Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books
Globe Pequot Press HistoriesThe
Book SynopsisCurated from the Applause three-volume series, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends, edited by Neil Freeman, these monologue from Shakespeare''s works are given new life and purpose for today''s readers and actors alike. There are twelve titles in this series, which is divided into four categories: monologues for younger men, monologues for older men, monologues for women, and monologues for any gender, the latter being a unique feature since most monologue books are compiled for either men or women. Each book is presented in a smaller format that is more consistent with standard monologue books.Titles in the series:Monologues from Shakespeare''s First Folio for Any Gender: The ComediesMonologues from Shakespeare''sFirst Folio for Any Gender: The HistoriesMonologues from Shakespeare''s First Folio for Any Gender: The TragediesMonologues from Shakespeare''s First Folio for Women: The ComediesMonologue
£13.49
Globe Pequot Press The Histories
Book SynopsisCurated from the Applause three-volume series, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends, edited by Neil Freeman, these monologue from Shakespeare''s works are given new life and purpose for today''s readers and actors alike. There are twelve titles in this series, which is divided into four categories: monologues for younger men, monologues for older men, monologues for women, and monologues for any gender, the latter being a unique feature since most monologue books are compiled for either men or women. Each book is presented in a smaller format that is more consistent with standard monologue books.Titles in the series:Monologues from Shakespeare''s First Folio for Any Gender: The ComediesMonologues from Shakespeare''sFirst Folio for Any Gender: The HistoriesMonologues from Shakespeare''s First Folio for Any Gender: The TragediesMonologues from Shakespeare''s First Folio for Women: The ComediesMonologue
£13.49
Globe Pequot Press ComediesThe
Book SynopsisCurated from the Applause three-volume series, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends, edited by Neil Freeman, these monologue from Shakespeare''s works are given new life and purpose for today''s readers and actors alike. There are twelve titles in this series, which is divided into four categories: monologues for younger men, monologues for older men, monologues for women, and monologues for any gender, the latter being a unique feature since most monologue books are compiled for either men or women. Each book is presented in a smaller format that is more consistent with standard monologue books.Titles in the series: Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The ComediesMonologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The HistoriesMonologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The Tragedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Women: The Comedi
£13.49
Globe Pequot Press TragediesThe
Book SynopsisCurated from the Applause three-volume series, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends, edited by Neil Freeman, these monologue from Shakespeare''s works are given new life and purpose for today's readers and actors alike. There are twelve titles in this series, which is divided into four categories: monologues for younger men, monologues for older men, monologues for women, and monologues for any gender, the latter being a unique feature since most monologue books are compiled for either men or women. Each book is presented in a smaller format that is more consistent with standard monologue books. Titles in the series: Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The ComediesMonologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The HistoriesMonologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The Tragedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Women
£13.49
Globe Pequot Press Romeo and Juliet
Book SynopsisCurating material from Applause''s Shakescenes: Shakespeare for Two, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends, The Applause Shakespeare Library, and Applause First Folio Editions, we''ve created the must-have workbook series for Shakespeare plays. Along with tips on approaching and working on the play and tackling the speeches, each volume includes highlighted essential passages.First titles available in the series: Applause Shakespeare Workbook: Romeo and JulietApplause Shakespeare Workbook: Julius CaesarApplause Shakespeare Workbook: MacbethApplause Shakespeare Workbook: OthelloApplause Shakespeare Workbook: A Midsummer Night's DreamApplause Shakespeare Workbook: The Tempest
£13.49
Globe Pequot Press Macbeth
Book SynopsisCurating material from Applause''s Shakescenes: Shakespeare for Two, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends, The Applause Shakespeare Library, and Applause First Folio Editions, we''ve created the must-have workbook series for Shakespeare plays. Along with tips on approaching and working on the play and tackling the speeches, each volume includes highlighted essential passages.First titles available in the series: Applause Shakespeare Workbook: Romeo and JulietApplause Shakespeare Workbook: Julius CaesarApplause Shakespeare Workbook: MacbethApplause Shakespeare Workbook: OthelloApplause Shakespeare Workbook: A Midsummer Night's Dream
£13.49
Globe Pequot Press A Midsummer Nights Dream
Book SynopsisCurating material from Applause''s Shakescenes: Shakespeare for Two by John Russell Brown, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends by Neil Freeman, The Applause Shakespeare Library, and Applause First Folio Editions, we''ve created the must-have workbook series for Shakespeare plays. Along with tips on approaching and working on the play and tackling the speeches, Applause Shakespeare Workbook: A Midsummer Night''s Dream includes highlighted essential passages.To fully appreciate A Midsummer Night?s Dream, it is essential to understand the play as a living text that must be spoken aloud to be fully understood. This workbook provides the tools to more fully explore the text through commentary and understand the rhetorical tradition that Shakespeare was part of, as well as clues offered from the First Folio. Applause Shakespeare Workbook: A Midsummer Night?s Dream includes the Demetrius/Helena scene and speeches from Titania, Oberon, and Theseus. This workbook will open your appreciation for the many diverse possibilities of interpreting the text, which is the key to Shakespeare''s longevity.Other titles available in the series: Applause Shakespeare Workbook: Romeo and JulietApplause Shakespeare Workbook: Julius CaesarApplause Shakespeare Workbook: MacbethApplause Shakespeare Workbook: OthelloApplause Shakespeare Workbook: The Tempest
£13.49
Globe Pequot Press The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Book SynopsisTHE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) (REVISED) ACTOR'S EDITIO
£11.69
Globe Pequot Press The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Book SynopsisTHE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) (REVISED) ACTOR'S EDITIO
£9.49
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform King Lear The Tragedy of King Lear Litera Classics
£8.73
University of Nebraska Press A Warning for Fair Women
Book SynopsisThis critical edition introduces new audiences to A Warning for Fair Women, an important but neglected work of Elizabethan drama. Trade Review"Editions like A Warning for Women are few and far between: fun, relevant, contextually nuanced, and accessible."—Francesca Bua, Comitatus“Students and scholars alike will find Ann Christensen’s erudite and entertaining new edition of A Warning for Fair Women to be invaluable in the study of Elizabethan literature and culture. The work is an important addition to the growing body of non-Shakespearean drama available in an accessible form for the twenty-first-century classroom.”—Amy L. Tigner, coauthor of Culinary Shakespeare: Staging Food and Drink in Early Modern England“This edition elegantly situates the play in relation to stage, page, and scaffold, and showcases how the anonymous playwright is in conversation with genres as diverse as scaffold speeches and mothers’ manuals. It also demonstrates how this early modern murder resonates with popular culture today.”—Emma Whipday, author of Shakespeare’s Domestic Tragedies: Violence in the Early Modern Home “A Warning for Fair Women has everything fans of true-crime dramas expect—adulterous sex, family conflict, disputes about money, grisly murder, scheming accomplices, long-winded courtroom speeches, gallows confessions, and lots of blood. Ann Christensen’s spirited edition of this largely unknown Elizabethan play, first performed by Shakespeare’s company, is perfect for class read-arounds or more fully staged performances, with a contextualizing literary and historical framework spot-on for today’s students.”—Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, author of Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe “This finely executed edition offers a timely rationale for returning A Warning for Fair Women to scholarly conversation. With ties to Shakespeare’s company the play has obvious relevance for repertory studies, but well beyond this it explores social issues of the period related to domestic crime, women and the law, politics and economics, moral instruction and the church, even the occult and the supernatural. It is a play that well repays our attention.”—S. P. Cerasano, Edgar W. B. Fairchild Professor of Literature at Colgate University Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface A Note about the Text and Previous Editions Acknowledgments Introduction Cast of Characters A Warning for Fair Women Appendix Arthur Golding’s A briefe discourse of the late Murther of master George Sanders John Stow’s The Annales of England Faithfully Collected Ballad, “The wofull lamentacon [sic] of Mrs. Anne Saunders” Excerpts of Dorothy Leigh’s The Mother’s Blessing Notes Bibliography Index
£69.70
University of Nebraska Press Telltale Women
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Telltale Women is an important book that will set the terms of scholarly inquiry on these matters for years to come."—Katherine Goodland, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal"Allison Machlis Meyer provides a welcome intervention in a nexus of divergent fields—source studies, feminist criticism, and historiography. By considering the shifting ways in which early modern queens have been represented across genres, Meyer offers a new treatment of the relationship between historical narratives and history plays, making a case for the ways in which history writing—in all of its myriad forms—wrestles productively with larger cultural desires."—Emma Katherine Atwood, Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England"The treatment of histories and plays as intertexts is an exciting, fresh approach that offers new insights and approaches to history scholars."—E. A. Nicol, Choice“Allison Machlis Meyer’s thoughtful and compelling book has in effect given the field two studies it needs badly: an analysis of women’s political roles in early modern narrative historiography and a new examination of how these roles are transformed—and limited—in dramatic representation.”—Dan Breen, associate professor of English at Ithaca College“Meyer’s historically alert and rhetorically savvy argument introduces a novel approach to source studies. Lucidly and engagingly she attends to long-term developments of the early modern chronicle and historical drama genres while richly delineating the contexts of the early authors’ political and personal allegiances and rivalries. Students of gender and book history alike will benefit from this insightful study of the shaping of cultural attitudes toward the political agency of royal women and their use for the consolidation of a citizen-centered English nation.”—Kirilka Stavreva, professor of English at Cornell College and author of Words Like Daggers: Violent Female Speech in Early Modern EnglandTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Early Modern Royal Women and the Historical Record 1. A Very Prey to Time: Rewriting Elizabeths in Tudor Historiography and William Shakespeare’s Richard III 2. Your Hope Is Gone: Narrowing the Nation in The True Tragedy of Richard III and Thomas Heywood’s Edward IV 3. From a Noble Lady to an Unnatural Queen: Imagining Queen Isabel in Chronicle History and Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II 4. So Masculine a Stile: Gender and Genre in Elizabeth Cary’s The History of Edward II 5. You Must Be King of Me: Queens and Rivals in Francis Bacon’s The History of King Henry VII and John Ford’s Perkin Warbeck Coda: Double Drowned in the Gulf of Forgetfulness Notes Bibliography Index
