmasters in Tudor EnglandChapter 9. Per Quam Figuram? Rhetoric in Shakespeare’s classroomChapter 10. Erasmus Writes Colloquies: Classroom training in Latin conversationChapter 11. The Little Eyases: Professional boy actors in the 16th centuryChapter 12. ConclusionBibliographyAppendix I: Performing the ColloquiesExamples of Erasmus’ Colloquies in Latin and English Proci and puellae (Courtship) Naufragium (The Shipwreck) Uxor (Marriage) Abattis et eruditae (The Abbot and the Learned Woman) Herilia (A Master’s Commands) Appendix II: Selection of Educational Drama Resources for Teachers Index

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Book SynopsisQuestioning whether the impulse to adapt Shakespeare has changed over time, Lynne Bradley argues for restoring a sense of historicity to the study of adaptation. Bradley compares Nahum Tate''s History of King Lear (1681), adaptations by David Garrick in the mid-eighteenth century, and nineteenth-century Shakespeare burlesques to twentieth-century theatrical rewritings of King Lear, and suggests latter-day adaptations should be viewed as a unique genre that allows playwrights to express modern subject positions with regard to their literary heritage while also participating in broader debates about art and society. In identifying and relocating different adaptive gestures within this historical framework, Bradley explores the link between the critical and the creative in the history of Shakespearean adaptation. Focusing on works such as Gordon Bottomley''s King Lear''s Wife (1913), Edward Bond''s Lear (1971), Howard Barker''s Seven Lears (1989), and the Women''s Theatre Group''s Lear''Trade Review'To historicize adaptations of Shakespeare by using character as a bridge (theoretically and pragmatically) between adapted text and adaptation allows Bradley to show well what happens when what she calls the "ironic double gesture" is invoked in order to both use and yet challenge the Bard. The shift from Bardolatry to feminist contestation is presented and enacted here with clarity and a certain brio.' Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto, Canada '... [Bradley’s] analysis of the distinct variations in twentieth-century adaptations is fascinating... Bradley’s book ultimately becomes a solid defence of the unique value of adaptation as a way to navigate a problematic cultural heritage while evolving within it an expression for our particular cultural moment.' Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre ResearchTable of ContentsContents: Introduction; 'Why this is not Lear': adaptations before the 20th century; 'Other accents borrow': Bottomley, Baring, and a new approach to adaptation; 'Only we shall retain the name': Bond's Lear and Barker's Seven Lears; 'Re-vision' of the kingdom: feminist adaptations of King Lear; Conclusion: 'The promised end'?; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis 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.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Note on the text; List of characters; The play; Textual analysis; Appendices; Reading list.

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Book SynopsisI wish I had copies like this at Drama School. Essential notes on the language for those who will get up and speak it, not purely for those who will sit and study it. An incredibly useful tool with room on every page to make notes. Next time I'm in rehearsal on a Shakespeare play, I have no doubt that a copy from this series will be in my hand.' ADRIAN LESTER, Actor, Director and Writer Arden Performance Editions are ideal for anyone engaging with a Shakespeare play in performance. With clear facing-page notes giving definitions of words, easily accessible information about key textual variants, lineation, metrical ambiguities and pronunciation, each edition has been developed to open the play's possibilities and meanings to actors and students. Each edition offers: -Facing-page notes -Short, clear definitions of words -Easily accessible information about key textual variants -Notes on pronunciation of difficult names and unfamiliar words -An easy to read layout -SpaTrade ReviewThese editions are likely to help not only actors and drama students but also all amateur Shakespeareans including schools and colleges which stage the plays … What genius to have Simon Russell Beale as a series editor along with two Shakespeare Institute academics, Michael Dobson and Abigail Rokison-Woodall. * Ink Pellet *Table of ContentsSeries Introduction; Introduction; As You Like It

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Book SynopsisThis amusing approach to Shakespeare's classic dramas features the plot of each of the Bard's 39 plays reduced to a single descriptive sentence.

