Series Information:
The Critical Heritage Series

Entries provide the likely sources for a name; describe historical and mythological backgrounds; examine Shakespeare's presentation of a character or place; and suggest various interpretations of a name. Each entry contains line citations to William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by Wells and Taylor, Oxford University Press (1986).

The author contends that Shakespeare's essential greatness is evident when focusing on the impact his best plays make when acted. This work also illustrates his preoccupation with the quest for human perfection and the mystery of sanctification. It concentrates on the texts and their theatrical rendering.

This substantial collection of new includes contributions from leading international Shakespeare scholars such as Tom Craik, Philip Edwards, Inga-Stina Ewbank, R.A. Foakes, G.K. Hunter, Kenneth Muir, A.D. Nuttall, Brian Vickers and Stanley Wells. The book's twenty five essays range over the whole field of Shakespeare studies and deal especially with Shakespeare and his predecessors, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Shakespeare in performance (including film) and Shakespeare in relation to later literature. Shakespearean Continuities is published in honour of the distinguished Shakespeare scholar E.A.J. Honigmann, FBA, Joseph Cowen Professor of English Literature at the University of Newcastle, 1970-1989.

Shakespeare wrote for a theater in which the audience was understood to be, and at times invited to be, active and participatory. How have Shakespeare's audiences, from the sixteenth century to the present, responded to that invitation? In what ways have consumers across different cultural contexts, periods, and platforms engaged with the performance of Shakespeare's plays? What are some of the different approaches taken by scholars today in thinking about the role of Shakespeare's audiences and their relationship to performance? The chapters in this collection use a variety of methods and approaches to explore the global history of audience experience of Shakespearean performance in theater, film, radio, and digital media. The approaches that these contributors take look at Shakespeare's audiences through a variety of lenses, including theater history, dramaturgy, film studies, fan studies, popular culture, and performance. Together, they provide both close studies of particular moments in the history of Shakespeare's audiences and a broader understanding of the various, often complex, connections between and among those audiences across the long history of Shakespearean performance.

"As She Likes It" is the first attempt to tackle the enduring question of how to perform those unruly women at the centre of Shakespeare's comedies. Unique among both Shakespearan and feminist studies, "As She Likes It" asks how gender politics affects the production of the comedies, and how gender is represented, both in the text and on the stage. Penny Gay takes a look at the way "Twelfth Night", "The Taming of the Shrew", "Much Ado About Nothing", "As You Like It" and "Measure for Measure" have been staged over the last half a century, when perceptions of gender roles have undergone massive changes. She also interrogates, rigorously but thoughtfully, the relationship between a male theatrical establishment and a burgeoning feminist approach to performance. Useful for practitioners and for students, "As She Likes It" offers critical reading for anyone interested in women's experience of theatre.

The degree of Shakespeare's concern for a "living theatre," capable of perpetually diversifying in order to maintain its appeal, is immediately apparent in the imaginative opening strategies employed in his plays. In an effort to illuminate them, this book studies the early printed texts for evidence of the opening lines of composition, as well as information supplied by Shakespeare for the actor to translate written word into stage action. This book contains a detailed introduction to its subject. Part One presents relevant ideas about openings in rhetorical and poetic theory from Aristotle to Caesar Julius Scaliger. In drawing on these ideas-and without making too strong a claim about direct or indirect influence-author Joel Benabu constructs a theoretical framework for Shakespeare's opening strategies. Part Two, comprising the main section of the book, explores different strategies for constructing an opening in the Shakespearean plays selected for analysis. The conclusion takes a broader perspective on the theory of Shakespeare's construction of openings explored throughout the book.