£45.00
University of Nebraska Press A Warning for Fair Women
Book Synopsis A Warning for Fair Women is a 1599 true-crime drama from the repertory of Shakespeare’s acting company. While important to literary scholars and theater historians, it is also readable, relevant, and stage-worthy today. Dramatizing the murder of London merchant George Saunders by his wife’s lover, and the trials and executions of the murderer and accomplices, it also sheds light on neighborhood and domestic life and crime and punishment. This edition of A Warning for Fair Women is fully updated, featuring a lively and extensive introduction and covering topics from authorship and staging to the 2018 world revival of the play in the United States. It includes a section with discussion and research questions along with resources on topics raised by the play, from beauty and women’s friendship to the occult. Ann C. Christensen presents a freshly edited text for today’s readers, with in-depth explanatory notes, scene summaries, a galleTrade Review"Editions like A Warning for Women are few and far between: fun, relevant, contextually nuanced, and accessible."—Francesca Bua, Comitatus“Students and scholars alike will find Ann Christensen’s erudite and entertaining new edition of A Warning for Fair Women to be invaluable in the study of Elizabethan literature and culture. The work is an important addition to the growing body of non-Shakespearean drama available in an accessible form for the twenty-first-century classroom.”—Amy L. Tigner, coauthor of Culinary Shakespeare: Staging Food and Drink in Early Modern England“This edition elegantly situates the play in relation to stage, page, and scaffold, and showcases how the anonymous playwright is in conversation with genres as diverse as scaffold speeches and mothers’ manuals. It also demonstrates how this early modern murder resonates with popular culture today.”—Emma Whipday, author of Shakespeare’s Domestic Tragedies: Violence in the Early Modern Home “A Warning for Fair Women has everything fans of true-crime dramas expect—adulterous sex, family conflict, disputes about money, grisly murder, scheming accomplices, long-winded courtroom speeches, gallows confessions, and lots of blood. Ann Christensen’s spirited edition of this largely unknown Elizabethan play, first performed by Shakespeare’s company, is perfect for class read-arounds or more fully staged performances, with a contextualizing literary and historical framework spot-on for today’s students.”—Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, author of Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe “This finely executed edition offers a timely rationale for returning A Warning for Fair Women to scholarly conversation. With ties to Shakespeare’s company the play has obvious relevance for repertory studies, but well beyond this it explores social issues of the period related to domestic crime, women and the law, politics and economics, moral instruction and the church, even the occult and the supernatural. It is a play that well repays our attention.”—S. P. Cerasano, Edgar W. B. Fairchild Professor of Literature at Colgate University Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface A Note about the Text and Previous Editions Acknowledgments Introduction Cast of Characters A Warning for Fair Women Appendix Arthur Golding’s A briefe discourse of the late Murther of master George Sanders John Stow’s The Annales of England Faithfully Collected Ballad, “The wofull lamentacon [sic] of Mrs. Anne Saunders” Excerpts of Dorothy Leigh’s The Mother’s Blessing Notes Bibliography Index
£21.59
University Press of Mississippi Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the
Book SynopsisFrom West Side Story in 1957 to Road Show in 2008, the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and his collaborators have challenged the conventions of American musical theater and expanded the possibilities of what musical plays can do, how they work, and what they mean. Sondheim''s brilliant array of work, including such musicals as Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods, has established him as the preeminent composer/lyricist of his, if not all, time.Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical places Sondheim''s work in two contexts: the exhaustion of the musical play and the postmodernism that, by the 1960s, deeply influenced all the American arts. Sondheim''s musicals are central to the transition from the Rodgers and Hammerstein-style musical that had dominated Broadway stages for twenty years to a new postmodern musical. This new style reclaimed many of the self-aware, perfo
£76.50
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Rod Serling His Life Work and Imagination
Book SynopsisThough best known for The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling wrote over 250 scripts for film and TV and won an unmatched six Emmy Awards. In great detail and including never-published insights drawn directly from Serling's personal correspondence, unpublished writings, speeches, and unproduced scripts, Nicholas Parisi explores Serling's body of work.
£37.76
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Sam Shepard
Book SynopsisThe famously private Sam Shepard gave a significant number of interviews over the course of his public life, and the interviewers who respected his boundaries found him to be forthcoming on a wide range of topics. The selected interviews here begin in 1969 when Shepard was twenty-six and end in 2016, eighteen months before his death.
£23.96
Lexington Books Shakespeare and the Body Politic
Book SynopsisMetaphors animate Shakespeare's corpus, and one of the most prominent is the image of the body. Sketched out in the eternal lines of his plays and poetry, and often drawn in exquisite detail, variations on the body metaphor abound in the works of Shakespeare. Attention to the political dimensions of this metaphor in Shakespeare and the Body Politic permits readers to examine the sentiments of romantic love and family life, the enjoyment of peace, prosperity and justice, and the spirited pursuit of honor and glory as they inevitably emerge within the social, moral, and religious limits of particular political communities. The lessons to be learned from such an examination are both timely and timeless. For the tensions between the desires and pursuits of individuals and the health of the community forge the sinews of every body politic, regardless of the form it may take or even where and when one might encounter it. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare illuminates these tensions within tTrade Review[T]he articles provide interesting and instructive perspectives. Teachers and students within the undergraduate forums of several disciplines should find ideas to explore here, as well as a useful bibliography. * Sixteenth Century Journal *"The abundance of fresh insights in this collection owes to the contributors' uncommon familiarity with issues that distinguish early modern from classical political thought." -- John Alvis, professor and director, American Studies Program, University of Dallas“This lively collection of essays, assembled by Bernard J. Dobski and Dustin Gish, organizes its contents under three rubrics: the heart, the limbs, and the head. The book is an insightful exploration of one of Shakespeare's most enduring metaphors: that of the political state as a sentient body whose parts, in Menenius's memorable fable in Coriolanus, correspond to the human frame, with the belly as the senators of Rome, sending nourishment through the "rivers" of the blood to all "the cranks and offices of man" only to meet with the insolent defiance of the "mutinous members," the populace, the outward limbs. This concept, explored with fresh analysis and fruitful observations in this collection, gives us much to think about in Shakespeare's world where princes, statesmen, nobles, clergymen, and commoners are all political actors. The body politic, in the words of this volume's editors, is ‘perhaps the most vivid and enduring image in speech describing political community ever proposed.’” -- David Bevington, Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, University of ChicagoTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface Chapter 1: Shakespeare and the Body Politic Bernard J. Dobski and Dustin Gish Part One: The Heart Chapter 2: “The Very Heart of Loss”: Love and Politics in Antony and Cleopatra Joseph Alulis Chapter 3: Julius Caesar: The Problem of Classical Republicanism Timothy Burns Chapter 4: Who is Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? Nasser Behnegar Chapter 5: Love, Honor,and Community in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Pamela Jensen Part Two: The Limbs Chapter 6: At War ‘Twixt Will and Will Not: Government, Marriage, and Grace in Measure for Measure Peter Meilaender Chapter 7: Trojan Horse or Troilus’ Whore? Pandering Statecraft and Political Stagecraft in Troilus and Cressida Nalin Ranasinghe Chapter 8: Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece: Honor and Republicanism Robert Schaefer Chapter 9: Hotspur and Falstaff vs. The Politicians: Shakespeare’s View of Honor Timothy Spiekerman Part Three: The Head Chapter 10: Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, and Philosophy: A Preliminary Inquiry George Anastaplo Chapter 11: Taming the Shrew: Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Political Philosophy Dustin Gish Chapter 12: The Education of Edgar in Shakespeare’s King Lear Laurence D. Nee Chapter 13: Shakespeare and the Comedy and Tragedy of Liberalism David K. Nichols List of Contributors Index
£40.50
Lexington Books Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes
Book SynopsisShakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes explores Shakespeare's political outlook by comparing some of the playwright's best-known works to the works of Italian political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli and English social contract theorist Thomas Hobbes. By situating Shakespeare between' these two thinkers, the distinctly modern trajectory of the playwright's work becomes visible. Throughout his career, Shakespeare interrogates the divine right of kings, absolute monarchy, and the metaphor of the body politic. Simultaneously he helps to lay the groundwork for modern politics through his dramatic explorations of consent, liberty, and political violence. We can thus understand Shakespeare's corpus as a kind of eulogy: a funeral speech dedicated to outmoded and deficient theories of politics. We can also understand him as a revolutionary political thinker who, along with Machiavelli and Hobbes, reimagined the origins and ends of government. All three thinkers understood politics primarily Trade ReviewAndrew Moore’s book, Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics, is bold and enlightening.... Moore’s important book provides a philosophical framework that prods the careful reader to think more clearly about Shakespeare’s political wisdom. * VoegelinView *Andrew Moore clearly reveals the overlap between the political and philosophical outlook that Shakespeare expresses in his dramas and the work of Machiavelli and Hobbes. At the same time, he recognizes important differences among them. This original contribution to both modern political thought and Shakespeare scholarship is beautifully written, and deepens our appreciation of Shakespeare’s wisdom. -- Mary Nichols, Baylor UniversityAndrew Moore’s penetration is evident in his recognition that philosophy conducts a continuous rethinking of the meaning of the concept nature. His signal contribution in these interrelated essays is to make us aware that Shakespeare’s plays conduct just such a rethinking. In the course thereof Moore gives us to understand how the playwright reveals the interdependence of moral and political liberty. -- John Alvis, University of DallasTable of ContentsChapter 1: Political Power and the Natural Order: Richard III, Macbeth, and Coriolanus. Chapter 2: Shakespeare and the State of Nature: King Lear and Othello Chapter 3: Violence and Politics: Julius Caesar and Lucrece Chapter 4: Faith, Morality, and Contractual Politics: The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure Chapter 5: Tyranny and Consent: Lucrece, Titus Andronicus, and Cymbeline
