Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books
The University of Chicago Press This Wide and Universal Theater Shakespeare in
Book SynopsisExplores how Shakespeare's plays were produced both in his own time and in succeeding centuries. This book explains how the Elizabethan playhouse conveyed a sense of place using minimal scenery, from the Forest of Arden in As You Like It to the tavern in Henry IV, Part I.Trade Review"An eminent Shakespeare scholar and author, Bevington offers a concise, lucid, and unique overview of the history of Shakespeare in various modes of performance, from stage to film to television." - Choice "Bevington makes interesting, nuanced and original points about staging and interpretation that reveal the dynamism and complexity of Shakespeare's canon." - Financial Times "Even veteran Shakespeareans will profit from the varied reminders of how important performance and staging have always been to the interpretation of the plays." - Renaissance Quarterly"
£21.85
The University of Chicago Press CitizenSaints
Book SynopsisWho is a citizen? What is a person? Who is my neighbor? Turning to the potent idea of political theology to recover the strange mix of political and religious thinking during the Renaissance, the author unveils the figure of the citizensaint, who represents at once divine messenger and civil servant, both norm and exception.Trade Review"Lupton's book wrestles seriously and intelligently with complex issues and brings a sophisticated theoretical perspective to bear on a crucial fault line in Western culture." (Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900) "Citizen-Saints is significant, not only as a contribution to Shakespearean studies, but also as a reflection upon the nature of citizenship and the relation between religion and politics. in our time." (Renaissance Quarterly)"
£23.75
The University of Chicago Press Poor Tom
Book SynopsisOne of the most memorable Shakespearean characters is Edgar in King Lear. The author asks us to rethink all those received ideas - and thus to experience King Lear as never before. He argues that Edgar is Shakespeare's most radical experiment in characterization - and also his most exhaustive model of both human and theatrical possibility.Trade Review"Reading Poor Tom has the effect of watching a familiar landscape expand and morph in myriad, telling ways, opening up ever deeper reserves of strangeness in the much-discussed and much-estranged play of King Lear. This is a very rare sort of work." (Kenneth Gross, author of Shylock Is Shakespeare and Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life)"
£29.45
The University of Chicago Press Shakespearean Pragmatism
Book SynopsisJust as Shakespeare's theatre was an economic gamble, so the plays themselves submit to an audience's judgement. This book suggests such a theatrical economy provides a model for the way in which truth is determined in the world at large - a model like that of contemporary pragmatism.
£42.75
The University of Chicago Press How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today
Book SynopsisFrom the stages of Broadway and London to university campuses, Paris, and the bourgeoning theaters of Africa, Greek tragedy remains constantly in production. This title explains how Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles conceived their works in performance. It summarizes what we know about how their tragedies were actually staged.Trade Review"Simon Goldhill's new book is enthralling. A 'can't put down' and a 'forever reread.' His detailed analyses of so many past productions are rare and exciting. His unfolding of the Greek texts and the many different translations is both instructive and exhilarating. He reveals the contradictions within the specific structures of the characters, and also of the chorus, in a way that every actor will be grateful for. I never saw any of the productions he describes, explains, and analyzes, but I have an unforgettable secondhand memory of them, thanks to his own knowledge and keen joy in his subject." - Vanessa Redgrave"
£16.00
University of Chicago Press The Complete Greek Tragedies Volume 3 Euripides
Book SynopsisThe Grene and Lattimore edition of the Greek tragedies has been among the most widely acclaimed and successful publications of the University of Chicago Press. On the occasion of the Centennial of the University of Chicago and its Press, we take pleasure in reissuing this complete work in a handsome four-volume slipcased edition as well as in redesigned versions of the familiar paperbacks. For the Centennial Edition two of the original translations have been replaced. In the original publication David Grene translated only one of the three Theban plays, Oedipus the King. Now he has added his own translations of the remaining two, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, thus bringing a new unity of tone and style to this group. Grene has also revised his earlier translation of Prometheus Bound and rendered some of the former prose sections in verse. These new translations replace the originals included in the paperback volumes Sophocles I (which contains all three Theban plays), Aeschylus II, Greek Tragedies, Volume I, and Greek Tragedies, Volume III, all of which are now being published in second editions. All other volumes contain the translations of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides for the most part from the original versions first published in the 1940s and 1950s. These translations have been the choice of generations of teachers and students, selling in the past forty years over three million copies.