Through analysis of 5 plays by Shakespeare, Paul Raffield examines what it meant to be a 'stranger' to English law in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. The numbers of strangers increased dramatically in the late sixteenth century, as refugees fled religious persecution in continental Europe and sought sanctuary in Protestant England. In the context of this book, strangers are not only persons ethnically or racially different from their English counterparts, be they immigrants, refugees, or visitors. The term also includes those who transgress or are simply excluded by their status from established legal norms by virtue of their faith, sexuality, or mode of employment. Each chapter investigates a particular category of 'stranger'. Topics include the treatment of actors in late Elizabethan England and the punishment of 'counterfeits' (Measure for Measure); the standing of refugees under English law and the reception of these people by the indigenous population (The Comedy of Errors); the establishment of 'Troynovant' as an international trading centre on the banks of the Thames (Troilus and Cressida); the role of law and the state in determining the rights of citizens and aliens (The Merchant of Venice); and the disenfranchised, estranged position of the citizen in a dysfunctional society and an acephalous realm (King Lear). This is the third sole-authored book by Paul Raffield on the subject of Shakespeare and the Law. The others are Shakespeare's Imaginary Constitution: Late Elizabethan Politics and the Theatre of Law (2010) and The Art of Law in Shakespeare (2017), both published by Hart/Bloomsbury.

To 'rematerialize' in the sense of Rematerializing Shakespeare: Authority and Representation on the Early Modern English Stage is not to recover a lost material infrastructure, as Marx spoke of, nor is it to restore to some material existence its priority over the imaginary. Indeed, this collection of work by some of the most highly-regarded critics in Shakespeare studies does not offer a single theoretical stance on any of the various forms of critical materialism (Marxism, cultural materialism, new historicism, transversal poetics, gender studies, or performance criticism), but rather demonstrates that the materiality of Shakespeare is multidimensional and consists of the imagination, the intended, and the desired. Nothing returns in this rematerialization, unless it is a return in the sense of the repressed, which, when it comes back, comes back as something else. An all-star line-up of contributors includes Kate McLuskie, Terence Hawkes, Catherine Belsey and Doug Bruster.

This book is the first to argue that the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets is the well-known young Elizabethan writer Richard Barnfield (1574-1620), long suspected to have been one of Shakespeare's "private friends" (as they were termed by Francis Meres in 1598), with whom (as Meres also tells us) Shakespeare shared some of his sonnets. This is also the first book to argue that William Stanley (1561-1642), sixth earl of Derby, is the young man to whom they addressed their respective sonnets and other love poems in the period c. 1592-1595. In making these identifications, this is the first book to examine in detail the dialogue between Shakespeare's Sonnets and three of Barnfield's books of poetry (all published within a little more than one year)--a dialogue only known to be discussed in a conference paper and one other book.William Shakespeare, Richard Barnfield, and the Sixth Earl of Derby will likely appeal to all readers interested in Shakespeare's life and love poetry, both specialist scholars and non-specialist enthusiasts alike.

Allusions to Shakespeare haunt our contemporary culture in a myriad of ways, whether through brief references or sustained intertextual engagements. Shakespeare's plays and motifs have been appropriated in fragmentary forms onstage and onscreen since motion pictures were invented in 1893. This collection of essays extends beyond a US-UK axis to bring together an international group of scholars to explore Shakespearean appropriations in unexpected contexts in lesser-known films and television shows in India, Brazil, Russia, France, Australia, South Africa, East-Central Europe and Italy, with reference to some filmed stage works.

Employing psychoanalysis, trauma theory, and materialist perspectives, this book examines Shakespeare's appropriations of Ovid's poetry in his Roman poems and plays. It argues that Shakespeare uses Ovid to explore violence, trauma, and virtus - the traumatic effects of aggression, sadomasochism, and the shifting notions of selfhood and masculinity.

In this book, David Mann examines the influence of the Elizabethan cross-dressed tradition on the performance and conception of Shakespeare's female roles through an analysis of all 205 extant plays written for the adult theatre. The study provides both an historical context, showing how performance practice developed in the era before Shakespeare, and a comparative one, in revealing how dramatists in general treated their female characters and the influence their characterisation had upon Shakespeare's writing. The book challenges many views of the sexual ethos of Elizabethan theatre, offering instead a picture of Shakespeare which pays less attention to his supposed gender politics and more to his ability to exploit the cross-dressed convention as a dramatic medium. By challenging the gay and polemical feminist accounts that currently dominate the treatment of Elizabethan cross-dressing, the book restores its importance as a mainstream performance topic for academics and students.