£81.00
Lexington Books Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes
Book SynopsisShakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes explores Shakespeare's political outlook by comparing some of the playwright's best-known works to the works of Italian political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli and English social contract theorist Thomas Hobbes. By situating Shakespeare between' these two thinkers, the distinctly modern trajectory of the playwright's work becomes visible. Throughout his career, Shakespeare interrogates the divine right of kings, absolute monarchy, and the metaphor of the body politic. Simultaneously he helps to lay the groundwork for modern politics through his dramatic explorations of consent, liberty, and political violence. We can thus understand Shakespeare's corpus as a kind of eulogy: a funeral speech dedicated to outmoded and deficient theories of politics. We can also understand him as a revolutionary political thinker who, along with Machiavelli and Hobbes, reimagined the origins and ends of government. All three thinkers understood politics primarily Trade ReviewAndrew Moore’s book, Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics, is bold and enlightening.... Moore’s important book provides a philosophical framework that prods the careful reader to think more clearly about Shakespeare’s political wisdom. * VoegelinView *Andrew Moore clearly reveals the overlap between the political and philosophical outlook that Shakespeare expresses in his dramas and the work of Machiavelli and Hobbes. At the same time, he recognizes important differences among them. This original contribution to both modern political thought and Shakespeare scholarship is beautifully written, and deepens our appreciation of Shakespeare’s wisdom. -- Mary Nichols, Baylor UniversityAndrew Moore’s penetration is evident in his recognition that philosophy conducts a continuous rethinking of the meaning of the concept nature. His signal contribution in these interrelated essays is to make us aware that Shakespeare’s plays conduct just such a rethinking. In the course thereof Moore gives us to understand how the playwright reveals the interdependence of moral and political liberty. -- John Alvis, University of DallasTable of ContentsChapter 1: Political Power and the Natural Order: Richard III, Macbeth, and Coriolanus. Chapter 2: Shakespeare and the State of Nature: King Lear and Othello Chapter 3: Violence and Politics: Julius Caesar and Lucrece Chapter 4: Faith, Morality, and Contractual Politics: The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure Chapter 5: Tyranny and Consent: Lucrece, Titus Andronicus, and Cymbeline
£37.80
Lexington Books Rome and the Spirit of Caesar
Book SynopsisRome and the Spirit of Caesar, providing a fresh interpretation of Julius Caesar, is a thorough examination of Shakespeare's presentation of the final throes of republican Rome's political decay and demise and the rise of Caesarism. As in his previous studies of Shakespeare's plays, Blits, pursuing his distinctive approach, follows Caesar through, scene by scene, speech by speech, line by line, reaching his conclusions by closely examining Shakespeare's text. Approaching the play as a coherent whole, he examines the whole in the light of its parts and the parts in the light of the whole. Since each presupposes the other, he considers the whole and its parts together. He carefully relates the play's details to its major themes and grounds the themes in, and supports them by, the details.While intruding no literary theory on the play, Blits brings out the historical and perennial political substance that Shakespeare deliberately put into it. He shows that Caesar is a work of historical pTrade ReviewIn this detail-oriented, textually grounded reading of Julius Caesar, Blits looks at the play in the context of classical Roman politics and history, in doing so extending his earlier work on Shakespeare’s Roman plays . . . Taking issue with contemporary applications of literary and social theory to the play and with New Historicist approaches that read Shakespeare’s version of Rome through early modern English contexts, Blits argues for Shakespeare’s careful handling of Roman history as tempered by poetic demands. In his introduction, the author frames the play as attending to the historical, philosophical, and political nuances of the transition from republican to imperial Rome. The remainder of the book is structured to walk a reader sequentially through the play and illuminate Shakespeare’s engagement with classical sources. The book is careful and well argued, and it provides a coherent, thorough reading of the play. That said, it seems in many ways like a return to a much earlier critical tradition; readers’ responses are likely to be influenced by their own sensibilities about the critical trends Blits rejects. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *This is a valuable . . . contribution to the critical history of Julius Caesar. Its value lies principally in copious references to classical sources, which will prove to be useful to future editors of the play. * The Review of Politics *In this his second book on Julius Caesar (his first, in 1993, The End of the Ancient Republic: Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar") Jan Blits confutes long held assumptions that Shakespeare's Romans are merely Elizabethans dressed in togas. Blits illuminates the political significance of the play by exploiting his familiarity with scores of classical Greek and Latin authors, drawing upon a learning unmatched in Shakespearean scholarship for its comprehensiveness as well as for its discernment. -- John Alvis, University of DallasBy the end of Jan Blits’s book on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic has, so to speak, committed suicide in the persons of its leaders, Brutus and Cassius, “who killed themselves in excessive haste.” So culminates Blits’s series of studies, in which he examines Shakespeare’s presentation, in a poem and three dramas, of the institution and the demise of the Roman Republic. Blits offers an act-by-act, scene-by-scene, sometimes even line-by-line interpretation of the play. It is informed by an unusual view, in opposition to much current scholarship, of Shakespeare as a superb rather than a flawed historian. Blits shows that the poet is accurate in historical detail and acute in political insight—that poetry has the power to penetrate historical persons and events. In staying clear of theoretical impositions and in attempting to understand the poet in his own terms, Blits succeeds in bringing out the play’s subtlety and depth. -- Eva T.H. Brann, St. John's CollegeTable of ContentsIntroduction Act One Act Two Act Three Act Four Act Five
£85.50
Lexington Books Rome and the Spirit of Caesar
Book SynopsisRome and the Spirit of Caesar, providing a fresh interpretation of Julius Caesar, is a thorough examination of Shakespeare's presentation of the final throes of republican Rome's political decay and demise and the rise of Caesarism. As in his previous studies of Shakespeare's plays, Blits, pursuing his distinctive approach, follows Caesar through, scene by scene, speech by speech, line by line, reaching his conclusions by closely examining Shakespeare's text. Approaching the play as a coherent whole, he examines the whole in the light of its parts and the parts in the light of the whole. Since each presupposes the other, he considers the whole and its parts together. He carefully relates the play's details to its major themes and grounds the themes in, and supports them by, the details.While intruding no literary theory on the play, Blits brings out the historical and perennial political substance that Shakespeare deliberately put into it. He shows that Caesar is a work of historical pTrade ReviewIn this detail-oriented, textually grounded reading of Julius Caesar, Blits looks at the play in the context of classical Roman politics and history, in doing so extending his earlier work on Shakespeare’s Roman plays . . . Taking issue with contemporary applications of literary and social theory to the play and with New Historicist approaches that read Shakespeare’s version of Rome through early modern English contexts, Blits argues for Shakespeare’s careful handling of Roman history as tempered by poetic demands. In his introduction, the author frames the play as attending to the historical, philosophical, and political nuances of the transition from republican to imperial Rome. The remainder of the book is structured to walk a reader sequentially through the play and illuminate Shakespeare’s engagement with classical sources. The book is careful and well argued, and it provides a coherent, thorough reading of the play. That said, it seems in many ways like a return to a much earlier critical tradition; readers’ responses are likely to be influenced by their own sensibilities about the critical trends Blits rejects. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *This is a valuable . . . contribution to the critical history of Julius Caesar. Its value lies principally in copious references to classical sources, which will prove to be useful to future editors of the play. * The Review of Politics *In this his second book on Julius Caesar (his first, in 1993, The End of the Ancient Republic: Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar") Jan Blits confutes long held assumptions that Shakespeare's Romans are merely Elizabethans dressed in togas. Blits illuminates the political significance of the play by exploiting his familiarity with scores of classical Greek and Latin authors, drawing upon a learning unmatched in Shakespearean scholarship for its comprehensiveness as well as for its discernment. -- John Alvis, University of DallasBy the end of Jan Blits’s book on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic has, so to speak, committed suicide in the persons of its leaders, Brutus and Cassius, “who killed themselves in excessive haste.” So culminates Blits’s series of studies, in which he examines Shakespeare’s presentation, in a poem and three dramas, of the institution and the demise of the Roman Republic. Blits offers an act-by-act, scene-by-scene, sometimes even line-by-line interpretation of the play. It is informed by an unusual view, in opposition to much current scholarship, of Shakespeare as a superb rather than a flawed historian. Blits shows that the poet is accurate in historical detail and acute in political insight—that poetry has the power to penetrate historical persons and events. In staying clear of theoretical impositions and in attempting to understand the poet in his own terms, Blits succeeds in bringing out the play’s subtlety and depth. -- Eva T.H. Brann, St. John's CollegeTable of ContentsIntroduction Act One Act Two Act Three Act Four Act Five
£37.80
Lexington Books DAH Theatre