£82.42
The University of Chicago Press Shylock Is Shakespeare
Book SynopsisShylock, the Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice who famously demands a pound of flesh as security for a loan to his antisemitic tormentors, is one of Shakespeare's most complex and idiosyncratic characters. With his unsettling eloquence andhis varying voices of protest, play, rage, and refusal, Shylock remains a source of perennial fascination. What explains the strange and enduring force of this character, so unlike that of any other in Shakespeare's plays? Kenneth Gross posits thatthe figure of Shylock is so powerful because he is the voice of Shakespeare himself. Marvelously speculative and articulate, Gross's book argues that Shylock is a breakthrough for Shakespeare the playwright, an early realization of the Bard's power to create dramatic voices that speak for hidden, unconscious, even inhuman impulsescharacters larger than the plays that contain them and ready to escape the author's control. Shylock is also a mask for Shakespeare's own need, rage, vulnerability, and g
£20.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeares Noise
Book SynopsisThis work explores Shakespeare's deep fascination with dangerous and disorderly forms of speaking - especially rumour, slander, insult, vituperation and curse - and through them offers a vision of the work of words in his plays.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Great William Writers Reading Shakespeare
Book SynopsisThe Great William is the first book to explore how seven renowned writersSamuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Virginia Woolf, Charles Olson, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, and Ted Hugheswrestled with Shakespeare in the very moments when they were reading his work. What emerges is a constellation of remarkable intellectual and emotional encounters. Theodore Leinwand builds impressively detailed accounts of these writers' experiences through their marginalia, lectures, letters, journals, and reading notes. We learn why Woolf associated reading Shakespeare with her brother Thoby, and what Ginsberg meant when referring to the mouth feel of Shakespeare's verse. From Hughes's attempts to find a skeleton key to all of Shakespeare's plays to Berryman's tormented efforts to edit King Lear, Leinwand reveals the palpable energy and conviction with which these seven writers engaged with Shakespeare, their moments of utter self-confidence and profound vexation. In uncovering these intense public
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeare and the Law
Book Synopsis
£20.00
The University of Chicago Press Forms of Attention
Book SynopsisIncludes essay on Botticelli that traces the artist's sudden popularity in the nineteenth century for reasons that have more to do with poetry than painting.Trade Review"[Kermode] was drawn to the entanglements of the text and its rational mysteries rather than some scaffold of theory.... He protected the reader's freedom to be interested in whatever was interesting. That meant writing a prose that was never wholly academic and over the years became more and more open to the intersection of literature and the lives we're actually living." (New York Times) "Kermode's volume has the virtue of a lecturer's accessible style designed for a listening audience. It is also self-consciously spare of 'naked criticism.' There is, nonetheless, an abundance of learned commentary, steady substance, and unveiled critical excellence. Which is to say the volume is a useful and engaging reflection of its learned author." (London Review of Books)"
£16.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeare Only
Book SynopsisIntends to reconstruct Shakespeare's authorial identity as Shakespeare and his contemporaries actually understood it. This title argues that Shakespeare tried to adapt his own singular talent and ambition to the collaborative enterprise of drama by imagining himself as uniquely embodying the diverse, fractious energies of the popular theater.Trade Review"Overturns the new historicist position that authorial production by a singular individual is a mid-18th-century notion.... Essential." (Choice)"
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeare Only
Book SynopsisIntends to reconstruct Shakespeare's authorial identity as Shakespeare and his contemporaries actually understood it. This title argues that Shakespeare tried to adapt his own singular talent and ambition to the collaborative enterprise of drama by imagining himself as uniquely embodying the diverse, fractious energies of the popular theater.Trade Review"Overturns the new historicist position that authorial production by a singular individual is a mid-18th-century notion.... Essential." (Choice)"
£23.75
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeares Roman Trilogy
Book Synopsis
£24.70
The University of Chicago Press The Eloquent Shakespeare A Pronouncing
Book SynopsisAn actor's deepest desire is to be understood. But when asked to pronounce such words as 'chanson,' 'phantasime,' or 'quaestor,' many otherwise unflappable actors can be rendered speechless. This title aims to untie those tongues and help those who speak Shakespeare's language with ease.
£76.00
University of Chicago Press Inwardness Theatre in the English Renaissance
Book SynopsisThis text explores the perceived discrepancy between outward appearance and inward disposition which, it argues, influenced the work of many English Renaissance dramatists and poets. The author examines various connections between religious, legal, sexual and theatrical ideas of inward truth.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1: Introduction: Inwardness and Spectatorship 2: Machiavels and Family Men 3: Heretical Conscience and Theatrical Rhetoric: The Case of Christopher Marlowe 4: Proof and Consequences: Othello and the Crime of Intention 5: Prosecution and Sexual Secrecy: Jonson and Shakespeare 6: A Womb of His Own: Male Renaissance Poets in the Female Body 7: Conclusion Index
£80.00
University of Chicago Press Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance
Book SynopsisThis text explores the perceived discrepancy between outward appearance and inward disposition which, it argues, influenced the work of many English Renaissance dramatists and poets. The author examines various connections between religious, legal, sexual and theatrical ideas of inward truth.