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Book SynopsisThis ground-breaking study fearlessly combines latest research in evolutionary psychology, historical scholarship and philosophy to answer a question that has eluded critics for centuries: what is Shakespeare's moral vision?

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Book SynopsisWith its fantasy of magical travel and inexhaustible riches, Thomas Dekker’s Old Fortunatus is the quintessential early modern journeying play. The adventures of Fortunatus and his sons, aided by a magical purse and wishing-hat, offers the period’s most overt celebration of the pleasures of travel, as well as a sustained critique of the dangers of intemperance and prodigality. Written following a period of financial difficulty for Dekker, the play is also notable for its fascination with the symbolic, mercantile and ethical uses of gold.This Revels Plays edition is the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of Old Fortunatus. It offers scholarly discussion of the play’s performance and textual history, including attention to the German version printed and performed in the early seventeenth century. It provides a long overdue critical reappraisal of this unjustly neglected play.Trade Review'McInnis has produced an admirable, rigorous, and reliable scholarly edition. He has given criticism a chance to match this editorial achievement with insights of comparable height and nuance.'Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme'This new edition of Old Fortunatus is a valuable intervention. It brings the play into focus for advanced teaching and research. It suggests some of the ways Dekker’s dramaturgy embodies the possessive imagination that structures English travel writing and proto-colonial fantasy in the period.'Early Theatre'If Old Fortunatus has another moment, it might be now, when technologies of trade and travel elate and overwhelm us, and the world seems to flicker between far off and at hand. Like other Revels editions, this one offers an authoritatively edited, modernized, and annotated text, a comprehensive textual and historical introduction, and a short performance history. McInnis’s introduction and notes are exceptional even by the high standards of the Revels series, adroitly recounting the wanderings of the Fortunatus story and the complicated history of Dekker’s playtext. McInnis’s particular expertise on travel narratives and lost plays shows to advantage, as he also sets Dekker’s play into the performance context of other contemporary plays. McInnis’s Old Fortunatus is an example of how a good edition does more than simply make a play newly available; it serves as waystation to a way of grasping a new world.'SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 -- .Table of ContentsList of illustrationsAbbreviationsIntroduction Authorship and the lost play(s) The text The German play Sources Performance history Critical reception Act and scene divisions Press-variantsOld FortunatusIndex

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Book SynopsisInaugurated in the 1860s, and the standard reference edition of Shakespeare's work, each volume of the New Variorum Shakespeare presents complete textual and critical histories of each line of the play, along with extensive essays on criticism, sources, stage history, and more.The New Variorum Editions are valuable resources for an international audience of scholars, students, directors, actors, and general readers. Overseen by three general editors and an MLA committee, the production of each edition is conducted by a team of scholars and researchers working over a number of years.This edition contains a text of the play, textual variants from all subsequent editions of the play, and commentary notes. Includes discussion of important early editions, date of composition, sources, language and style, structure, influences, analogues, criticism, themes, characters, stage productions, film adaptations, operatic adaptations, and music for the play.Trade ReviewThis volume is not only beautifully readable but an irresistible page-turner." - Laurie Maguire, TLS, April 2022