Book SynopsisDAH Theatre: A Sourcebook is a collection of essays about the work of one of the most successful and innovative performance groups in contemporary history. With a direct line of descent from Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba, DAH Theatre, founded during the worst of times in the former Yugoslavia, amidst a highly patriarchal society, predominantly run by women, has thrived now for twenty-five years. The chapters in this book, for the most part, have been written by both theatre scholars and practitioners, all of whom have either seen, studied with or worked with this groundbreaking troupe. What makes DAH so exceptional? The levels of innovation and passion for them extend far beyond the world of mere performance. They have been politically and socially driven by the tragedies and injustices that they have witnessed within their country and have worked hard to be a force of reconciliation, equity and peace within the world. And those efforts, which began on the dangerous streets of BelgTrade ReviewThis is an excellent, easy to comprehend book that fills a gap in studies on resistance performance groups dedicated to “alternatives to the dominant narrative of denial” and is an invaluable sourcebook for those who choose to investigate how theatre as “a space for collective mourning” has been and can be staged. As such, it is a valuable contribution to the recently enfranchised discipline concerned with creative transformation of conflict.... [I]t is a pioneer in books on theatre that are written with the conviction that “theatre can change the world”. * Plays International & Europe *This international collection of theoretically and historically grounded analyses and illuminating testimonials by scholars and practitioners comprises the impressive dramaturgical archive of one of the most enduring (East) European alternative theatres today. For more than twenty-five years, the Belgrade-based DAH Theatre has resonated with Eastern as well as Western audiences by highlighting 'postcolonial' conditions fiercely agitated in some post-totalitarian countries, yet obscured in egalitarian societies, such as ethnic and gender inequities, (multi)cultural expressions, and reconciliation with traumatic and divisive histories. DAH's journey outlines a global artistic trade that begins with adopting postmodern practices originating in the West, in particular Eugenio Barba's 'theatre anthropology', creatively advancing them in the volatile post-communist context of former Yugoslavia, and exporting them internationally as a model of new performance aesthetics and socially engaged theatre. -- Vessela Warner, University of Alabama at BirminghamDennis Barnett has assembled a most informed and engaging sourcebook on DAH Theatre, one of the world’s definitive companies working in social conflict contexts. A work of great breadth that offers a meaningful and enjoying read to the historian, the scholar and the practitioner, while ultimately managing to paint the rich portrait of a living theater and of the people and societal circumstances that breathe life into it. This is a necessary and revelatory book. -- Roberto Gutiérrez Varea, University of San FranciscoTable of ContentsForeword: Butterflies Who Dream of Being a Theatre Eugenio Barba Introduction Dennis Barnett A PATH TO HEALING: PERFORMANCES IN SERBIA Chapter 1 - Theatre that Matters: How DAH Theatre Came to Be Duca Knezević Chapter 2 - Honoring Memory and Articulating Truth: The Case of Serbia’s DAH Theatre Max Stephenson and Lyusyena Kirakosyan Chapter 3 - DAH Theatre’s Angels: Doubling the Directions of Community-based Memory Amy Sarno Chapter 4 - Two Main Tendencies in the Work of DAH Theatre: A Performance Analysis of Two Respective Cases Ivan Medenica Chapter 5 - Story of Tea Dennis Barnett Chapter 6 - In/Visible City: Transporting Histories and Intersecting Identities in Post-war Serbia Shawn Womack Chapter 7 The Lost Show: Tender, Tender, Tenderly and Yugo-nostalgia Beth Cleary SPREADING THE PEACE: REACHING OUT TO THE WORLD Chapter 8 - Enduring and Transforming: DAH Theatre and 7 Stages' Maps of Forbidden Remembrance Leigh Clemons Chapter 9 - On Directing A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard: DAH Theatre, Physical Theatre, and Neurobiology Elizabeth Carlin-Metz PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Chapter 10 - Two Interviews: Erik Ehn and Siegmar Schroeder Dennis Barnett Chapter 11 - My Experience of DAH Arthur Skelton Chapter 12 - Elegance, Refusal, Survival: DAH Theatre Jill Greenhalgh Chapter 13 - Changing Ourselves to Change Society David Diamond Chapter 14 - On Making Devised Performances with DAH Theatre Del Hamilton Chapter 15 - Previously Blue: Devising the Salvage of Disaster, Resilience and Beauty Ruth Margraff APPENDIX
£85.50
Lexington Books Shakespeares Thought
Book SynopsisShakespeare's Thought: Unobserved Details and Unsuspected Depths in Eleven Plays demonstrates that Shakespeare's plays were conceived and executed as studies of great moral and political issues. After examining the divergent views of critics across the years, this book goes on to analyze eleven of Shakespeare's most famous plays, observing details and supplying interpretations that indicate the depth of his mind and the full extent of his artistic spirit. This book offers an in-depth exploration of the ways in which each play demonstrates Shakespeare's political thought and his poetic genius.Trade ReviewLowenthal deftly shows that Shakespeare, more a poet and dramatist than philosopher, was deeply interested in some fundamental issues of moral and political life, in such a way that his astonishing achievements in plot, character, and poetic utterance can best be understood as emanating from the particular issue or issues that each play explores. Like Harold Goddard, Lowenthal is not afraid to talk about 'meaning'; like Harold Bloom, he offers a countervailing argument to trends in current theoretical criticism. -- David Bevington, University of ChicagoDavid Lowenthal’s career as a scholar and a teacher has been dedicated, in no small part, to exploring the human and political wisdom afforded by the plays and poetry of William Shakespeare. This book bears the fruit of that career. With its graceful prose, trenchant insights, and seemingly panoptic grasp of the Bard’s plays, Shakespeare’s Thought: Unobserved Details and Unsuspected Depths allows us to appreciate more deeply the joy and wonder that comes with learning how to live well from Shakespeare, an education for which his best students prepare us. -- Bernard J. Dobski, Assumption CollegeTable of Contents1. Shakespeare and the Critics 2. The Tempest 3. King Lear 4. Julius Caesar 5. The Merchant of Venice 6. Macbeth 7. Measure for Measure 8. A Midsummer Night’s Dream 9. Romeo and Juliet 10. Henry V 11. Hamlet 12. As You Like It 13. The Greatness of Coriolanu 14. Betrayals for Love in Antony and Cleopatra
£99.00
Lexington Books Shakespeares Thought
Book SynopsisShakespeare's Thought: Unobserved Details and Unsuspected Depths in Eleven Plays demonstrates that Shakespeare's plays were conceived and executed as studies of great moral and political issues. After examining the divergent views of critics across the years, this book goes on to analyze eleven of Shakespeare's most famous plays, observing details and supplying interpretations that indicate the depth of his mind and the full extent of his artistic spirit. This book offers an in-depth exploration of the ways in which each play demonstrates Shakespeare's political thought and his poetic genius.Trade ReviewLowenthal deftly shows that Shakespeare, more a poet and dramatist than philosopher, was deeply interested in some fundamental issues of moral and political life, in such a way that his astonishing achievements in plot, character, and poetic utterance can best be understood as emanating from the particular issue or issues that each play explores. Like Harold Goddard, Lowenthal is not afraid to talk about 'meaning'; like Harold Bloom, he offers a countervailing argument to trends in current theoretical criticism. -- David Bevington, University of ChicagoDavid Lowenthal’s career as a scholar and a teacher has been dedicated, in no small part, to exploring the human and political wisdom afforded by the plays and poetry of William Shakespeare. This book bears the fruit of that career. With its graceful prose, trenchant insights, and seemingly panoptic grasp of the Bard’s plays, Shakespeare’s Thought: Unobserved Details and Unsuspected Depths allows us to appreciate more deeply the joy and wonder that comes with learning how to live well from Shakespeare, an education for which his best students prepare us. -- Bernard J. Dobski, Assumption CollegeTable of Contents1. Shakespeare and the Critics 2. The Tempest 3. King Lear 4. Julius Caesar 5. The Merchant of Venice 6. Macbeth 7. Measure for Measure 8. A Midsummer Night’s Dream 9. Romeo and Juliet 10. Henry V 11. Hamlet 12. As You Like It 13. The Greatness of Coriolanu 14. Betrayals for Love in Antony and Cleopatra
£42.30
Lexington Books Art and Political Thought in Bole Butake
Book SynopsisThe book Art and Political Thought in Bole Butake, through a pluralist critical approach, interrogates Butake's major creative worksLake God, And Palm Wine Will Flow, The Survivors, Shoes and Four Men in Arms, Dance of the Vampires and The Rape of Michelle mainly in terms of their political underpinnings and cultural signification. The intention is to place his drama within the socio-political matrix of Cameroon and demonstrate the topicality of the issues of governance, marginalization, and corruption in Cameroon or Africa that Butake consistently foregrounds in his creative works. The study opens with an overview of the historical and social milieu that feeds Butake's imagination and the introduction is followed by an interview of the playwright in which he explains his mission as a writer. The next two chapters appraise the political symbolism of Butake's plays and chapter five undertakes a comparison of the colonial legacy and the culture of corruption in Butake's Lake God and The Trade ReviewArt and Political Thought in Bole Butake is studded with innovative insights into the plays of one of the most celebrated of Cameroon's creative artists. It profiles a playwright and theatre practitioner whose works have created tremendous impact particularly on the Cameroonian society. The authors source deep into the texts’ history, politics, ontology, anthropology and sociology, more than any study on a single author in Cameroon has done, to reveal among other ills, the extremes of corruption, power abuse and marginalization that have characterised Cameroon’s political scene since independence. Bole Butake’s ingenuity in crafting his plays with cultural symbols, oral tradition and other techniques of dramaturgy, which apart from critiquing the political ills, displays the cultural wealth of Cameroon, is skilfully brought out by the authors. One is struck by the depth of the details in the presentation of the playwright and his art, details that must be seen as indispensable for understanding the socio-cultural and political complexities of Cameroon in the postcolonial context. Dealing with a literature that is relatively new on the international scene, the book highlights the complex artistic peculiarities of Anglophone Cameroon Literature viewed from the perspective of a single author. It is thoughtfully written and will be of interest, especially, to the postcolonial students and researchers. -- John Nkemngong Nkengasong, University of Yaounde IThis book is a testament to the rich literary tradition that exists in the Cameroon Anglophone literary landscape, a landscape that has not enjoyed visibility in Africa due in part to the marginalization of Anglophones in modern Cameroon over the years. The editors have done a good job of exploring the various perspectives discernible in the plays of one of Africa’s foremost playwrights, Bole Butake. The book will make for an insightful read to speakers of English in general and scholars of African literature/studies in particular. -- Victor N. Gomia, Delaware State UniversityBy focusing on the works of the famed Cameroonian playwright, Bole Butake, Art and Political Thought in Bole Butake exposes the corruption, tyranny, nepotism, and abuse of power that pervades all levels of society, including traditional institutions and various levels of government and its complex bureaucracy. The only solution to this societal decay is a revolution, which, ironically is led by women whose political contributions to society have historically been marginalized and dismissed in Cameroon and throughout the continent. However, according to the authors, Butake is conflicted on whether a revolution is the solution to the country’s ills, given the fact that similar actions on the continent only led to more authoritarian and corrupt regimes. This book is a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in understanding the post-colonial state in Cameroon and Africa. -- Joseph Takougang, University of CincinnatiTable of ContentsChapter 1: Contextualizing Butake Chapter 2: Interview with Professor Bole Butake, Dramatist and University Professor who Refused to be “Lapiroed.” Chapter 3: The Political Dimensions of Lake God and Other Plays Chapter 4: Re-Configuration of Colonialism in Postcolonial Cameroon in Bole Butake’s Plays Chapter 5: Colonial Legacy and the Culture of Corruption in Lake God and The Rape of Michelle Chapter 6: Female Empowerment and Political Change in Lake God, The Survivors, and And Palm Wine Will Flow Chapter 7: Symbol and Meaning in Lake God and Other Plays Chapter 8: From Spoken to Texture: Orality in Lake God Chapter 9: Character and the Supernatural in Lake God Chapter 10: Conclusion and Butake’s Legacy
