The appearance in 1609 of Shakespeare's Sonnets is cloaked in mystery and controversy, while the poems themselves are masterpieces of silence and deception. The intervening four centuries have done little to diminish either their mystique or their appeal, and recent years have witnessed an upsurge in interest in these brilliant and contentious lyrics. John Blades' penetrating study of the Sonnets is a highly lucid introduction to Shakespeare's subjects and poetic craft, involving detailed insights on the major themes, together with a comprehensive exploration of the Rival Poet and Dark Mistress sequences. Shakespeare: The Sonnets: - draws on an extensive range of sonnets, offering a line-by-line analysis that engages with the poems as masterworks in their own right, as well as registering their relationship with Shakespeare's dramas - locates the Sonnets in their Elizabethan and humanist framework, with a survey of the history of the sonnet form and rhetorical conventions within the context of the early modern period - concludes with a brief assessment of critical attitudes towards the Sonnets over the four centuries since their publication and an indepth examination of four important critics. Providing students with the critical and analytical skills with which to approach the Sonnets, and featuring a helpful glossary and suggestions for further study, this fascinating book is an indispensable guide.

This clearly introduces the many critical issues surrounding this complex and haunting play. Ioppolo examines sources, from Holinshed to Spencer, and in the Interpretations section looks at critical readings and notable performances of the play. These range from early critical responses and performances to recent stage and screen interpretations. Edited key passages connect the play to its contexts and criticism, providing both a guide and a new perspective on King Lear. Careful annotation explains Shakespeare's language. This Routledge Literary Sourcebook is ideal introduction for undergraduates, providing orientation in the play, its reception history and the critical material which surrounds it. It examines King Lear within its literary and cultural contexts, bringing together:
*contemporary documents surrounding King Lear
*performance history
*early critical reception from major critics
*twentieth-century criticism
*key passages.
All documents are discussed and explained. The volume also offers carefully annotated key passages from the play itself and concludes with a list of recommended editions and further reading, allowing readers to pursue their study in the areas that interest them most. Grace Ioppolo's broad-ranging analysis and the wealth of materials she brings together make this the ideal guide for any student of King Lear.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

An original and provocative study of the evolution of Shakespeare's image, building on the success of Duncan-Jones' acclaimed biography, "Shakespeare: An Ungentle Life." Taking a broadly chronological approach, she investigates Shakespeare's changing reputation, as a man, an actor and a poet, both from his own viewpoint and from that of his contemporaries. Many different categories of material are explored, including printed books, manuscripts, literary and non-literary sources. Rather than a biography, the book is an exploration with biographical elements. The change in public opinion in Shakespeare's time is quite startling: Henry Chettle attacked him as an 'upstart Crow' in 1592, an attack from which Shakespeare sought to defend himself; and yet by the time of the First Folio in 1623 he had become the 'Sweet Swan of Avon ' and was fast becoming the literary treasure he remains today.

This engaging and fascinating study brings the politics and fashions of Shakespeare's literary and theatrical world vividly to life.

Drawing on the later writings of Martin Heidegger, the book traces the correspondence between the philosopher's concept of technology and Shakespeare's poetics of human and natural productivity in the Sonnets.

The Romantics invented Shakespeare studies, and in losing contact with our origins, we have not been able to develop an adequate alternative foundation on which to build our work. This book asserts that among Shakespeareans at present, the level of conviction required to sustain a healthy critical practice is problematically if not dangerously low, and the qualities which the Romantics valued in an engagement with Shakespeare are either ignored these days or fundamentally misunderstood.

"The Culture of Obesity in Early and Late Modernity "offers the first sustained examination of fatness in the early modern period. As Levy-Navarro notes, bodily perceptions have evolved that value the thin body as they mark and stigmatize the fat one. Using readings of such major figures as Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton, this book considers alternative ways that fat was constructed before the introduction of the modern pathologized category of "obesity." Levy-Navarro argues that Shakespeare, Jonson, and Skelton understood that a thin aesthetic consolidates the power of the elite and chose to align themselves with their fat, lowly, and revolting characters--an alliance that offers a model of defiance with continued relevance.""

