This book will constitute an original intervention into longstanding but insistently relevant debates around the significance of notions of 'performativity' to the critical analysis of early modern drama. In particular, the book aims to: show how the investigation of performativity can enable readings of Shakespeare and Jonson that challenge the dominant methodological frameworks within which those plays have come to be read; demonstrate that the thought of performativity does not come to rest in the simplicity of method or instrumentality, and that it resists its own claim that language and action might be understood as unproblematically instrumental; demonstrate that this self-resistance occurs or takes place as a moment in the process of articulating the claims of the performative, and that this process is itself in an important sense dramatic.

Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus revivifies the complex question of fate and freedom in the tragedies of the famous Greek playwright. Starting with Sartre's insights about radical existential freedom, this book shows that Aeschylus is concerned with the ethical ramifications of surrendering our lives to fatalism (gods, curses, inherited guilt) and thoroughly interrogates the plays for their complex insights into theology and human motivation. But can we reconcile the radical freedom of existentialism and the seemingly fatal world of tragedy, where gods and curses and necessities wreak havoc on individual autonomy? If forces beyond our control or comprehension are influencing our lives, what happens to choice? How are we to conceive of ethics in a world studiously indifferent to our choices? In this book, author Ric Rader demonstrates that few understood the importance of these questions better than the tragedians, whose literature dealt with a central theological concern: What is a god? And how does god affect, impinge upon, or even enable human freedom? Perhaps more importantly: If god is dead, is everything possible, or nothing? Tragedy holds the preeminent position with regard to these questions, and Aeschylus, our earliest surviving tragedian, is the best witness to these complex theological issues.

A World Elsewhere is Steven Berkoff's bold attempt to describe his multifarious theatrical works. Berkoff outlines the methods that he uses, first of all as an actor, secondly as a playwright and thirdly as theatre director, as well as those subtle connections in between, when one discipline melds effortlessly into another. He examines the early impulses that generated his works and what drove him to give them form, as well as the challenges he faced when adapting the work of other authors. Berkoff discusses some of his most difficult, successful and unique creations, journeying through his long and varied career to examine how they were shaped by him, and how he was shaped by them. The sheer scale of this book offers a rare experience of an accomplished artist, combined with the honesty and insight of an autobiography, making this text a singular tool for teaching, inspiration and personal exploration. Suitable for anyone with an interest in Steven Berkoff and his illustrious career, A World Elsewhere is the part analysis and part confession of an artist whose work has been performed all over the world.

Baroque Lorca: An Archaist Playwright for the New Stage defines Federico Garcia Lorca's trajectory in the theater as a lifelong search for an audience. It studies a wide range of dramatic writings that Lorca created for the theater, in direct response to the conditions of his contemporary industry, and situates the theory and praxis of his theatrical reform in dialogue with other modernist renovators of the stage. This book makes special emphasis on how Lorca engaged with the tradition of Spanish Baroque, in particular with Cervantes and Calderon, to break away from the conventions of the illusionist stage. The five chapters of the book analyze Lorca's different attempts to change the dynamics of the Spanish stage from 1920 to his assassination in 1936: His initial incursions in the arenas of symbolist and historical drama (The Butterfly's Evil Spell, Mariana Pineda); his interest in puppetry (The Billy-Club Puppets and In the Frame of Don Cristobal) and the two 'human' farces The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife and The Love of Don Perlimplin and Belisa in the Garden; the central piece in his project of 'impossible' theater (The Public); his most explicitly political play, one that takes the violence to the spectators' seats (The Dream of Life); and his three plays adopting, an altering, the contemporary formula of 'rural drama' (Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba). Chapter 5 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

For ordering the hardcover version of this book, please contact [email protected] (Retail Price: GBP100.00, $151.90). 'Franco Marucci's History of English Literature is unique in its field. There is no other book that combines such erudition and authority in such a compact format. An indispensable work of reference.' - J. B. Bullen, Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford History of English Literature is a comprehensive, eight-volume survey of English literature from the Middle Ages to the early twenty-first century. This reference work provides insightful and often revisionary readings of core texts in the English literary canon. Richly informative analyses are framed by the biographical, historical and intellectual context for each author. Volume 8 continues with the 1920s and the 1930s, when the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, Fascist dictatorships, and the threat of a second war challenged apolitical Modernism. Poets led by Auden, novelists like Orwell and figures such as Lawrence of Arabia defined the period. By the end of the Second World War, a realist, satirical or comic tradition resurfaces in the novel, while in poetry the affirmation of a pre-war neo-Romantic vein, especially with Dylan Thomas, is reacted against by various movements that lead poetry back to the common man. Two important years are 1953, when Waiting for Godot by Beckett is staged, and 1956, when Look Back in Anger by Osborne gives life to the 'angry' novel and theatre. Extensive discussions not only of writers now become classics (Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, Heaney, Hill and Ted Hughes) but also of other leading ones (such as Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan) are included.