£67.50
Lexington Books The Soul of Statesmanship
Book SynopsisShakespeare's plays explore a staggering range of political topics, from the nature of tyranny, to the practical effects of Christianity on politics and the family, to the meaning and practice of statesmanship. From great statesmen like Burke and Lincoln to the American frontiersman sitting by his rustic fire, those wrestling with the problems of the human soul and its confrontation with a puzzling world of political peril and promise have long considered these plays a source of political wisdom. The chapters in this volume support and illuminate this connection between Shakespearean drama and politics by examining a matter of central concern in both domains: the human soul. By depicting a bewildering variety of characters as they seek happiness and self-knowledge in the context of differing political regimes, family ties, religious duties, friendships, feuds, and poetic inspirations, Shakespeare illuminates the complex interdynamics between self-rule and political governance, educatinTrade Review"The two earlier books, Shakespeare's Politics and Shakespeare as a Political Thinker have prepared us for the richness, both theoretic and practical, of reading the ways politics and politicians appear in Shakespeare. This book is a very welcome addition to this project. It is quite possible that we learn more about politics in reading Shakespeare than in reading accounts of most current events." -- James V. Schall, S. J., professor emeritus, Georgetown UniversityThe authors of this outstanding collection of chapters on a wide variety of Shakespeare's plays demonstrate, step by step, how carefully he composed them, how uniquely they combine the genius of poetry with the genius of philosophical understanding and hence how wise and beautiful they are. -- David Lowenthal, Boston CollegeThese perceptive reflections show how Shakespeare’s plays can challenge us “to sharpen our minds and perfect our consciences” by revealing the subtle complexities represented by Shakespeare’s engaging dramatization of human nature in all its perplexing dimensions. By giving well-chosen examples from the tragedies, comedies, and histories, these many perspectives open us to the full scope of Shakespeare’s dramatic project, addressing “the most vital and enduring questions of human life and politics.” -- Gerard B. Wegemer, University of DallasWilliam Shakespeare was not only the poet of the English speaking people but also their political teacher, as Homer was the political teacher of the Greeks and Virgil the political teacher of the Romans. All of his plays are political, in the sense that they are treatments of the human condition under different constitutions. The human beings he describes seek completion within a political community. The essays in this excellent collection explore how Shakespeare’s plays dramatize such perennial questions as the meaning and practice of statesmanship; the best polity vs. real polities; the link between individual character and the political regime; and the relationship among poetry, politics, religion, and philosophy. -- Mackubin Thomas Owens, senior fellow of the Foreign Policy research Institute and of its journal, Orbis"Liberal democracies such as ours will always need talented, broadminded men and women whose refined tastes and energetic souls can help us navigate political crises with our freedom and dignity intact. But, as Alexis de Tocqueville reminds us, liberal democracies tend to produce citizens with weak judgment and middling character. Fortunately for us, Shakespeare and the Soul of Statesmanship shows how the plays and poetry of William Shakespeare supply an antidote to this problem. With exceptional attentiveness to Shakespeare’s political insights, the contributors to this excellent volume illustrate how his tragedies, comedies, and histories can develop both the prudent statesmanship we need and the judgment to distinguish 'true greatness' from 'brilliant mediocrity.' -- Bernard J. Dobski, Assumption CollegeTable of Contents1 Othello: Jealousy Becomes Tragic Timothy Burns 2 Macbeth: The Spiritual Drama of the Tyrannical Soul Carson Holloway 3 Wings as Swift as Love: Hamlet and the Virtues (and Vices) of a King L. Joseph Hebert 4 Both False and True: Love, Death, and Poetry in Love’s Labor’s Lost Denise Schaeffer and Mary P. Nichols 5 Jurisprudence in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice Thomas Vincent Svogun 6 Christian Ethics and Political Moderation in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Luigi Bradizza 7 The Bastard in King John; or, On the Need for a Unified English Nation Khalil M. Habib 8 To Make High Majesty Look Like Itself: Shakespeare’s Richard II and the Nature of the Good Regime Joseph Alulis 9 “This Blessed Plot”: Divine Justice and Law from Richard II’s Trial by Combat to Henry V’s Battle of Agincourt David Alvis
£81.00
Lexington Books The Soul of Statesmanship
Book SynopsisShakespeare's plays explore a staggering range of political topics, from the nature of tyranny, to the practical effects of Christianity on politics and the family, to the meaning and practice of statesmanship. From great statesmen like Burke and Lincoln to the American frontiersman sitting by his rustic fire, those wrestling with the problems of the human soul and its confrontation with a puzzling world of political peril and promise have long considered these plays a source of political wisdom. The chapters in this volume support and illuminate this connection between Shakespearean drama and politics by examining a matter of central concern in both domains: the human soul. By depicting a bewildering variety of characters as they seek happiness and self-knowledge in the context of differing political regimes, family ties, religious duties, friendships, feuds, and poetic inspirations, Shakespeare illuminates the complex interdynamics between self-rule and political governance, educaTrade Review[This is a] very fine collection of essays edited by Khalil Habib and Joseph Hebert, Jr. * VoegelinView *The editors, Khalil Habib and L. Joseph Hebert Jr., make a striking and important argument, one that works against our own technocratic age of public administration degrees and cable news pundits. . . . Because politics requires love, and because love is the first principle of poetry, poetry must be at the center of a political education. The editors of and contributors to The Soul of Statesmanship are true philosophers—they see this reality clearly. In our age of the anti-statesman, we all, statesman and citizen, must heed their advice: Put down our devices and pick up our Shakespeare. * The Russell Kirk Center *"The two earlier books, Shakespeare's Politics and Shakespeare as a Political Thinker have prepared us for the richness, both theoretic and practical, of reading the ways politics and politicians appear in Shakespeare. This book is a very welcome addition to this project. It is quite possible that we learn more about politics in reading Shakespeare than in reading accounts of most current events." -- James V. Schall, S. J., professor emeritus, Georgetown UniversityThe authors of this outstanding collection of chapters on a wide variety of Shakespeare's plays demonstrate, step by step, how carefully he composed them, how uniquely they combine the genius of poetry with the genius of philosophical understanding and hence how wise and beautiful they are. -- David Lowenthal, Boston CollegeThese perceptive reflections show how Shakespeare’s plays can challenge us “to sharpen our minds and perfect our consciences” by revealing the subtle complexities represented by Shakespeare’s engaging dramatization of human nature in all its perplexing dimensions. By giving well-chosen examples from the tragedies, comedies, and histories, these many perspectives open us to the full scope of Shakespeare’s dramatic project, addressing “the most vital and enduring questions of human life and politics.” -- Gerard B. Wegemer, University of DallasWilliam Shakespeare was not only the poet of the English speaking people but also their political teacher, as Homer was the political teacher of the Greeks and Virgil the political teacher of the Romans. All of his plays are political, in the sense that they are treatments of the human condition under different constitutions. The human beings he describes seek completion within a political community. The essays in this excellent collection explore how Shakespeare’s plays dramatize such perennial questions as the meaning and practice of statesmanship; the best polity vs. real polities; the link between individual character and the political regime; and the relationship among poetry, politics, religion, and philosophy. -- Mackubin Thomas Owens, senior fellow of the Foreign Policy research Institute and of its journal, Orbis"Liberal democracies such as ours will always need talented, broadminded men and women whose refined tastes and energetic souls can help us navigate political crises with our freedom and dignity intact. But, as Alexis de Tocqueville reminds us, liberal democracies tend to produce citizens with weak judgment and middling character. Fortunately for us, Shakespeare and the Soul of Statesmanship shows how the plays and poetry of William Shakespeare supply an antidote to this problem. With exceptional attentiveness to Shakespeare’s political insights, the contributors to this excellent volume illustrate how his tragedies, comedies, and histories can develop both the prudent statesmanship we need and the judgment to distinguish 'true greatness' from 'brilliant mediocrity.' -- Bernard J. Dobski, Assumption CollegeTable of Contents1 Othello: Jealousy Becomes TragicTimothy Burns2 Macbeth: The Spiritual Drama of the Tyrannical SoulCarson Holloway3 Wings as Swift as Love: Hamlet and the Virtues (and Vices) of a KingL. Joseph Hebert4 Both False and True: Love, Death, and Poetry in Love’s Labor’s LostDenise Schaeffer and Mary P. Nichols5 Jurisprudence in Shakespeare’s Merchant of VeniceThomas Vincent Svogun6 Christian Ethics and Political Moderation in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Luigi Bradizza7 The Bastard in King John; or, On the Need for a Unified English NationKhalil M. Habib8 To Make High Majesty Look Like Itself: Shakespeare’s Richard II and the Nature of the Good RegimeJoseph Alulis9 “This Blessed Plot”: Divine Justice and Law from Richard II’s Trial by Combat to Henry V’s Battle of AgincourtDavid Alvis
£31.50
Lexington Books Screening Gender in Shakespeares Comedies