£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Great William Writers Reading Shakespeare
Book SynopsisThe Great William is the first book to explore how seven renowned writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Virginia Woolf, Charles Olson, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, and Ted Hughes wrestled with Shakespeare in the very moments when they were reading his work. What emerges is a constellation of remarkable intellectual and emotional encounters.Theodore Leinwand builds impressively detailed accounts of these writers' experiences through their marginalia, lectures, letters, journals, and reading notes. We learn why Woolf associated reading Shakespeare with her brother Thoby, and what Ginsberg meant when referring to the mouth feel of Shakespeare's verse. From Hughes's attempts to find a skeleton key to all of Shakespeare's plays to Berryman's tormented efforts to edit King Lear, Leinwand reveals the palpable energy and conviction with which these seven writers engaged with Shakespeare, their moments of utter self-confidence and profound vexation. In uncovering these intense public and private reactions, The Great William connects major writers' hitherto unremarked scenes of reading Shakespeare with our own.
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press Class War What Americans Really Think about
Book SynopsisThis work refigures the social and cultural context within which Elizabethan drama was created. It concentrates upon the formal means by which Shakespeare's Elizabethan plays called into question the absolutist assertions of the Elizabethan state.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments To The Reader Prologue Texts and Histories Pt. 1: Drama, Theatre, Society, and the State: Form and Pressure I: The Reformation of Playing II: A Theatre of Changes III: Anatomies of Playing IV: The Theatre, the City, and the Crown V: From the Stage to the State VI: The Power of Personation VII: The Cross-Purposes of Playing Pt. 2: The Shaping Fantasies of A Midsummer Night's Dream VIII: The Discord of This Concord IX: Stories of the Night X: The Imperial Votaress XI: Bottom's Dream Epilogue: A Kingdom of Shadows Index
£21.85
The University of Chicago Press Shakespearean Territories
Book SynopsisA rising star in geography shows how Shakespeare’s plays can be understood through the concept of territory, which emerged in its modern form during Shakespeare’s lifeTrade Review"Shakespearean Territories offers illuminating analyses of Shakespeare's works that are immersed in relevant scholarship on the colonial, geophysical, and corporeal aspects of territory. This is a fascinating textual analysis that builds upon the concept of territory with Elden's characteristic nuance and depth."--Garrett Sullivan, Penn State University "A work of meticulous scholarship, Shakespearean Territories teases out and explains a wide range of geographical themes present in Shakespeare's plays with finesse and profound interpretation. Beyond the specific insights he offers on territory and geography as refracted through Shakespeare's plays, Elden displays the substantial value of bridging literary and historical-geographical analysis."--Alexander Murphy, University of Oregon "Shakespearean Territories is a truly groundbreaking volume that enriches our reading of Shakespeare at the same time as it illuminates our understanding of the nature and history of territory. An insightful and engrossing work, Shakespearean Territories demonstrates Elden's unquestionable position as the most significant thinker of territory and the geographic working today--and in relation to the literary and dramatic no less than the political."--Jeff Malpas, University of Tasmania
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespearean Territories
Book SynopsisA rising star in geography shows how Shakespeare’s plays can be understood through the concept of territory, which emerged in its modern form during Shakespeare’s life.Trade Review"Shakespearean Territories offers illuminating analyses of Shakespeare's works that are immersed in relevant scholarship on the colonial, geophysical, and corporeal aspects of territory. This is a fascinating textual analysis that builds upon the concept of territory with Elden's characteristic nuance and depth."--Garrett Sullivan, Penn State University "A work of meticulous scholarship, Shakespearean Territories teases out and explains a wide range of geographical themes present in Shakespeare's plays with finesse and profound interpretation. Beyond the specific insights he offers on territory and geography as refracted through Shakespeare's plays, Elden displays the substantial value of bridging literary and historical-geographical analysis."--Alexander Murphy, University of Oregon "Shakespearean Territories is a truly groundbreaking volume that enriches our reading of Shakespeare at the same time as it illuminates our understanding of the nature and history of territory. An insightful and engrossing work, Shakespearean Territories demonstrates Elden's unquestionable position as the most significant thinker of territory and the geographic working today--and in relation to the literary and dramatic no less than the political."--Jeff Malpas, University of Tasmania
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press The Soul of Tragedy
Book SynopsisBrings together scholars to offer perspectives on the Greek tragedy. The collection pays homage to this genre by offering an exploration into the oldest form of dramatic expression. This book is a celebration and a model of collaboration that will be useful reading for scholars in classics, literature, and drama.