Contents:
General Editor's Preface. List of Illustrations. Contributors. Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction: John Drakakis 2. Swisser-Swatter: making a man of English letters: Terence Hawkes 3. Post-structuralist Shakespeare: text and ideology: Christopher Norris 4. Deconstructing Shakespeare's comedies: Malcolm Evans 5. Sexulaity in the reading of Shakespeare: Hamlet and Measure for Measure: Jacqueline Rose 6. Reading the signs: towards a semiotics of Shakespearean drama: Alessandro Serpieri, translated by Keir Elam 7. Shakespeare in ideology: James H. Kavanagh 8. Disrupting sexual difference: meaning and gender in the comedies: Catherine Belsey 9. Nymphs and reapers heavily vanish: the discursive con-texts of The Tempest: Francis Barker and Peter Hulme 10. History and ideology: the instance of Henry V: Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield 11. Afterword: Robert Weimann.

This book throws new light on the issue of the dramatist's religious orientation by dismissing sectarian and one-sided theories, tackling the problem from the angle of the variegated Elizabethan context recently uncovered by modern historians and theatre scholars. It is argued that faith was a quest rather than a quiet certainty for the playwright.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is one of the most read and performed of Shakespeare's plays. This book provides an introductory guide to the play, offering a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, contextual documents, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of three or four key performances and productions, a survey of film and TV adaptation, and wide sampling of critical opinion and annotated further reading.

This compendium opens the stagedoor for those with little or no practical experience in acting. For actors and other theatre specialists grappling with the challenges posed by performing or staging the works of the great Bard, here is useful instruction eloquently expressed that will enrich future interpretation and performance. On Playing Shakespeare takes advantage of the long tradition of Shakespearean acting by offering a rich treasury of writings by noted actors who have essayed Shakespearean roles in the past. The perspectives of these thespians offer comprehensive exposure to the challenges of acting in Shakespeare's plays and are emblematic of theatre repertories and popular tastes from the mid-eighteenth century to World War I. Here is Ellen Terry writing on her role as Mamellius in an 1856 production of The Winter's Tale, Edwin Booth on Iago, Fanny Kemble on Lady Macbeth, and dozens of other actors who made lasting theatrical contributions with their interpretations of Shakespeare. These commentaries also bear witness to the actor's eternal struggle to get on the stage, stay on the stage, and perform Shakespearean roles to varied audiences in sometimes less-than-ideal conditions. The heart of the book, and its climax, deals with matters of interpretation, with actors' differing reactions to the same role placed side-by-side for purposes of clear contrast. The work includes photographs of John Barrymore, Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, and others in roles they discuss in the book. The volume proceeds in sequence from the sort of background and training necessary to approach Shakespeare with assurance through the performance itself and its aftermath. The first section of adviceand commentary deals with "Preliminaries," such as training, body and movement, voice and diction, ease and concentration, and more. This chapter includes four actors on "Beginning in Shakespeare." In "Getting the Part," which includes casting, Clara Morris writes on a young actress as Juliet. Writings on reading the play, memorizing, observation, research, and gesture are included in the section on "Working the Part." Interpreting, rehearsing, and performing the part each receive separate sections. In "Clusters of Commentary," the book's longest section, various actors comment on performing specific roles, such as eight actors on Hamlet, three actresses on Portia, and more. On Playing Shakespeare speaks to actors and directors who face the contemporary challenges of playing Shakespeare and to Shakespeareans and scholars with more general interests in the history, technique, and tradition of Shakespearean acting. A must for graduate and undergraduate courses in acting Shakespeare; courses in the history of acting; and graduate courses in nineteenth-century British and American theatre history.

In this study, William C. Carroll analyses a wide range of adaptations and appropriations of Macbeth across different media to consider what it is about the play that compels our desire to reshape it. Arguing that many of these adaptations attempt to 'improve' or 'correct' the play's perceived political or aesthetic flaws, Carroll traces how Macbeth's popularity and adaptability stems from several of its formal features: its openly political nature; its inclusion of supernatural elements; its parable of the dangers of ambition; its violence; its brevity; and its domestic focus on a husband and wife. The study ranges across elite and popular culture divides: from Sir William Davenant's adaptation for the Restoration stage (1663-4), an early 18th-century novel, The Secret History of Mackbeth and Verdi's Macbeth, through to 20th- and 21st-century adaptations for stage and screen, as well as contemporary novelizations, young adult literature and commercial appropriations that testify to the play's absorption into contemporary culture.