Book SynopsisWhen adapting Shakespeare''s comedies, cinema and television have to address the differences and incompatibilities between early modern gender constructs and contemporary cultural, social, and political contexts. The book analyzes methods employed by cinema and television in approaching those aspects of Shakespeare''s comedies, indicating a range of ways in which adaptations made in the twenty-first century approach the problems of cultural and social normativity, gender politics, stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, the dynamic of power relations between men and women, and social roles of men and women. The book discusses both mainstream cinematic productions, such as Michael Radford''s The Merchant of Venice or Julie Taymor''s The Tempest, and more low-key adaptations, such as Kenneth Branagh''s As You Like It and Joss Whedon''s Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the three comedies of BBC ShakespeaRe-Told miniseries: Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and A MidsumTrade ReviewMagdalena Cieslak’s Screening Gender offers insightful readings of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies and their representation in twenty-first-century film. In a comprehensive survey, she identifies the early modern constructions of gender, marriage, and female sexuality embedded in Shakespeare’s texts and illuminates the ways they are replicated and sometimes interrogated in cinematic adaptations. -- Virginia Mason Vaughan, Clark UniversityTable of ContentsPart I: Doing It “Straight” Chapter 1—Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice Chapter 2—Kenneth Branagh’s As You Like It Chapter 3—Julie Taymor’s The Tempest Chapter 4—Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing Part II: BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told—Retelling Shakespeare for Political Correctness Chapter 5—BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told Much Ado About Nothing, dir. Brian Percival Chapter 6—BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told The Taming of the Shrew, dir. David Richards Chapter 7— BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dir. Ed Fraiman Conclusion: Girl Power or Will Power? Epilogue: Bridget Jones’s Baby
£81.00
Lexington Books Screening Gender in Shakespeares Comedies
Book SynopsisWhen adapting Shakespeare''s comedies, cinema and television have to address the differences and incompatibilities between early modern gender constructs and contemporary cultural, social, and political contexts. Screening Gender in Shakespeare's Comedies: Film and Television Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century analyzes methods employed by cinema and television in approaching those aspects of Shakespeare''s comedies, indicating a range of ways in which adaptations made in the twenty-first century approach the problems of cultural and social normativity, gender politics, stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, the dynamic of power relations between men and women, and social roles of men and women. This book discusses both mainstream cinematic productions, such as Michael Radford''s The Merchant of Venice or Julie Taymor''s The Tempest, and more low-key adaptations, such as Kenneth Branagh''s As You Like It and Joss Whedon''s Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the three comedies oTrade ReviewThe field of academic research on Shakespeare and screen adaptations has been rapidly expanding over the past decades, and Cieślak’s interdisciplinary study provides a welcome critical addition. . . In a highly topical book, also considering the ongoing #MeToo debate, the author explores the tensions and negotiations between early modern attitudes towards gender and the way twenty-first century adaptations relate to those issues in terms of current gender politics. . . . With all the insightful analysis in her timely book, Cieślak has hopefully also provided an impetus for further research in this highly topical field. * Sederi Yearbook *Magdalena Cieslak’s Screening Gender offers insightful readings of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies and their representation in twenty-first-century film. In a comprehensive survey, she identifies the early modern constructions of gender, marriage, and female sexuality embedded in Shakespeare’s texts and illuminates the ways they are replicated and sometimes interrogated in cinematic adaptations. -- Virginia Mason Vaughan, Clark UniversityTable of ContentsPart I: Doing It “Straight”Chapter 1—Michael Radford’s The Merchant of VeniceChapter 2—Kenneth Branagh’s As You Like ItChapter 3—Julie Taymor’s The TempestChapter 4—Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About NothingPart II: BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told—Retelling Shakespeare for Political CorrectnessChapter 5—BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told Much Ado About Nothing, dir. Brian PercivalChapter 6—BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told The Taming of the Shrew, dir. David RichardsChapter 7— BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dir. Ed FraimanConclusion: Girl Power or Will Power?Epilogue: Bridget Jones’s Baby
£31.50
Lexington Books Interjections Translation and Translanguaging
Book SynopsisThis book is about interjections and their transcultural issues. Challenging the marginalization of the past, the ubiquity of interjections and translational practices are presented in their multilingual and cross-cultural aspects. The survey widens the field of inquiry to a multi-genre and context-based perspective. The quanti-qualitative corpus has been processed on the base of topics of relevance and thematization. The range of examples varies from adaptation of novels into films, from Shakespeare, from Zulu oral epics to opera, from children's narratives to cartoons, from migration literature to gangster and horror films and their audiovisual translation. The use of American Yiddish, Italian American, South African English, and Jamaican account for the controversial aspects of interjections as a universal phenomenon, and, conversely, as a pragmatic marker of identity in (post)colonial contexts.Trade ReviewThe book Interjections, Translation, and Translanguaging is an exhaustive exploration of expressions, language adaptation, and interjection; the author reminds us from the outset “Our lives and daily newspapers would be unimaginable without interjections” (p. 41). The book unveils the global expansion and differentiation of interjections and translanguaging opening up whole new expressions of language, its interpretation and its understanding. Most importantly, it goes beyond the fixation on an English only examination and seeks out interjections in a host of languages and quasi languages. The book shows us how interjections are not just something of today but have been with us throughout history. One can only suspect that new modes of interjection will proliferate even further as technical expressions emerge from social media use and acquire even greater uniqueness if not acceptance. -- Bruno Mascitelli, Swinburne University of TechnologyAn important contribution to the scholarship of linguistics and relevant to a wide repertoire of genres in the field. Interesting, lively, academic, with a lovely touch of humour. -- Rajendra Chetty, English Academy of Southern AfricaMasiola not only redresses the lack of attention given to the phenomenon of interjections in general but is able to show its crucial significance in the translation task. She draws upon a wide range of works and presents her arguments in a clear and incisive manner. Indispensable reading! -- Adolfo Gentile, Monash UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Chapter One: Perspectives on Interjection and Translation Chapter Two: Children’s Books: The Classics, Folk Tales and sequentials Chapter Three: Multimedia Adaptation: From Oral Epics to Cartoons Chapter Four: Yiddish, Yinglish and Italian American: Translanguaging Bibliography Index About the Author
£81.00
Simon & Schuster King Lear
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Simon & Schuster The Tragedy of Richard II
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Simon & Schuster Othello New Folger Library Shakespeare
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Simon & Schuster Much ADO about Nothing
Book Synopsis
£9.45
Simon & Schuster Macbeth
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewPraise for Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind: “The venerable and prolific literary scholar completes his Shakespeare's Personalities series with a lingering and deeply curious, even troubled, look at the titular character in the legendary play… Throughout, the author muses on Macbeth's ‘proleptic and prophetic imagination’ and wonders—all the way to the final paragraph—what it is about this sanguinary, murderous character that so deeply appeals to audiences… Older readers may wish this clear, concise, empathetic volume were available when they were in school.” —Kirkus Reviews “Acclaimed critic Bloom once again plumbs the depths of a Shakespeare play to reveal new insights, this time offering a richly detailed character sketch of Macbeth. . . Bloom will shift the reader’s perceptions of a literary classic.”—Publishers Weekly Praise for Iago: The Strategies of Evil "There are few readers more astute than Bloom...the true value of Bloom’s sensitive reading lies in his ability to articulate his emotional response to the play. He leaves readers with a memorable new perspective on Othello."—Publishers Weekly Praise for Lear: The Great Image of Authority “At the outset of this pithy exegesis of King Lear, Bloom describes the play’s title characters as one of Shakespeare’s ‘most challenging personalities’…Bloom guides the reader scene by scene through the play, quoting long but well-chosen swaths of text and interjecting commentary that reveals the nuances of Shakespeare’s word choices…he is also deft at bringing out dramatic contrasts between characters…Bloom’s short, superb book has a depth of observation acquired from a lifetime of study, and the author knows when to let Shakespeare and his play speak for themselves.”—Publishers Weekly "A measured, thoughtful assessment of a key play in the Shakespeare canon...Bloom brings this dark tale of a king in search of love to life via his incisive close reading of the text.”—Kirkus Reviews Praise for Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air "A masterfully perceptive reading of this seductive play's endless wonders."—Kirkus Review “Bloom draws upon his extensive reading to place the characters and the story in context alongside the histories from which the plot was adapted…those who have read the play or seen it performed will find Bloom’s passion to be infectious. Recommended for Shakespeare enthusiasts and readers seeking a deeper understanding of one of his greatest creations.” —Library Journal “Bloom brings considerable expertise and his own unique voice to this book.”—Publishers Weekly Praise for Falstaff: Give me Life "Famed literary critic and Yale professor Bloom showcases his favorite Shakespearian character in this poignant work... He has created a larger-than-life portrait of a character who is 'at his best a giant image of human freedom.'"—Publishers Weekly "In this first of five books about Shakespearean personalities, Bloom brings erudition and boundless enthusiasm."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review “[Bloom’s] last love letter to the shaping spirit of his imagination… An explanation and reiteration of why Falstaff matters to Bloom, and why Falstaff is one of literature’s vital forces… A pleasure to read.”—Jeanette Winterson, New York Times Book Review
£12.80
De Gruyter Roman Women in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries
Book SynopsisThis collection of essays explores issues connected to female identities in the early modern English plays set in ancient Rome.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Domenico Lovascio "Rome's Rich Ornament": Lavinia, Commoditization and the Senses in William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus by Alice Equestri Blending Motherhoods: Volumnia and the Representation of Maternity in William Shakespeare's Coriolanus by Michela Compagnoni "Silent, Not as a Foole": William Shakespeare's Roman Women and Early Modern Tropes of Feminine Silence by Maria Elisa Montironi "Timidae obsequantur": Mothers and Wives in Matthew Gwinne’s Nero by Cristiano Ragni "Let Me Use All My Pleasures": The Ovidian Courtship of the Emperor’s Daughter in Ben Jonson’s Poetaster by Michele de Benedictis "Few Wise Women's Honesties": Dialoguing with Roman Women in Ben Jonson’s Roman Plays by Fabio Ciambella Ben Jonson’s and Thomas May’s "Political Ladies": Forms of Female Political Agency by Angelica Vedelago Bawds, Wives, and Foreigners: The Question of Female Agency in the Roman Plays of the Fletcher Canon by Domenico Lovascio "The Beauties of the Time": Roman Women in Philip Massinger’s The Roman Actor by Cristina Paravano "Poison on, Monsters": Female Poisoners in Early Modern Roman Tragedies by Emanuel Stelzer Notes on Contributors Index
£115.00
