First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Pivotal Lines in Shakespeare and Others defines a pivotal line as "a moment in the script that serves as a pathway into the larger play ... a magnet to which the rest of the play, scenes before and after, adheres." Homan offers his personal choices of such lines in five plays by Shakespeare and works by Beckett, Brecht, Pinter, Shepard, and Stoppard. Drawing on his own experience in the theatre as actor and director and on campus as a teacher and scholar, he pairs a Shakespearean play with one by a modern playwright as mirrors for each other. One reviewer calls his approach "ground-breaking." Another observes that his "experience with the particular plays he has chosen is invaluable" since it allows us to find "a wedge into such ironic texts." Academics and students alike will find this volume particularly useful in aiding their own discovery of a pivotal line or moment in the experience of reading about, watching, or performing in a play.

Building Embodiment: Integrating Acting, Voice, and Movement to Illuminate Poetic Text offers a collection of strategic and practical approaches to understanding, analyzing, and embodying a range of heightened text styles, including Greek Tragedy, Shakespeare, and Restoration/Comedy of Manners. These essays offer insights from celebrated teachers across the disciplines of acting, voice, and movement, and are designed to help actors find deeper vocal and physical connections to poetic text. Although each dramatic genre offers a unique set of challenges, Building Embodiment highlights instances where techniques can integrate and overlap, and illustrates how the synthesis of body, brain, and word results in a fuller sense of character experiencing for both the actor and the audience. This book bridges the gap between academic and professional application, and invites the student and professional actor into a deeper experience of character and story.

'I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespeare' George Bernard Shaw The beautiful and witty Katherina has sworn never to accept the demands of any would-be husband. But when she is pursued by the wily Petruchio, it seems that she has finally met her match. As he meets her caustic words with capricious cruelty, Katherina is forced to reconsider her position, in one of the greatest and most contentious of all comic battles of the sexes. Used and Recommended by the National Theatre General Editor Stanley Wells Edited by G. R. Hibbard Introduction by M. J. Kidnie

William Shakespeare's Othello (1601-2) has delighted and disturbed theatre audiences for the past four centuries, and remains one of the most frequently performed and widely studied of his plays. This volume is a broad-ranging guide to Othello, providing an introduction to:
* the contexts of the play, through a concise, accessible overview, a chronology and reprinted documents from the period
* the range of critical responses to the play, through a brief critical history and reprinted critical texts, accompanied by explanatory headnotes; and
* the play in performance, through a selection of clearly introduced readings on this topic, along with illustrations.
The Sourcebook then examines key passages of the play in detail. Each passage is reprinted in full, along with a headnote and annotations offering crucial guidance to Shakespeare's language and the critical issues which surround the text. Throughout the volume, cross-references link together the contextual materials, critical responses and the play's text.
If you are beginning to study Othello, this Routledge Literary Sourcebook is the one guide you cannot afford to be without.

(Applause Books). To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Reduced Shakespeare Company's classic farce, two of its original writer/performers (Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield) have thoroughly revised the show to bring it up to date for 21st-century audiences, incorporating some of the funniest material from the numerous amateur and professional productions that have been performed around the world. The cultural touchstone that is The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) was born when three inspired, charismatic comics, having honed their pass-the-hat act at Renaissance fairs, premiered their preposterous masterwork at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987. It quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, earning the title of London's second-longest-running comedy after a decade at the Criterion Theatre. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is one of the world's most frequently produced plays, and has been translated into several dozen languages. Featured are all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, meant to be performed in 97 minutes, by three actors. Fast paced, witty, and physical, it's full of laughter for Shakespeare lovers and haters alike.

Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet. Henry V. Macbeth. A Midsummer Night's Dream. King Lear. Lovers of literature will immediately recognise these as signature works of William Shakespeare, whose plays still rank as the greatest dramas ever produced in the English language four centuries after they were written. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare collects all thirty-seven of the immortal Bard's comedies, tragedies, and historical plays in a beautiful edition. This volume also features Shakespeare's complete poetry, including the sonnets. With this beautiful edition, you can enjoy Shakespeare's enduring literary legacy again and again. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is one of Barnes & Noble's Leatherbound Editions. Each volume presents classic works by the world's best-loved authors in a beautifully designed edition bound in bonded leather. The attractive covers are embossed with colourful foils and the books have many special details including decorative endpapers, gilded edges, and ribbon markers. Elegant and affordable, these volumes are cornerstones for any home library.