In this engaging and accessible guidebook, Stephen Guy-Bray uses queer theory to argue that in many of Shakespeare's works representation itself becomes queer. Shakespeare often uses representation, not just as a lens through which to tell a story, but as a textual tool in itself. Shakespeare and Queer Representation includes a thorough introduction that discusses how we can define queer representation, with each chapter developing these theories to examine works that span the entire career of Shakespeare, including his sonnets, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, King John, Macbeth, and Cymbeline. The book highlights the extent to which Shakespeare's works can be seen to anticipate, and even to extend, many of the insights of the latest developments in queer theory. This thought-provoking and evocative book is an essential guide for students studying Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, gender studies, and queer literary theory.

Argument was the basis of Renaissance education; both rhetoric and dialectic permeated early modern humanist culture, including drama. This study approaches Shakespeare's history plays by analyzing the use of argument in the plays and examining the importance of argument in Renaissance culture. Knowles shows how analysis of arguments of speech and action take us to the core of the plays, in which Shakespeare interrogates the nature of political morality and truth as grounded in the history of what men do and say.

"Love's Labour's Lost" has had a puzzling history. Until the 1950s it was generally considered one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, and it was one of his most vilified until the 20th century. Perhaps more than any other Shakespearean play, it explores the power and limitations of language, and this blatant concern for language led many early critics to believe that it was the work of a playwright just learning his art. Because of its linguistic density, it is one of Shakespeare's most demanding plays, and this difficulty helps account for its initial unpopularity. But modern critics have begun to study the play in earnest and it is now one of Shakespeare's most popular works. This reference is a thorough introduction to the play's origins and legacy.

The volume provides a full overview of all aspects of the play, from its genesis to modern productions, and scholarship. The book begins with a summary of the play's textual history, including the problems of dating it accurately. It then discusses the cultural, social, and ideological contexts that inform the drama and considers some of Shakespeare's plausible sources. The play's dramatic structure, including its language, is examined at length, along with its various themes. The reference then recounts its critical and scholarly reception, and a final chapter surveys the play's performance history. Chapters cite works for further reading, and the volume concludes with a selected bibliography of major studies.

In this highly entertaining study, De Sousa argues that Shakespeare reinterprets, refashions and reinscribes his alien characters - Jews, Moors, Amazons and gypsies. In this way, the dramatist questions the narrowness of a European perspective which caricatures other societies and views them with suspicion. De Sousa examines how Shakespeare defines other cultures in terms of the interplay of gender, text and habitat. Written in a provocative style, this readable book provides a wealth of fascinating information both on contemporary stage productions and on race and gender relations in early modern Europe.

The tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet has touched the hearts of young and old for nearly four hundred years. In this work, Alan Hager has compiled a rich collection of primary materials and contemporary ranging from information about the earliest performances of Romeo and Juliet to discussions of suicide in the 1990s. Designed to help students of the play, Understanding Romeo and Juliet highlights many different aspects of the play's context. Such aspects include a discussion about religions of love in the East and West, and examination of vendetta and collective violence, and an analysis of the play in the context of classical and medieval thought. Hager relates the work to issues as recent as the so-called Werther Syndrome (copycat suicide based on fictional models) and as remote as the notion of reincarnated love such as that of Rama and Sita in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Following a literary analysis of the play, the casebook provides commentary and primary documents on the narrative backgrounds and sources of the play and selections from those sources; a discussion of its performance history on stage, in opera and film; the historical context of the play as an exploration of the nature of love, with selections from poetry of the period; and selections on real-life parallels, such as present-day Bosnia, the recent Leonardo DiCaprio-Claire Danes film of the play, and teen suicide in the 1990s, all of which will help readers to relate to the play. Each section of the work closes with topics for class discussion and papers and suggested works for further reading.