Cornell University Press Staging Harmony
Book SynopsisIn Staging Harmony, Katherine Steele Brokaw reveals how the relationship between drama, music, and religious change across England's long sixteenth century moved religious discourse to more moderate positions. It did so by reproducing the complex personal attachments, nostalgic overtones, and bodily effects that allow performed music to evoke the feeling, if not always the reality, of social harmony. Brokaw demonstrates how theatrical music from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries contributed to contemporary discourses on the power and morality of music and its proper role in religious life, shaping the changes made to church music as well as people's reception of those changes. In representing social, affective, and religious life in all its intricacy, and in unifying auditors in shared acoustic experiences, staged musical moments suggested the value of complexity, resolution, and compromise rather than oversimplified, absolutist binaries worth killing or dTrade Review[Staging Harmony]... is an engaging and historically well-informed work that explores the complex relationship of music and drama over the long sixteenth century, filling in the gaps that result from focusing too narrowly on the Elizabethan commercial theater to the exclusion of early Tudor interludes, Reformist morality plays, schoolboy dramas, and court and household entertainments. -- Jonathan Baldo, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester * Renaissance Quarterly *Staging Harmony offers a sophisticated account of theatrical engagement with music over a key period of dramatic production, a subtle description of early modern religious cultures, and a rich theorization of music’s role in embodied belief. * EARLY THEATRE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Theater, Music, and Religion in the Long Sixteenth Century 1. Sacred, Sensual, and Social Music: Wisdom and the Digby Mary Magdalene 2. Musical Hypocrisy: The Plays of John Bale 3. Learning to Sing: The Plays of Nicholas Udall 4. Propaganda and Psalms: Early Elizabethan Drama 5. Sound Effects: Doctor Faustus 6. Arts to Enchant: The Tempest and The Winter's Tale
£52.20
Cornell University Press Ways of the World
Book SynopsisWays of the World explores cosmopolitanism as it emerged during the Restoration and the role theater played in both memorializing and satirizing its implications and consequences. Rooted in the Stuart ambition to raise the status of England through two crucial investmentsglobal traffic, including the slave trade, and cultural sophisticationthis intensified global orientation led to the creation of global mercantile networks and to the rise of an urban British elite who drank Ethiopian coffee out of Asian porcelain at Ottoman-inspired coffeehouses. Restoration drama exposed cosmopolitanism''s most embarrassing and troubling aspects, with such writers as Joseph Addison, Aphra Behn, John Dryden, and William Wycherley dramatizing the emotional and ethical dilemmas that imperial and commercial expansion brought to light.Altering standard narratives about Restoration drama, Laura J. Rosenthal shows how the reinvention of theater in this periodincluding technical innovations Trade ReviewThis well-argued, thought-provoking book argues for the key role of theater in the development of English cosmopolitanism and imperialism during the Restoration and 18th century. Well written and persuasive, the book significantly furthers the study of Restoration theater and its connections to the politics of empire. -- L. S. Stanavage, SUNY Potsdam * Choice *With regard to the study of emotions as culturally and temporally specific phenomena, Ways of the World has much on offer. * Emotions: History, Culture & Society *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. All Roads Lead to Rhodes: William Davenant, Ottomanphilia, and the Reinvention of Theater in the Restoration 2. Travestie: William Wycherley, the Fop, and the Provincial Girl 3. Indian Queens and the Queen Who Brought the Indies: Dryden, Settle, and the Tragedies of Empire 4. Restoration Legacies: Tragic Monarchs, Exotic and Enslaved 5. "Have You Not Been Sophisticated?": The Afterlife of the Restoration Actress 6. Histories of Their Own Times: Burnet, Cibber, and Rochester Epilogue: Mr. Spectator, Adam Smith, and the New Global Citizenship
£37.05
Cornell University Press Irregular Unions
Book SynopsisKatharine Cleland''s Irregular Unions provides the first sustained literary history of clandestine marriage in early modern England and reveals its controversial nature in the wake of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which standardized the marriage ritual for the first time. Cleland examines many examples of clandestine marriage across genres. Discussing such classic works as The Faerie Queene, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, she argues that early modern authors used clandestine marriage to explore the intersection between the self and the marriage ritual in post-Reformation England.The ways in which authors grappled with the political and social complexities of clandestine marriage, Cleland finds, suggest that these narratives were far more than interesting plot devices or scandalous stories ripped from the headlines. Instead, after the Reformation, fictions of clandestine marriage allowed early modern authorsTrade ReviewCleland's book represents an important step forward in contextualizing early modern English literature. This book enriches that scholarship by providing a deeper understanding of the many types of marriages portrayed in early modern literature and how they reflect the social anxieties of the period. Clearly written and tightly argued, the book should be of interest to scholars of literature and history. * Renaissance and Reformation *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Making a Clandestine Match in Early Modern English Literature 1. Reforming Clandestine Marriage in Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I 2. "Wanton Loves and Young Desires": Marlowe's Hero and Leander and Chapman's Continuation 3. Sacred Ceremonies and Private Contracts in Spenser's Epithalamion and Shakespeare's A Lover's Complaint 4. "Lorenzo and His Infidel": Elopement and the Cross-Cultural Household in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice 5. "Are You Fast Married?": Elopement and Turning Turk in Shakespeare's Othello Conclusion: Incestuous Clandestine Marriage in John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
£17.99
Cornell University Press Unfixable Forms
Book SynopsisUnfixable Forms explores how theatrical form remakesand is in turn remade byearly modern disability. Figures described as deformed, lame, crippled, ugly, sick, and monstrous crowd the stage in English drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In each case, such a description distills cultural expectations about how a body should look and what a body should doyet, crucially, demands the actor''s embodied performance. In the early modern theater, concepts of disability collide with the deforming, vulnerable body of the actor. Reading dramatic texts alongside a diverse array of sources, ranging from physic manuals to philosophical essays to monster pamphlets, Katherine Schaap Williams excavates an archive of formal innovation to argue that disability is at the heart of the early modern theater''s exploration of what it means to put the body of an actor on the stage. Offering new interpretations of canonical works by William Shakespeare, Ben JoTrade ReviewUnfixable Forms marks a milestone in disability studies. It is an essential book that prompts readers to think about, and cultivate a desire for, human difference. * Modern Philology *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Unfixing Early Modern Disability 1. Deformed: Wanting to See Richard III 2. Citizen Transformed: Being the Lame Soldier 3. Performing Cripple in Theatrical Exchange 4. Changing the Ugly Body 5. Playing Time, or Sick of Feigning 6. Making the Monster Coda: Inviting Performance
£46.80
Cornell University Press The Ways of the Word
Book SynopsisIn The Ways of the Word, Garrett Stewart steps aside from theory to focus on the sheer pleasure of attentive reading and the excitement of recognizing the play of syllables and words upon which the best literary writing is founded. Emerging out of teaching creative writing and a broader effort to convene writers and critics, Stewart''s episodes in verbal attention track the means to meaning through the byways of literary wording.Through close engagement with literary passages and poetic instances whose imaginative demands are their own reward, Stewart gathers exhibits from dozens of authors: from Dickinson, Dickens, and DeLillo to Whitman, Woolf, and Colson Whitehead. In the process, idiom, tense, etymology, and other elements of expressive language and its phonetic wordplay are estranged and heard anew. The Ways of the Word fluidly and intuitively reveals a verbal alchemy that is as riveting as it is elusive and mysterious.Trade ReviewStewart is clearly having fun in this book, channeling techniques into his exposition with such parings as word's way and world's way, touchstone and touchtone, density and intensity, and epiphony and epiphany, to note just a few. Impressively erudite, this work will interest critics, creative writers, and literary-minded linguists. * Choice *
£97.20
Cornell University Press The Ways of the Word
Book SynopsisIn The Ways of the Word, Garrett Stewart steps aside from theory to focus on the sheer pleasure of attentive reading and the excitement of recognizing the play of syllables and words upon which the best literary writing is founded. Emerging out of teaching creative writing and a broader effort to convene writers and critics, Stewart''s episodes in verbal attention track the means to meaning through the byways of literary wording.Through close engagement with literary passages and poetic instances whose imaginative demands are their own reward, Stewart gathers exhibits from dozens of authors: from Dickinson, Dickens, and DeLillo to Whitman, Woolf, and Colson Whitehead. In the process, idiom, tense, etymology, and other elements of expressive language and its phonetic wordplay are estranged and heard anew. The Ways of the Word fluidly and intuitively reveals a verbal alchemy that is as riveting as it is elusive and mysterious.Trade ReviewStewart is clearly having fun in this book, channeling techniques into his exposition with such parings as word's way and world's way, touchstone and touchtone, density and intensity, and epiphony and epiphany, to note just a few. Impressively erudite, this work will interest critics, creative writers, and literary-minded linguists. * Choice *
£19.79
Cornell University Press Haunted Dreams
Book SynopsisHaunted Dreams is the first comprehensive study in English devoted to cultural representations of adolescence in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Jenny Kaminer situates these cultural representations within the broader context of European and Anglo-American scholarship on adolescence and youth, and she explores how Russian writers, dramatists, and filmmakers have repeatedly turned to the adolescent protagonist in exploring the myriad fissures running through post-Soviet society. Through close analysis of prose, drama, television, and film, this book maps how the adolescent hero has become a locus for multiple anxieties throughout the tumultuous years since the end of the Soviet experiment. Kaminer also directly addresses some of the pivotal questions facing scholars of post-Soviet Russia: Have Soviet cultural models been transcended? Or do they continue to dominate? The figure of the adolescent, an especially potent and enduring source ofTrade ReviewA profound and multi-faceted analysis, a deep insight into Russian culture. In light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, the importance of engaging with the discussions and conclusions initiated by Kaminer's book becomes ever more necessary. * International Research Society for Children's Literature *For students and scholars of youth studies, this book is an essential starting place. The lucid and succinct descriptions of film and drama, in particular the cinematic oeuvre of Anna Melikian, understudied until now, nestle these contemporary works neatly within the Slavic Studies field through approaches that continue to be of interest. * Russian Review *Jenny Kaminer's Haunted Dreams provides an excellent examination of contemporary Russian cultural productions featuring young people across diverse popular genres. She reinforces her discussions with sophisticated presentations of historical contexts and comparative analyses of primary sources. * International Research Society for Children's Literature *Jenny Kaminer's excellent new book, Haunted Dreams, turns our attention to fantasies of adolescence in post-Soviet culture by assembling an archive of literature, film, drama, and television in which the adolescent—that awkward state between childhood and adulthood—is made visible as a cultural construct. * Slavic Review *With elegant, engaging prose, Haunted Dreams is a major academic accomplishment and a valuable reference point for subsequent studies of post-Soviet, and indeed global, adolescence. * Modern Language Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Ghost of Adolescence Past 2. Adolescence as Nightmare 3. Violent Imaginings 4. Specters in the Schoolhouse Conclusion
