Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive treatment of Shakespeare’s plays, The Practical Shakespeare: The Plays in Practice and on the Page illuminates for a general audience how and why the plays work so well.NotingTrade ReviewA resource for high school teachers and their advanced students, for undergraduate faculty and their students in survey courses that include some of the Bard’s plays, and for the occasional theatergoer. The Practical Shakespeare is highly readable, informative, and thought-provoking. * coeditor of Teaching Shakespeare into the Twenty-first Century *

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Book SynopsisAn anthology of coming-of-age poems written by women born between 1945 and 1964. The poems are by unknown, emerging and established writers, women who particpated in the second wave of feminism. They speak with diverse voices and embody a wide range of experiences.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Generous helpings of illustrations, time lines, plot diagrams, and character guides ensure that even readers in their 'salad days' will enjoy every dish at the Shakespearean feast." — Booklist"Enlightening" — YA Book Central"In this latest addition to the series, the Bard comes alive for young aficionados." — School Library Journal"Countless volumes have been written about William Shakespeare and his work, but here is a single volume that has organized his plays (and some of his sonnets) in exactly what the subtitle says: 'Big Ideas Simply Explained…a must-have.'" — VOYA magazine

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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

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Book SynopsisMost modern scholars regard William Shakespeare and his repertory company as the pre-eminent theatre group of its day; Roslyn Lander Knutson contends that they were also practical entrepreneurs who both shaped and responded to current theatrical tastes and whose playhouse practices closely paralleled those of their competitors. In ""The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company"" Knutson demystifies Shakespeare and his company by providing a clear vision of the dynamics of play production and play-going in Shakespeare's England, taking Shakespeare and his company down from their lofty pedestal where Victorian scholars placed them. She argues that Shakespeare and his company should not be seen as privileged and apart from the playing companies of the period, but should be viewed exactly as they were: as the hard-nosed participants in the highly competitive world of English theatre. A reference guide and critical revaluation, ""The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company"" combines an array of factual information with a keen insight into not just Shakespearean ""masterpieces"" but also the seldom-read plays, to give an account of theatrical life in Shakespeare's London.

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Book SynopsisWhat is the effect of a 'nation'? In this age of globalization, is it dead, dying, only dormant? The essays in this groundbreaking volume use the arts in Mexico to move beyond the national and the global to look at the activity of a community continually re-creating itself within and beyond its own borders. Mexico is a particularly apt focus, partly because of the vitality of its culture, partly because of its changing political identity, and partly because of the impact of borders and borderlessness on its national character. The ten essays collected here look at a wide range of aesthetic productions especially literature and the visual arts that give context to how art and society interact.Steering a careful course between the nostalgia of nationalism and the insensitivity of globalism, these essays examine modernism and postmodernism in the Mexican setting. Individually, they explore the incorporation of historical icons, of vanguardism, and of international influence. From Diego Rivera to Elena Garro, from the Tlateloco massacre to the Chiapas rebellion, from mass-market fiction to the film "Aliens", the contributors view the many sides of Mexican life as relevant to the creation of a constantly shifting national culture. Taken together, the essays look both backward and forward at the evolving effect of the Mexican nation. Author note: Carl Good is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Emory University. John V. Waldron is an independent scholar living in Connecticut.Trade Review"Broad enough to appeal to a wide audience of Mexicanists, while at the same time focused around a specific set of issues, The Effects of the Nation is a strong collection of essays, both well-conceived and well written. The dual focus on literature and visual art strengthens the book by suggesting connections among various Mexican intellectual circles and the cultural industries. The result should appeal to both literary scholars and art historians." --Claire Fox, author of The Fence and the River: Culture and Politics at the U.S.