£26.60
The University of Chicago Press The Soul of Tragedy Essays on Athenian Drama
Book SynopsisBrings together scholars to offer perspectives on the Greek tragedy. The collection pays homage to this genre by offering an exploration into the oldest form of dramatic expression. This book is a celebration and a model of collaboration that will be useful reading for scholars in classics, literature, and drama.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the
Book SynopsisAmid the crowded streets of Chester, guild players portraying biblical characters performed on colorful mobile stages hoping to draw the attention of fellow townspeople. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, these Chester plays employed flamboyant live performance to adapt biblical narratives. But the original format of these fascinating performances remains cloudy, as surviving records of these plays are sparse, and the manuscripts were only written down a generation after they stopped. Revealing a vibrant set of social practices encoded in the Chester plays, Matthew Sergi provides a new methodology for reading them and a transformative look at medieval English drama. Carefully combing through the plays, Sergi seeks out cues in the dialogues that reveal information about the original staging, design, and acting. These practical cues, as he calls them, have gone largely unnoticed by drama scholars, who have focused on the ideology and historical contexts of these plays, rather tTrade Review“It’s not often that a scholarly book has the potential to transform and reorient the corner of the field that it addresses. Sergi’s Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is one of those books. It will be recognized for its major interventions in early drama studies.” -- Theresa M Coletti, author of Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England“Sergi’s deeply erudite but also ebullient book on the Chester plays reminds us why we call such things ‘plays’ in the first place. Combining the expertise of a theater practitioner, a scholar, a performance theorist, a textual detective, and a close reader par excellence, Sergi deftly uncovers how much meaning and merriment is to be found in the ‘practical cues’ for action and spectacle in the Chester play texts and their archival contexts. Both playful and profound, this book overturns so much conventional wisdom that it should be required reading for anyone interested in premodern performance or who needs a convincing case for why they should be.” -- Christina M. Fitzgerald, editor of The York Corpus Christi Play: Selected Pageants"In Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays, Matthew Sergi provides a compelling account of what the Chester plays must have been in performance: a multivocal, hyperlocal, temporally layered, unrestrained expression of Cestrian life in all its vibrant disorder. In doing so, he models a transformative approach for engaging with early drama through a process of deductive reconstruction, built on the understanding that much more happens in the production of a play than what we find recorded in extant manuscripts." * Journal of British Studies *"Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is a remarkably accomplished first book. Its prose is clear and vigorous; it is deeply knowledgeable about its material and persuasive in its reconstructions. It will be of interest to anyone who works on medieval drama, and indeed to anyone concerned with the history of theatrical possibility." * Speculum *
£87.40
The University of Chicago Press Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the
Book SynopsisTrade Review“It’s not often that a scholarly book has the potential to transform and reorient the corner of the field that it addresses. Sergi’s Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is one of those books. It will be recognized for its major interventions in early drama studies.” -- Theresa M Coletti, author of Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England“Sergi’s deeply erudite but also ebullient book on the Chester plays reminds us why we call such things ‘plays’ in the first place. Combining the expertise of a theater practitioner, a scholar, a performance theorist, a textual detective, and a close reader par excellence, Sergi deftly uncovers how much meaning and merriment is to be found in the ‘practical cues’ for action and spectacle in the Chester play texts and their archival contexts. Both playful and profound, this book overturns so much conventional wisdom that it should be required reading for anyone interested in premodern performance or who needs a convincing case for why they should be.” -- Christina M. Fitzgerald, editor of The York Corpus Christi Play: Selected Pageants"In Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays, Matthew Sergi provides a compelling account of what the Chester plays must have been in performance: a multivocal, hyperlocal, temporally layered, unrestrained expression of Cestrian life in all its vibrant disorder. In doing so, he models a transformative approach for engaging with early drama through a process of deductive reconstruction, built on the understanding that much more happens in the production of a play than what we find recorded in extant manuscripts." * Journal of British Studies *"Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is a remarkably accomplished first book. Its prose is clear and vigorous; it is deeply knowledgeable about its material and persuasive in its reconstructions. It will be of interest to anyone who works on medieval drama, and indeed to anyone concerned with the history of theatrical possibility." * Speculum *
£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Sovereign Amity Figures of Friendship in
Book SynopsisRenaissance formulations of friendship typically cast the friend as another self and idealized a pair of friends as one soul in two bodies. This work puts the stress on the likeness of friends into context and offers a historical account of its place in English culture and politics.
