With Shylock's pound of flesh and Portia's golden ring, The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's most controversial, disturbing and unforgettable plays.
Combining accessible commentary with a range of reprinted materials, S. P. Cerasano:
*explores the contexts of the play, including early modern images of Venice, the commercialism of the play, Shakespeare's theatre and London, and images of Jewishness
*samples modern criticism of Shakespeare's Merchant, grouped into sections on The Economic Framework, Choosing and Risking, and Shylock and Other Strangers
*offers an invaluable discussion of the play in performance, considering crucial staging issues and changing interpretations of the roles of Portia and Shylock
*closely examines key passages of the work, providing both commentary and extensively annotated sections of play text
*prepares readers for additional study of the play with a useful guide to further reading.
Assuming no prior knowledge of the play, this Routledge Literary Sourcebook is the essential guide to one of the most haunting works of English drama.

Fiona Ritchie analyses the significant role played by women in the construction of Shakespeare's reputation which took place in the eighteenth century. The period's perception of Shakespeare as unlearned allowed many women to identify with him and in doing so they seized an opportunity to enter public life by writing about and performing his works. Actresses (such as Hannah Pritchard, Kitty Clive, Susannah Cibber, Dorothy Jordan and Sarah Siddons), female playgoers (including the Shakespeare Ladies Club) and women critics (like Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Griffith and Elizabeth Inchbald), had a profound effect on Shakespeare's reception. Interdisciplinary in approach and employing a broad range of sources, this book's analysis of criticism, performance and audience response shows that in constructing Shakespeare's significance for themselves and for society, women were instrumental in the establishment of Shakespeare at the forefront of English literature, theatre, culture and society in the eighteenth century and beyond.

Drawing upon a vast literature in psychoanalytic journals and either upon Shakespeare's characters themselves or alluding to those characters in the course of other topics, this book discusses eight of Shakespeare's plays and the relationships between the main characters in them. Psychoanalytic and literary approaches sometimes diverge, but they ca

The Soul of Athens: Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' studies Shakespeare's portrayal of the founding of Athens through a close reading of one of the Bard's most memorable comedies. Through a painstakingly close reading of the play, author Jan H. Blits shows how Shakespeare's portrayal of this legendary first democracy illuminates the natural doubleness of the human soul by emphasizing the lure of both beauty and wisdom.A Midsummer Night's Dream is thus Shakespeare's examination not only of a particular city at a particular time, but of the essential duality of the human soul. Coupling careful attention to detail with interpretive breadth, The Soul of Athens examines the nature of love, the natural doubleness of human thinking and the ambiguous relation of image and reality, as well as patriarchy and democracy, and heroic and moral virtue.

The Soul of Athens: Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" studies Shakespeare's portrayal of the founding of Athens through a close reading of one of the Bard's most memorable comedies. Through a painstakingly close reading of the play, author Jan H. Blits shows how Shakespeare's portrayal of this legendary first democracy illuminates the natural doubleness of the human soul by emphasizing the lure of both beauty and wisdom.A Midsummer Night's Dream is thus Shakespeare's examination not only of a particular city at a particular time, but of the essential duality of the human soul. Coupling careful attention to detail with interpretive breadth, The Soul of Athens examines the nature of love, the natural doubleness of human thinking and the ambiguous relation of image and reality, as well as patriarchy and democracy, and heroic and moral virtue.

Contents:
Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. The Sexual Politics of Subjectivity in Lucrece Chapter 3. Titus Andronicus: The Daughter's Seduction, or, Writing is the Best Revenge Chapter 4. Mettle and Melting Spirits in Julius Caesar Chapter 5. Antony's Wound Chapter 6. Mother of Battles: Volumnia and Her Son in Coriolanus Postscript: Cymbeline: Paying Tribute to Rome

This volume draws together thirteen important essays on the concept of race in Shakespeare's drama. The authors, who themselves reflect racial and geographical diversity, explore issues of ethnography, politics, religion, identity, nationalism, and the distribution of power in Shakespeare's plays. They write from a variety of perspectives, drawing on Elizabethan and Jacobean historical studies and recent critical theory, attending to performances of the plays, as well as to the text. An introductory essay sets the context for the ensuing chapters, most of which are reprinted from volumes of Shakespeare Survey.

This is a collection of original essays about how Shakespeare and his plays are increasingly being used as a means of furthering literacy, language arts, creative and dramatic learning for children in and out of the classroom. It is divided into three sections comprising essays by well-known children's book authors, literary scholars and teachers, who approach the subject from a wide range of perspectives.

In this beautifully illustrated book, Stephen Orgel brings together essays that have changed the way we think about the age of Shakespeare. Topics include the theatre as social phenomenon, the development of the stage as an architectural presence and a cultural institution, the changing use of setting and costume, the changing status of the acting profession, the complex relation of theatre to the political life of the age. Most of all, The Authentic Shakespeare is about how the modern constructs the past, how the texts that were performed on the Elizabethan stage became the books and editions that are, for our time, Renaissance drama.
Many essays in The Authentic Shakespeare have become classics. Collected here for the first time, they essential reading for students of the Renaissance stage and the history of the book.