£36.10
Cornell University Press How to Do Things with Dead People
Book SynopsisHow to Do Things with Dead People studies human contrivances for representing and relating to the dead. Alice Dailey takes as her principal objects of inquiry Shakespeare''s English history plays, describing them as reproductive mechanisms by which living replicas of dead historical figures are regenerated in the present and re-killed. Considering the plays in these terms exposes their affinity with a transhistorical array of technologies for producing, reproducing, and interacting with dead thingstechnologies such as literary doppelgängers, photography, ventriloquist puppetry, X-ray imaging, glitch art, capital punishment machines, and cloning. By situating Shakespeare''s historical drama in this intermedial conversation, Dailey challenges conventional assumptions about what constitutes the context of a work of art and contests foundational models of linear temporality that inform long-standing conceptions of historical periodization and teleological ordTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Luminous Spiral and the Cigarette Box, or Technologies of the Afterdeath 1. Little, Little Graves: Shakespeare's Photographs of Richard II 2. Haunted Histories: Dramatic Double Exposure in Henry IV, Parts One and Two 3. Dummies and Doppelgängers: Performing for the Dead in 1 Henry VI 4. The King Machine: Reproducing Sovereignty in 3 Henry VI 5. Fuck Off and Die: The Queercrip Reign of Richard III Postscript: Lazarus Again
£77.34
Cornell University Press Afterlives of Endor
Book Synopsis
£97.20
Cornell University Press Afterlives of Endor
Book SynopsisAfterlives of Endor offers an analysis of the way early modern English literature addressed the period''s anxieties about witchcraft and theatricality. What determined whether or not a demonologist imagined a trial as a spectacle? What underlying epistemological constraints governed such choices and what conceptions of witchcraft did these choices reveal? Pairing readings of demonological texts with canonical plays and poetry, Laura Levine examines such questions. Through analyses of manuals and pamphlets about the prosecution of witchesincluding Reginald Scot''s skeptical The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), King James VI/I''s Daemonologie (1597), and Jean Bodin''s De la Demonomanie des Sorciers (1580)Afterlives of Endor examines the way literary texts such as Shakespeare''s The Winter''s Tale and The Tempest, Spenser''s The Faerie Queene, and Marlowe''s Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus address anxietie
£18.89
Cornell University Press How to Do Things with Dead People
Book SynopsisHow to Do Things with Dead People studies human contrivances for representing and relating to the dead. Alice Dailey takes as her principal objects of inquiry Shakespeare''s English history plays, describing them as reproductive mechanisms by which living replicas of dead historical figures are regenerated in the present and re-killed. Considering the plays in these terms exposes their affinity with a transhistorical array of technologies for producing, reproducing, and interacting with dead thingstechnologies such as literary doppelgängers, photography, ventriloquist puppetry, X-ray imaging, glitch art, capital punishment machines, and cloning. By situating Shakespeare''s historical drama in this intermedial conversation, Dailey challenges conventional assumptions about what constitutes the context of a work of art and contests foundational models of linear temporality that inform long-standing conceptions of historical periodization and teleological ord
£19.94
Stanford University Press Shakesplish: How We Read Shakespeare's Language
Book SynopsisFor all that we love and admire Shakespeare, he is not that easy to grasp. He may have written in Elizabethan English, but when we read him, we can't help but understand his words, metaphors, and syntax in relation to our own. Until now, explaining the powers and pleasures of the Bard's language has always meant returning it to its original linguistic and rhetorical contexts. Countless excellent studies situate his unusual gift for words in relation to the resources of the English of his day. They may mention the presumptions of modern readers, but their goal is to correct and invalidate any false impressions. Shakesplish is the first book devoted to our experience as modern readers of Early Modern English. Drawing on translation theory and linguistics, Paula Blank argues that for us, Shakespeare's language is a hybrid English composed of errors in comprehension—and that such errors enable, rather than hinder, some of the pleasures we take in his language. Investigating how and why it strikes us, by turns, as beautiful, funny, sexy, or smart, she shows how, far from being the fossilized remains of an older idiom, Shakespeare's English is also our own.Trade Review"As Paula Blank argues, whether or not we are dipping into a 'No Fear' edition, we are always paraphrasing Shakespeare. Shamelessly fun to read, this original and timely book should have broad appeal." -- Julia Reinhard Lupton * University of California, Irvine *"In her worthy sequel to Broken English, Paula Blank meditates provocatively on the 'friction' induced by our distance from early modern English. Shakesplish confronts and celebrates that distance, giving voice to a past now revived for our era." -- Scott Newstok, Director, Pearce Shakespeare Endowment * Rhodes College *"This beautifully conceived book argues for a new and suggestive way of making Shakespeare our contemporary, at once familiar and exotic. Focusing on Shakespeare's language not as he might have intended it but as we understand it today, Paula Blank shows how what registers to a modern reader as the difficulty or strangeness of Shakespeare actually provokes singularly rich forms of cultural and personal self-discovery." -- Geoffrey Harpham, Kenan Institute for Ethics * Duke University *"We owe Paula Blank much thanks for bequeathing to us a book that I would not hesitate to describe as possessing the same traits she has analyzed for us—a book that is 'beautiful', 'funny', 'smart', and yes, even 'sexy': seductive, that is, in the elegant and articulate way in which it helps reveal to us our innermost desires about what Shakespeare's language should be." -- Iolanda Plescia * Memoria di Shakespeare *"Blank returns the reader to the act of luxuriating in the opulent richness of Shakespeare's language like no other scholar I have ever encountered. Shakesplish: How We Read Shakespeare's Language will be consulted for decades to come because of its indefatigable energy and exuberate erudition." -- William Reginald Rampone * Sixteenth Century Journal *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1"Shakespeare in Modern English" chapter abstractThis chapter lays the groundwork for approaching Shakespeare's English from the perspective of our own, drawing on translation theory, second-language acquisition theory, and performance studies. It destabilizes the argument over whether Shakespeare should or should not be translated into modern English by posing the theory that Shakespeare's English, in our reception of it, has become an "interlanguage," a uniquely modern hybrid. 2"Beautiful" chapter abstractThis chapter attempts to account for our continuing sense of Shakespeare's language as "beautiful" in an age in which the traditional aesthetic categories of "beautiful" and "sublime" have given way to new categories, such as "cute" or "interesting." Starting from the premise that, when it comes to Shakespeare, we are closer to eighteenth-century critics than twenty-first century ones, this chapter posits that our best chance of determining what it is that makes Shakespeare's language beautiful lies in considering what happens in the moment we make contact with his texts, the moment of our interlinguistic participation. Focusing on our experience of belatedness in relation to Shakespeare's Early Modern diction and syntax, this chapter examines various examples of Shakespeare's beautiful—and not so beautiful—language in order to determine the source of our aesthetic pleasure. 3"Sexy" chapter abstractThis chapter shows that Shakespeare's language is more openly sexual, when it is sexual, than our Modern English expectations have led us to believe. Early Modern English lacked "clinical" terms for male and female sexual organs and for the act of sexual intercourse itself. When Shakespeare uses terms like "sport" or "dally" for sex, he is speaking directly rather than euphemistically. This chapter argues that our interest in Shakespeare's sexual language actually reveals our ambivalence toward his original sexual frankness: We prefer sex in Shakespeare be hidden, so that we can find it out for ourselves. For us, Shakespeare's sexual language is, in itself, a metaphor for our idea of Shakespeare's text as coded, hiding some essential "truth." 4"Funny" chapter abstractThis chapter explores the "funny" and "unfunny" effects of Modern English on Shakespeare's comedy. Situating Shakespeare's jokes within the context of several dominant, enduring theories of humor in the Western tradition—including "superiority" theories, "arousal" or "release" theories, and "incongruity" theories—the chapter explains why and how it is that some of Shakespeare's comedy falls flat to contemporary ears while other instances have become more funny as a result of the gap between our English and Shakespeare's. 5"Smart" chapter abstractThis chapter examines Shakespeare's "intelligence effects," the ways in which his language gives us a sense of depth and acuity. Shakespeare did not use the word "intelligence" in the way that we do: in Early Modern English, the key terms were "wit" and "discourse of reason." Often, modern readers find Shakespeare's characters' "intelligent" because they demonstrate inwardness and self-consciousness; in the process, however, we miss their many failures of logic, which for Shakespeare's audience would have indicated a failure of reason. The chapter further argues that Shakespeare's poetic syntax makes him sound "smarter" to us. 6"Shakespeare as Modern English" chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on Modern English phrases that derive from Shakespeare's Early Modern English, but have been adapted to more recent forms of the vernacular, either in meaning or form. Modern English includes many idioms that originate in Shakespeare, such as "hoist with his own petard," "one fell swoop," and "primrose path." This chapter divides such idioms into three categories: those whose literal meaning is now obscure to us, those that we hear simply as Modern English, and those that sound antiquated and clichéd. Finally, the chapter returns to our modern obsession with identifying idioms as Shakespearean. Cited so often, in so many contexts, over so many centuries, these phrases have become their own particular suborder of language. They are far more ours than his, not Shakespeare but "Shakespeare."
£21.59