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Book SynopsisAristophanes’s satirical masterpieces, immensely popular with the Athenian public, were frequently crude, even obscene. His plays revealed to his contemporaries, and now teach us today, that when those in power act obscenely, patriotic obscenity is a fitting response. Until now English translations have failed to capture Aristophanes’s poetic genius. Aaron Poochigian, the first poet-classicist to tackle these plays in a generation, offers “effortlessly readable and genuinely theatrical” (Simon Armitage) versions of four of Aristophanes’s most entertaining, provocative and lyrically ingenious comedies, finally giving twenty-first-century readers a sense of the subversive pleasure audiences felt when these works were first performed on the Athenian stage.Trade Review"Aristophanes was a funny, often obscene, social commentator, and he was also a brilliantly fluent, wide-ranging poet, whose lyric rhythms were recited and sung to music, with dancing. It’s very rare for modern translators to convey his poetic virtuosity or make any attempt to bring his meters to life. But Aaron Poochigan has achieved this feat, crafting polymetric translations that convey the whole range of Aristophanes’s larger-than-life characters and provocative, alternative reality scenarios. This new Aristophanes is zany, sharp, inventive, vivacious, and surprisingly relevant for our times." -- Emily Wilson, translator of Homer’s Odyssey"Poochigian has reanimated this quartet of Greek dramas with an approach that conveys all the comic energies, political urgencies, and philosophical concerns of the original plays. Alive and alert to the evolutions and mutations of contemporary language but tuned to the pitch and rhythms of ancient literature, these energetic and adroit twenty-first century translations are both effortlessly readable and genuinely theatrical—as lively on the page as they will be on any stage." -- Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom"Luckily for us, Aaron Poochigian has re-animated Aristophanes, in glittering translations of four of his most 21st-century-appropriate plays. It will be interesting to see whether directors bring these versions to life." -- Willard Spiegelman - The Wall Street Journal

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Book SynopsisJohn Gabriel Borkman, once an illustrious entrepreneur, has been brought low by a prison sentence for fraud. As he paces alone in an upstairs room, bankrupt and disgraced, he is obsessed by dreams of his comeback. Downstairs, his estranged wife plots the restoration of the family name. When her sister arrives unannounced, she triggers a desperate showdown with the past. Henrik Ibsen's most contemporary play and his penultimate, John Gabriel Borkman is gripping, penetrating and savagely funny. This version by Lucinda Coxon premiered at the Bridge Theatre, London, in September 2022, directed by Nicholas Hytner, with a cast led by Clare Higgins, Simon Russell Beale and Lia Williams.Trade Review'A staggering, dark portrayal of family dynamics that have been warped by misplaced values and the denial of love... full of difficult emotions and fierce feeling' * WhatsOnStage *'Weird, funny, bleak... a blackly humorous piquancy... [the play] has a whipsmart humour and wonderful momentum to it: a depiction of frozen lives finally experiencing one last calamitous thaw before the end of their days' * Time Out *'Riveting... a penetrating character study of highly flammable, alpha masculinity' * Guardian *'One of Henrik Ibsen's richest plays, full of penetrating sounds and images – and of writing that vaults... a remarkable study of a charismatic personality' * Observer *'Astonishing... the most dramatic passion we've seen on stage all year... Never a false note... shockingly funny... devastating one-liners... holds you riveted' * TheatreCat *

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Book SynopsisFrantic Assembly's electrifying take on Shakespeare's tragedy of paranoia, sex and murder, firmly rooted in a volatile twenty-first century. In a world of broken glass and shattered promises, of poisonous manipulation and explosive violence, Othello's passionate affair with Desdemona becomes the catalyst for jealousy, betrayal, revenge and the darkest intents. As relevant today as it ever was, Othello exposes the tension, fear and paranoia buried beneath the veneer of our relationships and how easily that can be maliciously exploited. Frantic Assembly's touring production was first performed in 2008, with revivals in 2014 and 2022. This edition of Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett's muscular, radically adapted text also features articles and interviews about the production and Frantic Assembly's revolutionary work.Trade Review'Frantic Assembly breathe new life into Shakespeare's tale... in Scott Graham's pulse-racing production' * Time Out *'A fierce reimagining of Shakespeare's tragedy' * The Times *'Pulsating... hurls Othello well and truly into our times' * Independent *'There is nothing polite about Frantic Assembly's Othello. No prettified classic, it is vulgar, tough and fractious... brings out the primal passions in Shakespeare's play... it is urgent, abrasive and thrilling' * Guardian *'Exhilarating... explodes into life... The visual storytelling is sharp and contemporary without ever losing the essence of the story itself... an adaptation done right... an excellent introduction to Shakespeare' * Reviews Hub *

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