Fundamentals of Soil provides a comprehensive and engaging introduction to soils and the workings of soil systems. This text is the only one of its kind to provide an attractive, lively and accessible introduction to this topic. Featuring learning tools within each chapter, such as summaries, essay questions and guides for further reading, the text is also highly illustrated with useful tables, boxes and figures. Covering all key areas of study at an introductory level, subjects covered include:
· Soil properties
· Soil processes
· Controls on soil formation
· Soil classification
· World soils
· Soil patterns
· Soil degradation.

In this text, the author Philippa Berry rewrites critical perceptions of death in Shakespeare's tragedies from a feminist perspective. Drawing on feminist theory, postmodern thought and queer theory, Berry challenges existing critical notions of what is "fundamental" to Shakespearean tragedy. She argues that there is a figurative rejection of death as terminus, which owes more to pagan thought than Christian. Through a close reading of the main tragedies, Berry discovers a sensuous and meditative Shakespearean discourse of materialism. Her theoretical and textual insights into the properties of matter, time, the soul, and the body now have relevance to contemporary debates about time and matter in science and philosophy.

The book presents a systematic method of interpreting Shakespeare film adaptations based on their cinematic genres. Its approach is both scholarly and reader-friendly, and its subject is fundamentally interdisciplinary, combining the findings of Shakespeare scholarship with film and media studies, particularly genre theory. The book is organised into six large chapters, discussing films that form broad generic groups. Part I looks at three genres from the classical Hollywood era (western, melodrama and gangster-noir), while Part II deals with three contemporary blockbuster genres (teen film, undead horror and biopic). Beside a few better-known examples of mainstream cinema, the volume also highlights the Shakespearean elements in several nearly forgotten films, bringing them back to critical attention. -- .

Shakespeare's tutor: The influence of Thomas Kyd adds to the critical and scholarly discussion that seeks to establish the early modern playwright Thomas Kyd's dramatic canon, and indicates where and how Kyd contributed to the development of Shakespeare's drama through influence, collaboration, revision and adaptation. A further, complementary aim of the book is to demonstrate various ways in which it is possible to combine statistical analysis with reading plays as literary and performative works. The book summarises, extends, and corrects all of the scholarship on Kyd's authorship of anonymous plays, and reveals the remarkable extent to which Shakespeare was influenced by his dramatic predecessor. The book represents a significant intervention in the field of early modern authorship studies and aims to revolutionise our understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic development. -- .

English Stage Comedy 1490-1990 is a unique and beautifully written study of the comedy of the English stage from the Tudor period to the late twentieth century. Alexander Leggatt demonstrates that an examination of comedy as a 'genre' can tell us much about the relationships between literature and society. English Stage Comedy 1490-1990 surveys five centuries of classic comic drama, focusing on major playwrights such as:
* Shakespeare
* Jonson
* Etherege
* Wycherley
* Congreve
* Vanbrugh
* Goldsmith
* Sheridan
* Wilde
* Shaw
* Coward
* Orton
* Ayckbourn

William Shakespeare's Hamlet (c.1600-1601) has achieved iconic status as one of the most exciting and enigmatic of plays. It has been in almost constant production in Britain and throughout the world since it was first performed, fascinating generations of audiences and critics alike.

Taking the form of a sourcebook, this guide to Shakespeare's remarkable play offers:

• extensive introductory comment on the contexts, critical history and performance of the text, from publication to the present
• annotated extracts from key contextual documents, reviews, critical works and the text itself
• cross-references between documents and sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
• suggestions for further reading.

Shakespeare everyone can understand--now in this new EXPANDED edition of HAMLET! Why fear Shakespeare? By placing the words of the original play next to line-by-line translations in plain English, this popular guide makes Shakespeare accessible to everyone. And now it features expanded literature guide sections that help students study smarter. The expanded sections include: Five Key Questions: Five frequently asked questions about major moments and characters in the play. What Does the Ending Mean?: Is the ending sad, celebratory, ironic . . . or ambivalent? Plot Analysis: What is the play about? How is the story told, and what are the main themes? Why do the characters behave as they do? Study Questions: Questions that guide students as they study for a test or write a paper. Quotes by Theme: Quotes organized by Shakespeare's main themes, such as love, death, tyranny, honor, and fate. Quotes by Character: Quotes organized by the play's main characters, along with interpretations of their meaning.