-Mexican Border "The diversity of these essays reveals an interlocking strength built upon a common thematic, without coming across individually as narrowly construed or atomized. There is a wonderful overlap as well as tension between the essays, notably in the ways that the authors approach the question of representation and power in the Mexican national (and transnational) space. The publication of this collection will come at a fortuitous moment, when academic interest in Mexican studies is breaking free of earlier agendas." --Eric Zolov, Assistant Professor of Latin American History at Franklin and Marshall College and author of Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture "The essays in this book use the arts in Mexico to move away from the national and the global, to look at the activity of a community continually recreating itself within and beyond its own borders. The essays examine a wide range of aesthetic productions--especially literature and the visual arts--that give context to how art and society interact." --Hispanic OutlookTable of ContentsIntroduction: Ungoverned Specificities Carl Good 1. Mexican Art on Display Olivier Debroise 2. Mathias Goeritz: Emotional Architecture and Creating a Mexican National Art Juan Bruce-Novoa 3. Corporeal Identities in Mexican Art: Modern and Postmodern Strategies Karen Cordero Reiman 4. Elena Poniatowska's Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela: A Revision of Her Story Susan C. Schaffer 5. "Un octubre manchado se detiene": Memory and Testimony in the Poetry of David Huerta Jacobo Sefami 6. Aesthetic Criteria and the Literary Market in Mexico: The Changing Shape of Quality, 1982-1994 Danny J. Anderson 7. Un hogar insolito: Elena Garro and Mexican Literary Culture Rebecca E. Biron 8. Rene Derouin: Dialogues with Mexico Montserrat Gali Boadella 9. Unhomely Feminine: Rosina Conde Debra A. Castillo 10. The Postmodern Hybrid: Do Aliens Dream of Alien Sheep? Rolando Romero About the Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century engagement with a crucial part of Britain's past, the period between the withdrawal of the Roman legions and the Norman Conquest. A number of early modern plays suggest an underlying continuity, an essential English identity linked to the land and impervious to change. This book considers the extent to which ideas about early modern English and British national, religious, and political identities were rooted in cultural constructions of the pre-Conquest past.Trade Review"In the context of Brexit, as the rethinking of Europe and its borders is very much part of an enterprise bound up with memory of conquest, empire, and independence, this is a book that will get students reading, critics thinking, and people talking." Willy Maley, University of Glasgow "Hopkins concludes her compelling study with the statement that there 'is a recurrent acknowledgment that a purely British identity is no longer possible (if indeed it ever was), because bloodlines have been diluted by wave after wave of invasion, but there is also a sense of a link between land and identity' (191). Hers is a book that presents a wealth of material and offers intriguing insights on questions of identity, succession, legitimacy, but also on how early modern writers viewed the distant past and gave it political significance." --Nicole Nyffenegger, University of Bern, SwitzerlandTable of ContentsIntroduction Part One: Legacies "Bisson Conspectuities": Language and National Identity in Shakespeare's Roman Plays Profit and Delight? Magic and the Dreams of a Nation "A Borrowed Blood for Brute": From Britain to England Part Two: Ancestors and Others Queens and the British History Dido in Denmark: Danes and Saxons on the Early Modern English Stage Valiant Welshwomen: When Britain Came Back Athelstan, the Virgin King Conclusion Works Cited

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Book SynopsisShakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, and the Nature of Fame is a characterological study offering new perspectives on Antony and Cleopatra, the most ambiguous of Shakespeare's plays. It also offers new insights about the origins and nature of Shakespeare's imperishable fame. Wide-ranging in its concerns, this monograph promises to make an essential difference in the way scholars view characterizations, fame, Shakespeare's reputation, and the eminence of the celebrated figures of the play.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Viewing Shakespeare's Kinetic Characterizations 2. Antony and Cleopatra in Seventeenth-Century Contexts 3. "Immortal Longings": Shakespeare's Perspective on Fame 4. Standards of Measure in Antony and Cleopatra 5. "The Varying Shore": Changing Perceptions, Sustaining Illustriousness 6. "A Pair So Famous": Achieving Permanent Renown 7. Shakespeare's Imperishable Fame Bibliography and Further Reading Index