Shakespeare and World Cinema radically re-imagines the field of Shakespeare on film, drawing on a wealth of examples from Africa, the Arctic, Brazil, China, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Tibet, Venezuela, Yemen and elsewhere. Mark Thornton Burnett explores the contemporary significance of Shakespeare cinema outside the Hollywood mainstream for the first time, arguing that these adaptations are an essential part of the story of Shakespearean performance and reception. The book reveals in unique detail the scope, inventiveness and vitality of over seventy films that have undeservedly slipped beneath the radar of critical attention and also discusses regional Shakespeare cinema in Latin America and Asia. Utilising original interviews with filmmakers throughout, it introduces new auteurs, analyses multiple adaptations of plays such as Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and pioneers fresh methodologies for understanding the role that Shakespeare continues to play in the international marketplace.

The gods have much to tell us about performance. When human actors portray deities onstage, such divine epiphanies reveal not only the complexities of mortals playing gods but also the nature of theatrical spectacle itself. The very impossibility of rendering the gods in all their divine splendor in a truly convincing way lies at the intersection of divine power and the power of the theater. This book pursues these dynamics on the stages of ancient Athens and Rome as well on those of Renaissance England to shed new light on theatrical performance. The authors reveal how gods appear onstage both to astound and to dramatize the very machinations by which theatrical performance operates. Offering an array of case studies featuring both canonical and lesser-studied texts, this volume discusses work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Plautus as well as Beaumont, Heywood, Jonson, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. This book uniquely brings together the joint perspectives of two experts on classical and Renaissance drama. This volume will appeal to students and enthusiasts of literature, classics, theater, and performance studies.

Even the most explicitly political contemporary approaches to Shakespeare have been uninterested by his tyrants as such. But for Shakespeare, rather than a historical curiosity or psychological aberration, tyranny is a perpetual political and human problem. Mary Ann McGrail's recovery of the playwright's perspective challenges the grounds of this modern critical silence. She locates Shakespeare's expansive definition of tyranny between the definitions accepted by classical and modern political philosophy. Is tyranny always the worst of all possible political regimes, as Aristotle argues in his Politics? Or is disguised tyranny, as Machiavelli proposes, potentially the best regime possible? These competing conceptions were practiced and debated in Renaissance thought, given expression by such political actors and thinkers as Elizabeth I, James I, Henrie Bullinger, Bodin, and others. McGrail focuses on Shakespeare's exploration of the conflicting and contradictory passions that make up the tyrant and finds that Shakespeare's dramas of tyranny rest somewhere between Aristotle's reticence and Machiavelli's forthrightness. Literature and politics intersect in Tyranny in Shakespeare, which will fascinate students and scholars of both.

In this book White "traces the influence of both the comedies and tragedies {of Shakespeare} on Keats's work." (Choice)

The 'Sound of Shakespeare' reveals the surprising extent to which Shakespeare's art is informed by the various attitudes, beliefs, practices and discourses that pertained to sound and hearing in his culture.
In this engaging study, Wes Folkerth develops listening as a critical practice, attending to the ways in which Shakespeare's plays express their author's awareness of early modern associations between sound and particular forms of ethical and aesthetic experience. Through readings of the acoustic representation of deep subjectivity in Richard III, of the 'public ear' in Antony and Cleopatra, the receptive ear in Coriolanus, the grotesque ear in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the 'greedy ear' in Othello, and the 'willing ear' in Measure for Measure, Folkerth demonstrates that by listening to Shakespeare himself listening, we derive a fuller understanding of why his works continue to resonate so strongly with is today.

The 'Sound of Shakespeare' reveals the surprising extent to which Shakespeare's art is informed by the various attitudes, beliefs, practices and discourses that pertained to sound and hearing in his culture.
In this engaging study, Wes Folkerth develops listening as a critical practice, attending to the ways in which Shakespeare's plays express their author's awareness of early modern associations between sound and particular forms of ethical and aesthetic experience. Through readings of the acoustic representation of deep subjectivity in Richard III, of the 'public ear' in Antony and Cleopatra, the receptive ear in Coriolanus, the grotesque ear in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the 'greedy ear' in Othello, and the 'willing ear' in Measure for Measure, Folkerth demonstrates that by listening to Shakespeare himself listening, we derive a fuller understanding of why his works continue to resonate so strongly with is today.