£26.60
The University of Chicago Press Lovers Clowns Fairies An Essay on Comedies
Book SynopsisThrough dreams and shadows and strangeness, through blinding charms and eye-opening counter-charms, through moments of mortification and laughterthus Stuart M. Tave traces the journey of the lovers, clowns, and fairies who populate comedies from A Midsummer Night's Dream to Waiting for Godot. Tave avoids the pitfalls of theory, taking instead a close look at particular works to give us a sense of the relations between certain dramas and novels that are called comedies. The result is a wonderfully readable book that renews our delight in the enchanting possibilities of literature. A Midsummer Night's Dream, in its perfection, is Tave's point of departure. Its characters fall neatly into the three groups of Tave's title and fulfill to perfection their functions of desire, foolishness, and power. From the magical concord of Shakespeare's resolution, Tave moves to works whose character face ever greater difficulties in reaching a happy conclusion. From Jonson and Austen to Chekhov and Beck
£81.00
The University of Chicago Press Lovers Clowns Fairies Paper An Essay on Comedies
Book SynopsisThrough dreams and shadows and strangeness, through blinding charms and eye-opening counter-charms, through moments of mortification and laughterthus Stuart M. Tave traces the journey of the lovers, clowns, and fairies who populate comedies from A Midsummer Night's Dream to Waiting for Godot. Tave avoids the pitfalls of theory, taking instead a close look at particular works to give us a sense of the relations between certain dramas and novels that are called comedies. The result is a wonderfully readable book that renews our delight in the enchanting possibilities of literature. A Midsummer Night's Dream, in its perfection, is Tave's point of departure. Its characters fall neatly into the three groups of Tave's title and fulfill to perfection their functions of desire, foolishness, and power. From the magical concord of Shakespeare's resolution, Tave moves to works whose character face ever greater difficulties in reaching a happy conclusion. From Jonson and Austen to Chekhov and Beck
£36.03
The University of Chicago Press Common Understandings Poetic Confusion Playhouses
Book SynopsisTrade Review"West’s learned, innovative study offers a cultural anthropology of the Elizabethan stage—of the language in play texts and contemporaneous discussions of theater. West does not provide extended readings of individual plays, though he comments briefly on many. Rather, he focuses on the intertwining of confusions and conclusions—a favorite rhyme of the playwrights—in a theater where 'performances' embodied 'provocations toward meaning rather than representations of a meaning.' . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended." * Choice *"West shows that playing, players, and playgoers were likened to a great many things, and it is in detailing these surprising affinities that he constructs a richly revealing account of the commercial theater as a social and embodied practice through the last quarter of the sixteenth century . . . Ingenious in its methodology and invaluable in its contribution, Common Understandings is a provocation to scholars of the early modern English theater and beyond: the book invites us not only to reconsider what counts as evidence of playing, but to recast our familiar stories about it in new light." * Modern Philology *“This exhilarating book reveals, in vivid detail, what early modern theater was like as an experience. By investigating not playing itself, but metaphors about it, West shows how theater was viewed at the time—as a place of fear or wonder, described in terms of chaos, fighting, being in a siege, eating, dancing. Common Understandings, Poetic Confusion enables us to understand, as never before, the edginess, thrill, and danger of plays and performance in the time of Shakespeare.” -- Tiffany Stern, author of Documents of Performance in Early Modern England“A dazzling account of how early modern playgoers experienced theater in the decades between 1575 and 1610, Common Understandings, Poetic Confusion links theatrical knowing and feeling to shared corporeal events and bodily sensations. Theoretically rich and brimming with telling examples, West’s book shows how the habitus of early modern playgoing was created by collective acts as simple as eating, drinking, and remembering within the bounded space of the theater.” -- Jean E. Howard, Columbia UniversityTable of ContentsA Note on Textual and Other Performances Introduction There Is Not Agreement of Opinion All the World’s a Stage Every Like Is Not the Same 1: Playing Merely Players What Learn You By That? But Mark This Show 2: Occupatio An Excellent Good Word Before It Was Ill Sorted Looking Well to Borders So Curious in New Fangles 3: Understanders Deep in Understanding Plain and Easy to Be Understanden All Readers to Be Understanders Feelingly Perceive 4: Confusion Nothing but Confusion and Errors Babylonical Confusion What More Fitter Occasion? Diverse Men of Diverse Minds Commons Knowledge Interlude. Playing, Thinking 5: Supposes Valedictions to Sense Brokers of Another’s Wit A Stalking-Stamping Player Authors of All the Content 6: Eating Between Meals Some Hungry Scenes Playing with Food 7: Non Plus I’ll Have a Challenge, Too Fencers, Bearwards, Common Players Non Plus Trying Conclusions Acknowledgments Notes Index
£63.00
The University of Chicago Press Unbridled Studying Religion in Performance
Book SynopsisA study of religion through the lens of Peter Shaffer's play Equus. In Unbridled, William Robert uses Equus, Peter Shaffer's enigmatic play about a boy passionately devoted to horses, to think differently about religion. For several years, Robert has used Equus to introduce students to the study of religion, provoking them to conceive of religion in unfamiliar, even uncomfortable ways. In Unbridled, he is inviting readers to do the same. A play like Equus tangles together text, performance, practice, embodiment, and reception. Studying a play involves us in playing different roles, as ourselves and others, and those roles, as well as the imaginative work they require, are critical to the study of religion. By approaching Equus with the reader, turning the play around and upside-down, Unbridled transforms standard approaches to the study of religion, engaging with themes including ritual, sacrifice, worship, power, desire, violence, and sexuality, as well as thinkers including Judith Butler, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jonathan Z. Smith. As Unbridled shows, the way themes and theories play out in Equus challenges us to reimagine the study of religion through open questions, contrasting perspectives, and