Shakespeare and Cultural Appropriation pushes back against two intertwined binaries: the idea that appropriation can only be either theft or gift, and the idea that cultural appropriation should be narrowly defined as an appropriative contest between a hegemonic and marginalized power. In doing so, the contributions to the collection provide tools for thinking about appropriation and cultural appropriation as spectrums constantly evolving and renegotiating between the poles of exploitation and appreciation. This collection argues that the concept of cultural appropriation is one of the most undertheorized yet evocative frameworks for Shakespeare appropriation studies to address the relationships between power, users, and uses of Shakespeare. By robustly theorizing cultural appropriation, this collection offers a foundation for interrogating not just the line between exploitation and appreciation, but also how distinct values, biases, and inequities determine where that line lies. Ultimately, this collection broadly employs cultural appropriation to rethink how Shakespeare studies can redirect attention back to power structures, cultural ownership and identity, and Shakespeare's imbrication within those networks of power and influence. Throughout the contributions in this collection, which explore twentieth and twenty-first century global appropriations of Shakespeare across modes and genres, the collection uncovers how a deeper exploration of cultural appropriation can reorient the inquiries of Shakespeare appropriation studies. This collection will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies, Shakespeare studies and adaption studies.

This book analyses the epistemological problems that Shakespeare explores in Othello. In particular, it uses the methods of analytic philosophy, especially the work of the later Wittgenstein, to characterize these problems and the play.

This book lays bare the dialogue between Shakespeare and critics of the stage, and positions it as part of an ongoing cultural, ethical, and psychological debate about the effects of performance on actors and on spectators. In so doing, the book makes a substantial contribution both to the study of representations of theatre in Shakespeare's plays and to the understanding of ethical concerns about acting and spectating-then, and now. The book opens with a comprehensive and coherent analysis of the main early modern English anxieties about theatre and its power. These are read against 20th- and 21st-century theories of acting, interviews with actors, and research into the effects of media representation on spectator behaviour, all of which demonstrate the lingering relevance of antitheatrical claims and the personal and philosophical implications of acting and spectating. The main part of the book reveals Shakespeare's responses to major antitheatrical claims about the powerful effects of poetry, music, playacting, and playgoing. It also demonstrates the evolution of Shakespeare's view of these claims over the course of his career: from light-hearted parody in A Midsummer Night's Dream, through systematic contemplation in Hamlet, to acceptance and dramatization in The Tempest. This study will be of great interest to scholars and students of theatre, English literature, history, and culture.

I Was There... is a perfect introduction for younger readers into stories from the past, allowing children to imagine that they were really there. I Was There... Ira Aldridge tells the exciting story of the African-American actor, Ira Aldridge, who rose to fame on the London stage. Brilliantly imagined, readers aged 7+ will love this first-hand account of a child's experience of nineteenth-century London and the vibrant life of the theatre. Amazing black-and-white illustrations throughout bring the story to life! Perfect stories for children who are struggling with their reading

Shakespeare's gentle melancholy, enlivened by a comic sub-plot of considerable accomplishment, has long made Twelfth Night a favourite with Shakespearian audiences. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Dr Robert Mighall. Separated from her twin brother Sebastian after a shipwreck, Viola disguises herself as a boy to serve the Duke of Illyria. Wooing a countess on his behalf, she is stunned to find herself the object of his beloved's affections. With the arrival of Viola's brother, and a trick played upon Malvolio, the countess's steward, confusion reigns in this romantic comedy of mistaken identity.

The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's most varied, theatrically self-conscious, and emotionally wide-ranging plays. This 2007 edition provides a newly-edited text, a comprehensive introduction that takes into account current critical thinking, and a detailed commentary on the play's language designed to make it easily accessible to contemporary readers. Much of the play's copiousness inheres in its generic intermingling of tragedy, comedy, romance, pastoral, and the history play. In addition to dates and sources, the introduction attends to iterative patterns, the nature and cause of Leontes' jealousy, the staging and meaning of the bear episode, and the thematic and structural implications of the figure of Time. Special attention is paid to the ending and its tempered happiness. Performance history is integrated throughout the introduction and commentary. Textual analysis, four appendices - including the theatrical practice of doubling, and a select chronology of performance history - and a reading list complete the edition.

'Shakespeare invented the human as we continue to know it' Harold Bloom Set in a city torn apart by feuds and gang warfare, Shakespeare's immortal drama tells the story of star-crossed lovers, rival dynasties and bloody revenge. Romeo and Juliet is a hymn to youth and the thrill of forbidden love, charged with sexual passion and violence, but also a warning of death: a dazzling combination of bawdy comedy and high tragedy. Used and Recommended by the National Theatre General Editor Stanley Wells Edited by T. J. B. Spencer Introduction by Adrian Poole

This volume takes a deep dive into the philosophical hermeneutics of Shakespearean tradition providing insight into the foundations, theories, and methodologies of hermeneutics in Shakespeare. Central to this research, this volume investigates fundamental questions including: what is philosophical hermeneutics, why philosophical hermeneutics, what do literary and cultural Hermeneutics do, and in what ways can literary and cultural hermeneutics benefit the interpretation of Shakespearean plays? Hermeneutic Shakespeare guides the readers through two main discussions. Beginning with the understanding of "Philosophical Hermeneutics," and the general principles of literary and cultural Hermeneutics, the volume includes philosophers such as Fredrich Ast, Daniel Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Wilhelm Dilthey, as well as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and more recently, Steven Connor. Part two of this volume applies universal principles of philosophical hermeneutics to explicate the historical, philosophical, acquired, and applied literary interpretations through the critical practices of Shakespeare's plays or their adaptations, including The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and Comedy of Errors. Aimed at scholars and students alike, this volume aims to contribute to contemporary understanding of Shakespeare and literature hermeneutics.