Shakespeare's remarkable ability to detect and express important new currents and moods in his culture often led him to dramatise human interactions based on the presence or absence of tolerance. Differences of religion, gender, nationality and what is now called 'race' are important in most of Shakespeare's plays, and varied ways of bridging these differences by means of sympathy and understanding are often depicted. The full development of a tolerant society is still incomplete, and this study demonstrates how the perceptions Shakespeare showed in relation to its earlier development are still instructive and valuable today. Many recent studies of Shakespeare's work have focussed on reflections of the oppression or containment of minority, deviant or non-dominant groups or outlooks. This book reverses that trend and examines how Shakespeare was fascinated by the desires that underlie tolerance, including religion, race and sexuality, through close analysis of many Shakespearian plays, passages and themes.

Burlesque has been a powerful and enduring weapon in the critique of legitimate Shakespearean culture by a seemingly illegitimate popular culture, particularly in the nineteenth century. This first study of nineteenth-century Shakespeare burlesques explores the paradox that plays obviously not Shakespearean appear to be the most genuinely Shakespearean of all. The book brings together archival research, rare photographs and illustrations, studies of burlesque scripts, and an awareness of theatrical, literary, and cultural contexts.

Travelling Players in Shakespeare's England is the first extended study of the touring practices and performances of Elizabethan and Jacobean travelling players. It opens with a general introduction to the lively, competitive world of professional touring theatre. Following chapters focus on playing practices and performances in the spaces used as temporary theatres by touring actors (such a town halls and country houses). The final chapter looks at the decline of this important theatrical tradition in the 1620s.

Shakespeare and Digital Performance in Practice explores the impact of digital technologies on the theatrical performance of Shakespeare in the twenty-first century, both in terms of widening cultural access and developing new forms of artistry. Through close analysis of dozens of productions, both high-profile and lesser known, it examines the rise of live broadcasting and recording in the theatre, the growing use of live video feeds and dynamic projections on the mainstream stage, and experiments in born-digital theatre-making, including social media, virtual reality, and video-conferencing adaptations. In doing so, it argues that technologically adventurous performances of Shakespeare allow performers and audiences to test what they believe theatre to be, as well as to reflect on what it means to be present-with a work of art, with others, with oneself-in an increasingly online world.

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize How did Shakespeare go from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this one exhilarating year we follow what he reads and writes, what he saw and who he worked with as he invests in the new Globe theatre and creates four of his most famous plays - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet. This book brings the news, intrigue and flavour of the times together with wonderful detail about how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman and playwright, to create an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history

The world of Macbeth, with its absolutes of good and evil, seems very remote from the shifting perspectives of Antony and Cleopatra, or the psychological and political realities of Coriolanus. Yet all three plays share similar thematic concerns and preoccupations: the relation of power to legitimating authority, for instance, or of male and female roles in the imagination of (male) heroic endeavour.;In this acclaimed study, Nicholas Grene shows how all nine plays written in Shakespeare's main tragic period display this combination of strikingly different milieu balanced by thematic interrelationships. Taking the English history play as his starting point, he argues that Shakespeare established two different modes of imagining: the one mythic and visionary, the other sceptical and analytic. In the tragic plays that followed, themes and situations are dramatised, alternately, in sacred and secular worlds. A chapter is devoted to each tragedy, but with a continuing awareness of companion plays: the analysis of Julius Caesar informing that of Hamlet, discussion of Troilus and Cressida counterpointed by the critique of Othello and the treatment of King Lear growing out from the limitati

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is in many ways a unique play; it is one of the few for which there is no immediate source. This is a commentary to the work of a great dramatist who, as the author observes, 'approximates the remote, and familiarizes the wonderful.'