alternative modes of interpretation and appreciation. Trade Review"Unbridled treats Equus as a prism through which to reimagine the study of religion, asking urgent questions and inviting us to critically rethink methods as openings. With an inviting mix of confidence and humility, Robert reinvigorates pedagogical discussions, delivering insights about the difference between reverence and devotion, the meaning of critique, and the nature of literature. Every page provokes thoughts about how we teach and think about religion, and how we might do it otherwise.” -- Constance M. Furey, coauthor of Devotion: Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature, and Political Imagination“Unbridled is a compelling, engaging, sophisticated provocation for how the study of religion might be done differently. Keeping his eyes fixed on Equus, Robert touches on themes central to the study of religion—performance, ritual, embodiment, sacrifice, image, worship, sexuality, violence—while also defamiliarizing the operation of these terms by following what Equus prompts us to think about them.” -- Kent Brintnall, author of Ecce Homo: The Male-Body-in-Pain as Redemptive FigureTable of ContentsPlaybill Program Notes Cast Prologue Act 1 1.1 Mise-en-scène 1.2 Imagination 1.3 Literature 1.4 Performance 1.5 Case 1.6 Terms 1.7 Problems 1.8 Question Act 2 2.1 Staging 2.2 Performance-Text 2.3 Inter- 2.4 Mask 2.5 Play 2.6 Acting 2.7 Make-Believe 2.8 Play-in-Play Act 3 3.1 Casting 3.2 Relations 3.3 Image 3.4 Human-Horse-Divinity 3.5 Devotion 3.6 Sexuality 3.7 Queer 3.8 Nude Act 4 4.1 Directing 4.2 Passion 4.3 Pain 4.4 Normal 4.5 Tragedy 4.6 Sacrifice 4.7 Ending 4.8 Value Epilogue Encore Credits Notes References Index
£72.20
The University of Chicago Press Unbridled
Book SynopsisA study of religion through the lens of Peter Shaffer's play Equus. In Unbridled, William Robert uses Equus, Peter Shaffer's enigmatic play about a boy passionately devoted to horses, to think differently about religion. For several years, Robert has used Equus to introduce students to the study of religion, provoking them to conceive of religion in unfamiliar, even uncomfortable ways. In Unbridled, he is inviting readers to do the same. A play like Equus tangles together text, performance, practice, embodiment, and reception. Studying a play involves us in playing different roles, as ourselves and others, and those roles, as well as the imaginative work they require, are critical to the study of religion. By approaching Equus with the reader, turning the play around and upside-down, Unbridled transforms standard approaches to the study of religion, engaging with themes including ritual, sacrifice, worship, power, desire, violence, and sexuality, as well as thinkers including JTrade Review"Unbridled treats Equus as a prism through which to reimagine the study of religion, asking urgent questions and inviting us to critically rethink methods as openings. With an inviting mix of confidence and humility, Robert reinvigorates pedagogical discussions, delivering insights about the difference between reverence and devotion, the meaning of critique, and the nature of literature. Every page provokes thoughts about how we teach and think about religion, and how we might do it otherwise.” -- Constance M. Furey, coauthor of Devotion: Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature, and Political Imagination“Unbridled is a compelling, engaging, sophisticated provocation for how the study of religion might be done differently. Keeping his eyes fixed on Equus, Robert touches on themes central to the study of religion—performance, ritual, embodiment, sacrifice, image, worship, sexuality, violence—while also defamiliarizing the operation of these terms by following what Equus prompts us to think about them.” -- Kent Brintnall, author of Ecce Homo: The Male-Body-in-Pain as Redemptive FigureTable of ContentsPlaybill Program Notes Cast Prologue Act 1 1.1 Mise-en-scène 1.2 Imagination 1.3 Literature 1.4 Performance 1.5 Case 1.6 Terms 1.7 Problems 1.8 Question Act 2 2.1 Staging 2.2 Performance-Text 2.3 Inter- 2.4 Mask 2.5 Play 2.6 Acting 2.7 Make-Believe 2.8 Play-in-Play Act 3 3.1 Casting 3.2 Relations 3.3 Image 3.4 Human-Horse-Divinity 3.5 Devotion 3.6 Sexuality 3.7 Queer 3.8 Nude Act 4 4.1 Directing 4.2 Passion 4.3 Pain 4.4 Normal 4.5 Tragedy 4.6 Sacrifice 4.7 Ending 4.8 Value Epilogue Encore Credits Notes References Index
£16.80
The University of Chicago Press Theater of the Mind
Book SynopsisFor generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a theater of the mind. This book examines that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its historical context.Trade Review"Theater of the Mind does more to reanimate the study of radio forms and structures - indeed, of sound art in general - than any work published in recent memory. Neil Verma's exploration of audio narratives and sonic techniques during radio drama's heyday opens up a vast body of creative work that has been shut off from serious contemplation for decades. It is an important intervention in the growing field of sound studies, not to be missed." (Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin - Madison)"
£85.50
The University of Chicago Press Theater of the Mind Imagination Aesthetics and
Book SynopsisFor generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a theater of the mind. This book examines that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its historical context.Trade Review"Theater of the Mind does more to reanimate the study of radio forms and structures - indeed, of sound art in general - than any work published in recent memory. Neil Verma's exploration of audio narratives and sonic techniques during radio drama's heyday opens up a vast body of creative work that has been shut off from serious contemplation for decades. It is an important intervention in the growing field of sound studies, not to be missed." (Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin - Madison)"
£29.45
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeares Reparative Comedies A Psychoanalytic
Book SynopsisJoseph Westlund brings recent developments in psychoanalytic thought to his elegant and sensitive readings of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, All's Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure. Westlund departs from the usual preoccupation in psychoanalytic criticism with conflict and guilt to rely instead on Melanie Klein's theory of reparation, which emphasizes the impulse in life to resolve and transcend conflict. Through interpretations that are new and convincing, Westlund views the interactions of characters in the six comedies as attempts to work through anger and guilt to effect reparations for themselves and for us.