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThe essays in English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1660-1800 explore the theatrical anecdote’s role in the construction of stage fame in England’s emergent celebrity culture during the long eighteenth century, as well as the challenges of employing such anecdotes in theatre scholarship today. This collection showcases scholarship that complicates the theatrical anecdote and shows its many sides and applications beyond the expected comic punch. Discussing anecdotal narratives about theatre people as producing, maintaining, and sometimes toppling individual fame, this book crucially investigates a key mechanism of celebrity in the long eighteenth century that reaches into the nineteenth century and beyond. The anecdote erases boundaries between public and private and fictionalizing the individual in ways deeply familiar to twenty-first century celebrity culture.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Miniature Stages of Celebrity: English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1600–1800Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchiePART IACTING BADLY: MISBEHAVING PERFORMERS1 Killing Delane; or, Mimickry and the Anecdota obscuraLeslie Ritchie2 Violent Afterlives: The Anecdote in Eighteenth-Century Theater BiographiesMáire Macneill3 Samuel Foote, Esq.: Caricature, Class, and the Comic Theatrical AnecdoteHeather LaddPART IIANECDOTAL BODIES4 Pregnancy and the Late Stuart Stage, 1661–1702Chelsea Phillips5 “A High Treat to the Anecdote Hunters!”: The Body of Mrs. Sophia BaddeleyNevena Martinocvić6 A Bellyful of Nightingales: Seven Stories of Seven SingersMichael BurdenPART IIIACTING CAREERS AND THE PROFESSIONAL ANECDOTE7 Anecdote and the Regional Actress: A History of the Farren Family in Several AnecdotesFiona Ritchie8 Neither Confirmed nor Refuted: The Anecdotal Elizabeth BarrySeth WilsonPART IVANECDOTES’ AFTERLIVES: SCHOLARLY ENCOUNTERS9 Anecdotal Origin Stories: Mary Ann Yates’s Trip to Drury LaneElaine Mcgirr10 The Vanishing Subject in “Anecdotal” Abridgments of Theatrical BiographiesAmanda Weldy Boyd11 Queering Roxane from Davenant to RichardsonDanielle BobkerCoda: Whither Theatrical Anecdote?Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchieBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisThe essays in English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1660-1800 explore the theatrical anecdote’s role in the construction of stage fame in England’s emergent celebrity culture during the long eighteenth century, as well as the challenges of employing such anecdotes in theatre scholarship today. This collection showcases scholarship that complicates the theatrical anecdote and shows its many sides and applications beyond the expected comic punch. Discussing anecdotal narratives about theatre people as producing, maintaining, and sometimes toppling individual fame, this book crucially investigates a key mechanism of celebrity in the long eighteenth century that reaches into the nineteenth century and beyond. The anecdote erases boundaries between public and private and fictionalizing the individual in ways deeply familiar to twenty-first century celebrity culture.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Miniature Stages of Celebrity: English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1600–1800Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchiePART IACTING BADLY: MISBEHAVING PERFORMERS1 Killing Delane; or, Mimickry and the Anecdota obscuraLeslie Ritchie2 Violent Afterlives: The Anecdote in Eighteenth-Century Theater BiographiesMáire Macneill3 Samuel Foote, Esq.: Caricature, Class, and the Comic Theatrical AnecdoteHeather LaddPART IIANECDOTAL BODIES4 Pregnancy and the Late Stuart Stage, 1661–1702Chelsea Phillips5 “A High Treat to the Anecdote Hunters!”: The Body of Mrs. Sophia BaddeleyNevena Martinocvić6 A Bellyful of Nightingales: Seven Stories of Seven SingersMichael BurdenPART IIIACTING CAREERS AND THE PROFESSIONAL ANECDOTE7 Anecdote and the Regional Actress: A History of the Farren Family in Several AnecdotesFiona Ritchie8 Neither Confirmed nor Refuted: The Anecdotal Elizabeth BarrySeth WilsonPART IVANECDOTES’ AFTERLIVES: SCHOLARLY ENCOUNTERS9 Anecdotal Origin Stories: Mary Ann Yates’s Trip to Drury LaneElaine Mcgirr10 The Vanishing Subject in “Anecdotal” Abridgments of Theatrical BiographiesAmanda Weldy Boyd11 Queering Roxane from Davenant to RichardsonDanielle BobkerCoda: Whither Theatrical Anecdote?Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchieBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisGoethe is the most famous German author, and the poetic drama Faust, Part I (1808) is his best-known work, one that stands in the company of other leading canonical works of European literature such as Dante’s Inferno and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This is the first new translation into English since David Constantine’s 2005 version. Why another translation when there are several currently in print? To invoke Goethe’s own authority when speaking of his favorite author, Shakespeare, Goethe asserts that so much has already been said about the poet-dramatist “that it would seem there’s nothing left to say,” but adds, “yet it is the peculiar attribute of the spirit that it constantly motivates the spirit.” Goethe’s great dramatic poem continues to speak to us in new ways as we and our world continually change, and thus a new or updated translation is always necessary to bring to light Faust’s almost inexhaustible, mysterious, and enchanting poetic and cultural power. Eugene Stelzig’s new translation renders the text of the play in clear and crisp English for a contemporary undergraduate audience while at the same time maintaining its leading poetic features, including the use of rhyme. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.Trade ReviewStelzig's translation is an excellent and unusually accessible introduction to Goethe's text for college students. Its dramatic prose with occasional rhyme catches the basic tone of Goethe's play and loosely follows the lineation of the original. Accurate and clear enough to stand on its own with minimal annotation, lively enough to keep students reading and to read aloud in class, it is a superb choice for world literature courses or for departmental courses in translation. -- Jane K. Brown * University of Washington *This exciting new translation of Goethe’s Faust brings the text to life for a contemporary audience. Stelzig’s 'flexible' approach to poetic translation is eminently successful: the complexity of the text is allowed to emerge without completely sacrificing its poetry. I highly recommend it--especially for the classroom and first-time English readers of Faust. -- Astrida Tantillo * University of Illinois at Chicago *"The renewing potential of translation—indeed, of any act of cultural transmission—lies at the heart of so many of Goethe’s works, and Stelzig has succeeded in crafting a vibrant English version of this masterpiece." * Eighteenth-Century Studies *"This translation successfully captures the power of the text and maintains, as best as possible, fidelity to the original, even as the author has made many choices to produce a readable and quite modern Faust." * The Wordsworth Circle *"Stelzig’s translation succeeds in establishing this desired rapport between Goethe’s German text and English-speaking readers of the twenty-first century. By using contemporary but not overly colloquial language, by conveying some of the range of Goethe’s explicit and implicit meaning, and by creating a text with sonorous, poetic qualities, Stelzig has produced a translation that will make Goethe’s work accessible to a range of readers. It would certainly be appropriate for undergraduate literature courses; the scholarly apparatus (introduction and notes) is informative without being pedantic. The translation would, I think, also lend itself to use in theatrical performances." * European Romantic Review *"Stelzig has provided a solid, readable text of Faust I that should remain enjoyable and useful for a long while." * Goethe Yearbook *Table of ContentsTranslator’s Note IntroductionFAUST, PART I Further Reading Contemporary English Translations of Faust, Part I Acknowledgements Authorial Note

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Book SynopsisLothario’s Corpse unearths a performance history, on and off the stage, of Restoration libertine drama in Britain’s eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While standard theater histories emphasize libertine drama’s gradual disappearance from the nation’s acting repertory following the dispersal of Stuart rule in 1688, Daniel Gustafson traces its persistent appeal for writers and performers wrestling with the powers of the emergent liberal subject and the tensions of that subject with sovereign absolutism. With its radical, absolutist characters and its scenarios of aristocratic license, Restoration libertine drama became a critical force with which to engage in debates about the liberty-loving British subject’s relation to key forms of liberal power and about the troubling allure of lawless sovereign power that lingers at the heart of the liberal imagination. Weaving together readings of a set of literary texts, theater anecdotes, political writings, and performances, Gustafson illustrates how the corpse of the Restoration stage libertine is revived in the period’s debates about liberty, sovereign desire, and the subject’s relation to modern forms of social control. Ultimately, Lothario’s Corpse suggests the “long-running” nature of Restoration theatrical culture, its revived and revised performances vital to what makes post-1688 Britain modern. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Lothario's Corpse is an innovative contribution to the study of Restoration and 18th-century drama. Gustafson has read admirably widely, taking as a remit not only dramatic texts but pamphlets, diaries, and press accounts that consider the figure of the rake or libertine as theatrical character type, political phenomenon, or both. In these provocative pages the irrepressible, unruly return of the rake—onstage and as performed in nontheatrical life—is a phenomenon beyond theater history that makes visible the unsettled dynamics of sovereignty and subjectivity in the long 18th century." -- Brett D. Wilson * author of A Race of Female Patriots: Women and Public Spirit on the British Stage, 1688-1745 *"Lothario's Corpse exemplifies the very best of recent work on Restoration and eighteenth-century performance history. Gustafson's ambitious book not only rereads the figure of the libertine but also overturns a standard narrative in theater history, namely that the rise of bourgeois, sentimental comedy in the eighteenth century made earlier libertine fare unacceptable, on stage and off. The writing is lively and pleasing, and the scholarship commendable: Gustafson has clearly done his homework. Readers from a range of disciplines, from theatre studies to eighteenth-century literature, will benefit enormously from his erudition." -- Deborah C. Payne * editor of The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre *"Gustafson’s [give readers] engagement with the liveness of the Restoration." * Restoration Journal *"Lothario’s Corpse directs the reader’s attention to the power of performance and to the expansiveness and breadth of history and its multiplicity—histories—when viewed through performance’s lenses. [Gustafson's] readings and case studies of the Restoration libertine’s many afterlives lift the curtain on the long-running repertoire of performances and reenactments that have shaped cultural fantasies about the British subject since the early eighteenth century. " * Eighteenth-Century Studies *Table of Contents Introduction: The Long-Running Restoration 1 Corpsing Lothario 2 Debating Dorimant 3 Stuarts without End 4 Libertines and Liberalism Conclusion Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLothario’s Corpse unearths a performance history, on and off the stage, of Restoration libertine drama in Britain’s eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While standard theater histories emphasize libertine drama’s gradual disappearance from the nation’s acting repertory following the dispersal of Stuart rule in 1688, Daniel Gustafson traces its persistent appeal for writers and performers wrestling with the powers of the emergent liberal subject and the tensions of that subject with sovereign absolutism. With its radical, absolutist characters and its scenarios of aristocratic license, Restoration libertine drama became a critical force with which to engage in debates about the liberty-loving British subject’s relation to key forms of liberal power and about the troubling allure of lawless sovereign power that lingers at the heart of the liberal imagination. Weaving together readings of a set of literary texts, theater anecdotes, political writings, and performances, Gustafson illustrates how the corpse of the Restoration stage libertine is revived in the period’s debates about liberty, sovereign desire, and the subject’s relation to modern forms of social control. Ultimately, Lothario’s Corpse suggests the “long-running” nature of Restoration theatrical culture, its revived and revised performances vital to what makes post-1688 Britain modern. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Lothario's Corpse is an innovative contribution to the study of Restoration and 18th-century drama. Gustafson has read admirably widely, taking as a remit not only dramatic texts but pamphlets, diaries, and press accounts that consider the figure of the rake or libertine as theatrical character type, political phenomenon, or both. In these provocative pages the irrepressible, unruly return of the rake—onstage and as performed in nontheatrical life—is a phenomenon beyond theater history that makes visible the unsettled dynamics of sovereignty and subjectivity in the long 18th century." -- Brett D. Wilson * author of A Race of Female Patriots: Women and Public Spirit on the British Stage, 1688-1745 *"Lothario's Corpse exemplifies the very best of recent work on Restoration and eighteenth-century performance history. Gustafson's ambitious book not only rereads the figure of the libertine but also overturns a standard narrative in theater history, namely that the rise of bourgeois, sentimental comedy in the eighteenth century made earlier libertine fare unacceptable, on stage and off. The writing is lively and pleasing, and the scholarship commendable: Gustafson has clearly done his homework. Readers from a range of disciplines, from theatre studies to eighteenth-century literature, will benefit enormously from his erudition." -- Deborah C. Payne * editor of The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre *"Gustafson’s [give readers] engagement with the liveness of the Restoration." * Restoration Journal *"Lothario’s Corpse directs the reader’s attention to the power of performance and to the expansiveness and breadth of history and its multiplicity—histories—when viewed through performance’s lenses. [Gustafson's] readings and case studies of the Restoration libertine’s many afterlives lift the curtain on the long-running repertoire of performances and reenactments that have shaped cultural fantasies about the British subject since the early eighteenth century. " * Eighteenth-Century Studies *Table of Contents Introduction: The Long-Running Restoration 1 Corpsing Lothario 2 Debating Dorimant 3 Stuarts without End 4 Libertines and Liberalism Conclusion Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisCollecting diverse critical perspectives on the topic of play—from dolls, bilboquets, and lotteries, to writing itself—this volume offers new insights into how play was used to represent and reimagine the world in eighteenth-century France. In documenting various modes of play, contributors theorize its relation to law, religion, politics, and economics. Equally important was the role of “play” in plays, and the function of theatrical performance in mirroring, and often contesting, our place in the universe. These essays remind us that the spirit of play was very much alive during the “Age of Reason,” providing ways for its practitioners to consider more “serious” themes such as free will and determinism, illusions and equivocations, or chance and inequality. Standing at the intersection of multiple intellectual avenues, this is the first comprehensive study in English devoted to the different guises of play in Enlightenment France, certain to interest curious readers across disciplinary backgrounds.Trade Review"Bringing together game studies and 18th-century French studies, Modes of Play in Eighteenth-Century France is a most welcome contribution to the study of French literature, history, and culture. The collection introduces us to understudied works and provides fresh approaches to canonical texts, broadening our understanding of the interaction between play, culture, and politics." -- Tracy Rutler * co-creator of Legacies of the Enlightenment *"An enjoyable and stimulating collection, this volume will be of much interest to students and scholars alike. It will undoubtedly spur new scholarly work on the history of play which, as the editors and contributors so convincingly show, is no trivial matter." -- Gemma Tidman * H-France Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction Fayçal Falaky and Reginald McGinnis 1 Playing with Dolls in Old Regime Fairy Tales Rori Bloom 2 The Morality of Bilboquet, or the Equivocations of Language Jean-Alexandre Perras 3 Fiction as Play: Rhetorical Subversion in Alain-René Lesage’s Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane Zeina Hakim 4 Playthings of Fortune: Lots, Games of Chance, and Inequality in l’Abbé Prévost Masano Yamashita 5 Boundless Play and Infinite Pleasure in the Chevalier de Béthune’s Relation du monde de Mercure Erika Mandarino 6 The Politics of Orientalist Fantasy in French Opera Katharine Hargrave 7 Playing at Theater: Modes of Play in Théâtre de Société Maria Teodora Comsa 8 Between Play and Ritual: Profane Masquerade in the French Revolution Annelle Curulla 9 The Return of Play, or the End of Revolutionary Theater Yann Robert 10 Video Games as Cultural History: Procedural Narrative and the Eighteenth-Century Fair Theater Jeffrey M. Leichman Acknowledgments Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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