Exam board: AQA B, Edexcel, Eduqas, Cambridge Assessment International Education Level & Subject: AS and A level English Literature First teaching: September 2015; September 2019 First examination: June 2017; June 2021/2/3 This edition of King Lear is perfect for A-level students, with the complete play in an accessible format, on-page notes, introduction setting the context, timeline, character and theme indexes. Affordable high quality complete play for King Lear Demystify vocabulary with notes on the page and concise commentary Set the scene with perfectly pitched introductions that introduce key contexts, concerns and stylistic features, and examine different performances and interpretations Recall plot summaries at the beginning of each scene Support A Level revision and essay writing with theme and character indexes Help with social, historical and literary context with the bespoke timeline of Shakespeare's life and times

This innovative work challenges normative binaries in contemporary translation studies and applies frameworks from queer historiography to the discipline in order to explore shifting perceptions of same-sex love and desire in translations and retranslations of William Shakespeare's Sonnets. The book brings together perspectives from poststructuralism, queer theory, and translation history to set the stage for an in-depth exploration of a series of retranslations of the Sonnets from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The complex and poetic language of the Sonnets, frequently built around era-specific idioms and allusions, has produced a number of different interpretations of the work over the centuries, but questions remain as to how the translation process may omit, retain, or enhance elements of same-sex love in retranslated works across time and geographical borders. In focusing on target cultures which experienced dramatic sociopolitical changes over the course of the twentieth century and comparing retranslations originating from these contexts, Spisiakova finds the ideal backdrop in which to draw parallels between changing developments in power and social structures and shifting translation strategies related to the representation of gender identities and sexual orientations beyond what is perceived to be normative. In so doing, the book advocates for a queer perspective on the study of translation history and encourages questioning traditional boundaries prevalent in the discipline, making this key reading for students and researchers in translation studies, queer theory, and gender studies, as well as those interested in historical developments in Central and Eastern Europe.

The Self-Centred Art is a study of the plays of Ben Jonson and the actors who first performed in them. Jakub Boguszak shows how the idiosyncrasies of Jonson's comic characters were thrown into relief in actors' part-scripts-scrolls containing a single actor's lines and cues-some five hundred of which are reconstructed here from Jonson's seventeen extant plays. Reading Jonson's spectating parts, humorous parts, apprentice parts, and plotting parts, Boguszak argues that the kind of self-absorption which defines so many of Jonson's famous comic creations would have come easily to actors relying on these documents. Jonson's actors would have moreover worked on their cues, studied their speeches, and thought about the information excluded from their parts differently, depending on the type they had to play. Boguszak thus shows that Jonson brilliantly adapted his comedies to the way the actors worked, making the actors' self-centredness serve his art. This book addresses Jonson's dealings with the actors as well as the printers of his plays and supplements the discussion of different types of parts with a colourful range of case studies. In doing so, it presents a new way of understanding not just Ben Jonson, but early modern theatre at large.

This book provides a thorough analysis of terpsichorean lexis in Renaissance drama. Besides considering not only the Shakespearean canon but also the Bard's contemporaries (e.g., dramatists as John Marston and Ben Jonson among the most refined Renaissance dance aficionados), the originality of this volume is highlighted in both its methodology and structure. As far as methods of analysis are concerned, corpora such as the VEP Early Modern Drama collection and EEBO, and corpus analysis tools such as #LancsBox are used in order to offer the widest range of examples possible from early modern plays and provide co-textual references for each dance. Examples from Renaissance playwrights are fundamental for the analysis of connotative meanings of the dances listed and their performative, poetic and metaphoric role in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century drama. This study will be of great interest to Renaissance researchers, lexicographers and dance historians.

Shakespeare's skillful manipulation of events and people makes Richard III a chilling incarnation of the lure of evil and the temptation of power. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Ned Halley. Richard, Duke of Gloucester - the bitter, deformed brother of the King - is secretly plotting to seize the throne of England. Charming and duplicitous, powerfully eloquent and viciously cruel, he is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his goal.

PLAY AND LEARN: learn Shakespeare as you play this new board game for all the family SCREEN-FREE FUN for 2-5 players aged 8 and up SOMETHING TO TREASURE: this is a quality product made to last, with bespoke illustration and sleek and stylish packaging EXPLORE THE ENTIRE SERIES: this game is part of our bestselling Shakespeare range illustrated by Adam Simpson, including The World of Shakespeare: 1000-piece Jigsaw Puzzle and Shakespeare Playing Cards Journey from Stratford to London in the footsteps of the world's best loved playwright, collect characters and race round London's theatres to put on as many plays as you can before other playwrights steal your ideas, burn down your theatres or spread the plague! In this fun family board game, you will absorb details of Elizabethan England as well as learn loads of references to Shakespeare's plays. The winner is the player whose plays take the most money at the box office, and the fastest in the race to fame and glory.