£36.12
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeare and the Law
Book SynopsisDemonstrates that Shakespeare's thinking about legal concepts points to a deep engagement with the law's technical workings, its underlying premises, and its social effects. This book considers Shakespeare's awareness of common law thinking and practice through examinations of Measure for Measure and Othella.
£76.00
McGill-Queen's University Press From the Battlefield to the Stage
Book SynopsisKnown today chiefly for his surrender to the American forces at Saratoga in 1777, General John Burgoyne led a multidimensional life. From the Battlefield to the Stage remembers him as not only a participant in one of Britain’s worst military disasters but also a brave soldier, successful playwright, reforming politician, and popular socialite.Trade Review“From the Battlefield to the Stage has the merit of brevity, clear writing, and rich contextualization based on Poser’s admirable knowledge of the culture and politics of eighteenth-century Britain. This is a fresh account of Burgoyne, and the first major biography of the enigmatic general in decades.” Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, author of The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire"A welcome contextualization of a multifaceted and previously misunderstood man. In this new work, Poser snatches the general off the battlefield at Saratoga and removes him from the confines of military history. Poser's From the Battlefield to the Stage adds depth and truth to 'Gentleman Johnny,' by filling in the gaps of previous biographies to do justice to a figure who is more than his failures." American History Magazine"From the Battlefield to the Stage looks beyond Burgoyne’s military service, casting him as an enlightened participant in the cultural and political spheres of eighteenth century Britain. Poser argues convincingly that Burgoyne deserves to be remembered for much more than Saratoga ... ." Times Literary Supplement“The greatest strength of this book is how much time Poser devotes to Burgoyne’s life before and after the thunderclap of Saratoga. Clearly an engaging man (he won over the father of the woman he eloped with) the impression created is of a character whose company was very agreeable. For students of the War of Independence, From the Battlefield to the Stage is essential reading, but it will also appeal to anyone with a wider interest in 18th century cultural history.” History of War
£25.19
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Tempest The RSC Shakespeare
Book SynopsisSIR JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as the best modern book on Shakespeare. In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in bo
£9.46
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Hamlet The RSC Shakespeare
Book SynopsisJONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as the best modern book on Shakespeare. In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited vol
£8.99
Palgrave Macmillan Loves Labours Lost The RSC Shakespeare
Book SynopsisJONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as the best modern book on Shakespeare. In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both t
£8.99
Palgrave MacMillan UK Synaesthetics Redefining Visceral Performance
Book SynopsisA timely book that identifies the practice of '(syn)aesthetics' in artistic style and audience response, which helps to articulate the power of experiential practice in the arts. This exciting new approach includes interviews with leading practitioners in of theatre, dance, site-specific work, live art and technological performance practice.Trade Review'The diversity of voices [in part 2 of the book] is a real strength...[and] provides a rich array of primary source material for all readers from undergraduates to professors...' - Patrick Duggan, New Theatre QuarterlyTable of ContentsContents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Interview Contributors Introduction: Redefining Visceral Performance PART I Defining (Syn)aesthetics Connecting Theories (Syn)aesthetics in Practice PART II Introduction – A (Syn)aesthetic Exchange Felix Barrett& Maxine Doyle of Punchdrunk: In the P rae-sens of Body and Space - the (syn)aesthetics of Site-sympathetic Work Lizzie Clachan& David Rosenberg of Shunt Theatre Collective: A Door into Another World - The Audience and Hybridity Akram Khan: The Mathematics of Sensation - The Body as Site/Sight/Cite and Source Marisa Carnesky: Trapping the Audience in the Fantasy – Instinct, the Body& the Magic of the Experiential Naomi Wallace& Kwame Kwei-Armah: Desire, the Body and Transgressive Acts of Playwriting – on Writing and Directing Things of Dry Hours Linda Bassett: Bypassing the Logical – Performing Churchill's Far Away Jo McInnes: A Text That Demands to be Played With – Performing Kane's 4.48 Psychosis Graeae's Jenny Sealey& Playwright Glyn Cannon: Seeing Words and (Dis)comfort Zones – the Fusion of Bodies, Text and Technology in On Blindness Sara Giddens& Simon Jones of Bodies In Flight: The In-betweens, Where Flesh Utters and Words Move – On Flesh, Text, Space and Technologies Leslie Hill& Helen Paris of Curious: Embodied Intimacies - On (the) Scent, Memory and the Visceral-Virtual Bibliography Index
£69.20
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Romeo and Juliet
Book SynopsisWith outstanding on-page explanatory notes, an in-depth scene-by-scene summary and fascinating interviews with actors David Tennant and AlexandraGilbreathanddirector Michael Attenborough, this fresh edition from the Royal Shakespeare Companyoffers enlightening new approaches to Shakespeare''s tragic love story.