This book examines six plays by Shakespeare ("Love's Labour's Lost", "Hamlet", "As You Like It", "Twelfth Night", "The Winter's Tale" and "The Tempest") as dramatizations of the Renaissance Court in its developing history - a history searched by Shakespeare to disclose its most characteristic gains and losses. For these plays do not simply celebrate Tudor and Stuart rule: they scrutinize it too, in the centre of its institutional theatre of power, the Court. This book shows how, if the plays came into Court, the Court also came into the plays, with its most salient features - its competitiveness, its inner tensions and its contradictions, its language, its cultural life and its entertainments - exposed to the scrutiny of an art-form that proved itself to be a new mode of historical understanding.

During the Renaissance, moral philosophy came to permeate the minds of many, including the spectators that poured into Shakespeare's Globe theatre. Examining these strains of thought that formed the basis for humanism, Raspa delves into King Lear, Hamlet, among others to unlock what influence this had on both Shakespeare and his interpreters.

This book explores ways in which Shakespeare's writing strategies shape our embodied perception of objects - both real and imaginary - in four of his plays. Taking the reader on a series of perceptual journeys, it engages in an exciting dialogue between the disciplines of phenomenology, cognitive studies, historicist research and modern acting techniques, in order to probe our sentient and intuitive responses to Shakespeare's language. What happens when we encounter objects on page and stage; and how we can imagine that impact in performance? What influences might have shaped the language that created them; and what do they reveal about our response to what we see and hear? By placing objects under the phenomenological lens, and scrutinising them as vital conduits between lived experience and language, this book illuminates Shakespeare's writing as a rich source for investigation into the way we think, feel and communicate as embodied beings.

Includes everything students need for their first encounter with Shakespeare - well-chosen scenes from his most famous plays, plus lively accessible activities for discussion, drama, language study and comparison. It's the ideal starting-point for exploring Shakespeare, his theatre and his language. Extracts from: Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice.

In critical history, Shakespeare's The Tempest has been interpreted as a reticent play, a fascinating and yet mysterious blend of magic and verisimilitude, narrative and drama, spectacle and meditation on death. The Tempest seems to raise fundamental issues without ever exhausting them, it captures and appropriates existing motifs and modes, and allows for later appropriations and re-mediations. Is its signifying potential still alive in the third millennium? Does it still speak to us? Revisiting The Tempest aims to explore that potential and examine the play's more 'intractable material' as a fertile source of significance.The essays that make up this collection range from investigations of the play's position within the European early modern dramatic heritage to its 'domestic' re-writings and/or adaptations in diverse theatrical contexts and media, while also interrogating the play's own resistance to interpretation. Rather than providing new meanings, Revisiting The Tempest explores how this drama makes meaning and reanimates it through time.

Hamlet's Problematic Revenge: Forging a Royal Mandate provides a new argument within Shakespearean studies that argues the oft-noted arrest of the play's dramaturgical momentum, especially evident in Hamlet's much delayed enactment of his revenge, represents in fact a succinct emblem of the "arrested development" in the moral maturity of the entire cast, most notably, Hamlet himself-as the unifying disclosure and tragic problem in the play. Settling for unreflective and short-sighted personal gratifications and cold comforts, they truantly elbow aside a more considerable moral obligation. Again and again, all yield this duty's commanding priority to a childishly self-regarding fear of offending those in nominal positions of power and questionable positions of authority-figures, like Ophelia and Hamlet's fathers, for instance, demanding an unworthy deference. While Hamlet fails to consider with loving regard the improved well-being of the larger community to which he owes his existence and, fails to interrogate the moral adequacy of the Ghost's command of violent reprisal (two things he never does nor even contemplates doing), "all occasions" in the play "do inform against" him and merely "spur a dull revenge"-not, as he interprets his own words, arguing the need for greater urgency in his vendetta, but, instead, to "inform against" the criminality of that very course itself. His revenge therefore can be argued as "dull," not because he cannot summon the wherewithal to enact it more bloodily, but because in obsessing about it ceaselessly he remains unreceptive to its "dull" or "unenlightened" opposition to the evil he hopes to eradicate. Hamlet does not avenge his father; this book argues that he becomes him. Amidst a wealth of previously unremarked figurative mirrorings, as well as much of the seemingly digressive material in Hamlet within Shakespearean studies, Hamlet's Problematic Revenge brings to light a new interpretation of the tragic problem in the play.