Shakespeare in the Present is a stunning collection of essays by Terence Hawkes, which engage with, explain, and explore 'presentism'. Presentism is a critical manoeuvre which uses relevant aspects of the contemporary as a crucial trigger for its investigations. It deliberately begins with the material present and lets that set the interrogative agenda. This book suggests ways in which its principles may be applied to aspects of Shakespeare's plays.
Hawkes concentrates on two main areas in which Presentism impacts on the study of Shakespeare. The first is the concept of 'devolution' in British politics. The second is presentism's commitment to a reversal of conceptual hierarchies such as primary/secondary and past/present, and the interaction between performance and reference. The result is to sophisticate and expand our notion of performing and to refocus interest on what the early modern theatre meant by the activity it termed 'playing'.

When critical theory met literary studies in the 1970s and 80s, some of the most radical and exciting theoretical work centred on quasi-sacred figure of Shakespeare. In Alternative Shakespeares, John Drakakis brought together key essays by founding figures in this movement to remake Shakespeare studies.
A new afterword by Robert Weimann outlines the extraordinary impact of Alternative Shakespeares on academic Shakespeare studies. But as yet, the Shakespeare myth continues to thrive both in Stratford and in our schools. These essays are as relevant and as powerful as they were upon publication and with a contributor list that reads like a 'who's who' of modern Shakespeare studies, Alternative Shakespeares demands to be read.

This volume bears potent testimony, not only to the dense complexity of Hamlet's emotional dynamics, but also to the enduring fascination that audiences, adaptors, and academics have with what may well be Shakespeare's moodiest play. Its chapters explore emotion in Hamlet, as well as the myriad emotions surrounding Hamlet's debts to the medieval past, its relationship to the cultural milieu in which it was produced, its celebrated performance history, and its profound impact beyond the early modern era. Its component chapters are not unified by a single methodological approach. Some deal with a single emotion in Hamlet, while others analyse the emotional trajectory of a single character, and still others focus on a given emotional expression (e.g., sighing or crying). Some bring modern methodologies for studying emotion to bear on Hamlet, others explore how Hamlet anticipates modern discourses on emotion, and still others ask how Hamlet itself can complicate and contribute to our current understanding of emotion.

Othello: Critical Essays includes twenty-one groundbreaking chapters that examine one of Shakespeare's most complex tragedies, exploring issues of friendship and fealty, love and betrayal, race and gender issues, and much more.

A comprehensive collection of critical essays on The Taming of the Shrew, including studies of the play's print, theatre, and performance history. The essay deals primarily with issues of gender, authority, domination, metatheatricality, and privacy. The volume includes a bibliographic introduction, which provides an historical overview of the play's place in Shakespeare's canon and contextualizes the issues historically.

Exam Board: AQA A, AQA B, Edexcel, CCEA Level: AS/A-level Subject: English literature First teaching: September 2015 First exams: Summer 2016 Enable students to achieve their best grade in AS/A-level English Literature with this year-round course companion; designed to instil in-depth textual understanding as students read, analyse and revise Othello throughout the course. This Study and Revise guide: - Increases students' knowledge of Othello as they progress through the detailed commentary and contextual information written by experienced teachers and examiners - Develops understanding of characterisation, themes, form, structure and language, equipping students with a rich bank of textual examples to enhance their coursework and exam responses - Builds critical and analytical skills through challenging, thought-provoking questions and tasks that encourage students to form their own personal responses to the text - Extends learning and prepares students for higher-level study by introducing critical viewpoints, comparative references to other literary works and suggestions for independent research - Helps students maximise their exam potential using clear explanations of the Assessment Objectives, sample student answers and examiner insights - Improves students' extended writing techniques through targeted advice on planning and structuring a successful essay

Brian Vickers addresses the fundamental issues of what Shakespeare actually wrote, and how this is determined. In recent years Shakespeare's authorship has been claimed for two poems, the lyric "Shall I die?" and A Funerall Elegye. These attributions have been accepted into certain major editions of Shakespeare's works. Through a new examination of the evidence, Professor Vickers shows that neither poem has the stylistic and imaginative qualities we associate with Shakespeare. He identifies the poet and dramatist John Ford as the actual author of the Elegye.

Even the most explicitly political contemporary approaches to Shakespeare have been uninterested by his tyrants as such. But for Shakespeare, rather than a historical curiosity or psychological aberration, tyranny is a perpetual political and human problem. Mary Ann McGrail's recovery of the playwright's perspective challenges the grounds of this modern critical silence. She locates Shakespeare's expansive definition of tyranny between the definitions accepted by classical and modern political philosophy. Is tyranny always the worst of all possible political regimes, as Aristotle argues in his Politics? Or is disguised tyranny, as Machiavelli proposes, potentially the best regime possible? These competing conceptions were practiced and debated in Renaissance thought, given expression by such political actors and thinkers as Elizabeth I, James I, Henrie Bullinger, Bodin, and others. McGrail focuses on Shakespeare's exploration of the conflicting and contradictory passions that make up the tyrant and finds that Shakespeare's dramas of tyranny rest somewhere between Aristotle's reticence and Machiavelli's forthrightness. Literature and politics intersect in Tyranny in Shakespeare, which will fascinate students and scholars of both.