£9.46
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Much Ado About Nothing The RSC Shakespeare
Book SynopsisFrom the Royal Shakespeare Company a fresh new edition of Shakespeare''s much-loved comedy of the battle between the sexesTHIS EDITION INCLUDES: An illuminating introduction to Much Ado About Nothing by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate The play - with clear and authoritative explanatory notes on each page A helpful scene-by-scene analysis and key facts about the play An introduction to Shakespeare''s career and the Elizabethan theatre A rich exploration of approaches to staging the play featuring photographs of key productionsThe most enjoyable way to understand a Shakespeare play is to see it or participate in it. This unique edition presents a historical overview of Much Ado About Nothing in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with two leading directors and an actor Nicholas Hytner, Marianne Ell
£8.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Henry IV Part I The RSC Shakespeare
Book SynopsisJONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as the best modern book on Shakespeare. In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both t
£8.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Henry IV Part II The RSC Shakespeare
Book SynopsisJONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as the best modern book on Shakespeare. In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both t
£8.99
Palgrave Macmillan Theatre Intimacy and Engagement The Last Human
Book SynopsisThis title unravels politics from theatre in order to propose a new means to politicize performance. Performance analyses ranging from child actors, animals and objects to reflections on the innovative theatre work of Societas Raffaello Sanzio, Forced Entertainment and Goat Island combine to offer a radical critique of performance studies.Trade Review'This is a rich and rewarding book, written with feeling and a deep commitment to its many, various and often unpredictable subjects. Readers who accept its generous invitation will be seduced, provoked and encouraged to think afresh about how they understand their theatre, their politics and their intellectual engagement.' - Nicholas Ridout, School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London, UK 'Read's polemic poses a vehement and noteworthy challenge, not least for the urgency with which he calls for an ethics of practice and scholarship.' - Dominic Johnson, Contemporary Theatre ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Preface Self-Evident: Intimacy and Engagement The Human Laboratory: Parable of A Recent Past Nature, Theatre and Politics: The Present Project A Second Naivete: The Future Constitution PART I: ON THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THEATRE: TOWARDS A SCIENCE OF APPEARANCE The Ends of Politics, A Singular Art, The Social Conditional, Begin Again, Sufficient Goods, The Present Imperfect, Discipline in Distress, A Life in The Theatre, Theatre Returns PART II: ON PERFORMANCE AS SUCH AND ON HUMAN PERFORMANCE IN PARTICULAR The Anthropological Machine Nature Table Stage Play Ring Side Redeemed Night Infant Enthusiasm PART III: ON THE PART OF THOSE WHO HAVE NO PART The Distribution of The Sensible Recalling the Collective Forensic Display Arrested Life The Democracy Machine PART IV: IN THE EVENT OF EXTINCTION: NATURAL HISTORY AND ITS ENDS Destination Nature, Natural History, The Extinction of Performance, The Last Human Venue, The Franciscan Model POSTSCRIPT The Paradox of The Actor The Parallax of The Performer The Lazarus Affect Bibliography Index
£89.99
Palgrave Macmillan Twelfth Night
Book SynopsisSIR JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as 'the best modern book on Shakespeare.' In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in
£9.46
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Measure for Measure
Book SynopsisSIR JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as 'the best modern book on Shakespeare.' In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English RenaisTrade Review'A triumphant addition to our times.' - Fiona Shaw, The TimesTable of ContentsIntroduction About the Text Key Facts Measure for Measure Textual Notes Scene-by-scene Analysis Measure for Measure in Performance: the RSC and Beyond Four Centuries of Measure for Measure: An Overview At the RSC Playing Measure for Measure: interviews with Trevor Nunn, Josette Simon, Roger Allam Shakespeare's Career in the Theatre Shakespeare's Works: a Chronology Further Reading and Viewing References Acknowledgements and Picture Credits
£8.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Richard II
Book SynopsisJONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as 'the best modern book on Shakespeare.' In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and
£8.99