For ordering the hardcover version of this book, please contact [email protected] (Retail Price: GBP100.00, $151.90). 'Franco Marucci's History of English Literature is unique in its field. There is no other book that combines such erudition and authority in such a compact format. An indispensable work of reference.' - J. B. Bullen, Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford History of English Literature is a comprehensive, eight-volume survey of English literature from the Middle Ages to the early twenty-first century. This reference work provides insightful and often revisionary readings of core texts in the English literary canon. Richly informative analyses are framed by the biographical, historical and intellectual context for each author. Volume 8 continues with the 1920s and the 1930s, when the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, Fascist dictatorships, and the threat of a second war challenged apolitical Modernism. Poets led by Auden, novelists like Orwell and figures such as Lawrence of Arabia defined the period. By the end of the Second World War, a realist, satirical or comic tradition resurfaces in the novel, while in poetry the affirmation of a pre-war neo-Romantic vein, especially with Dylan Thomas, is reacted against by various movements that lead poetry back to the common man. Two important years are 1953, when Waiting for Godot by Beckett is staged, and 1956, when Look Back in Anger by Osborne gives life to the 'angry' novel and theatre. Extensive discussions not only of writers now become classics (Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, Heaney, Hill and Ted Hughes) but also of other leading ones (such as Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan) are included.

The idea of the tragic has permeated Western culture for millennia, being closely bound with the concept of the limit of inescapable necessity that has been embodied in and expressed through theatre since the time of the ancient Greeks. This book addresses the question of how the twentieth century - one of the most violent periods of human history - dealt with the fundamental structure that is the tragic. Examining the consciousness of the era through an in-depth analysis of some of the twentieth century's most outstanding texts - including works by Ibsen, Claudel, O'Neill, Brecht, Camus, Beckett, Pasolini, Grotowski, Delcuvellerie and Josse De Pauw - 'Modern European Tragedy' draws a vivid picture of the development that tragedy experienced during this time.

Brings together authors of fiction with philosophers and academics in Early Modern England and compares their ways of describing and understanding the world; Explores popular culture as well as the culture of the learned and elite; Examines the intellectual consequences of the Reformation and compares the spiritual and doctrinal practices of the occult to those of orthodoxy. Magic and the supernatural are common themes in the philosophy and fiction of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Supernatural Fiction in Early Modern Drama and Culture explores varieties of scepticism and belief exhibited by a selection of philosophers and playwrights, including Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Giordano Bruno, John Dee, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Middleton, explicating how each author defines the supernatural, whether he assumes magic to operate in the world, and how he uses occult principles to explain what can be known and what is ethical. Beliefs and claims concerning impossible phenomena and superhuman agency require literary historians to determine whether an occult system of magical operation is being described in a given text. Each chapter in this volume evaluates whether a chosen early modern author is endorsing magic as efficacious or divinely sanctioned, or criticizing it for being fraudulent or unholy. By examining works of fiction, it is possible to explore fantastic settings which were not intended to be synonymous with the early modern audiences everyday experience, settings where magic exists and operates according to the playwrights designs. This book also sets out to determine what historical sources provided given authors with knowledge of the occult and speculates on how aware an audience would have been of academic, classical, or popular contexts surrounding the text at hand.

Written by an international group of highly regarded scholars and rooted in the field of intermedial approaches to literary studies, this volume explores the complex aesthetic process of "picturing" in early modern English literature. The essays in this volume offer a comprehensive and varied picture of the relationship between visual and verbal in the early modern period, while also contributing to the understanding of the literary context in which Shakespeare wrote. Using different methodological approaches and taking into account a great variety of texts, including Elizabethan sonnet sequences, metaphysical poetry, famous as well as anonymous plays, and court masques, the book opens new perspectives on the literary modes of "picturing" and on the relationship between this creative act and the tense artistic, religious and political background of early modern Europe. The first section explores different modes of looking at works of art and their relation with technological innovations and religious controversies, while the chapters in the second part highlight the multifaceted connections between European visual arts and English literary production. The third section explores the functions performed by portraits on the page and the stage, delving into the complex question of the relationship between visual and verbal representation. Finally, the chapters in the fourth section re-appraise early modern reflections on the relationship between word and image and on their respective power in light of early-seventeenth-century visual culture, with particular reference to the masque genre.

This book presents a collection of over 200 of the most interesting and important fragments of Greek comedy, accompanied by a commentary; an extensive introduction discussing the history of comic genre; a series of appendixes on the individual poets, the inscriptional evidence, and the like; and a complete translation of the fragments. Individual sections illustrate the earliest Greek comedy from Syracuse; the characteristic features of Athenian 'Old', 'Middle', and 'New Comedy'; the comic presentation of politicians, philosophers, and women; the comic reception of other poetry; and many aspects of daily life, including dining and symposia.

How should we read a text that does not exist, or present a play the manuscript of which is lost and the identity of whose author cannot be established for certain?

Such is the enigma posed by "Cardenio" - a play performed in England for the first time in 1612 or 1613 and attributed forty years later to Shakespeare (and Fletcher). Its plot is that of a 'novella' inserted into Don Quixote, a work that circulated throughout the major countries of Europe, where it was translated and adapted for the theatre. In England, Cervantes' novel was known and cited even before it was translated in 1612 and had inspired "Cardenio."

But there is more at stake in this enigma. This was a time when, thanks mainly to the invention of the printing press, there was a proliferation of discourses. There was often a reaction when it was feared that this proliferation would become excessive, and many writings were weeded out. Not all were destined to survive, in particular plays for the theatre, which, in many cases, were never published. This genre, situated at the bottom of the literary hierarchy, was well suited to the existence of ephemeral works. However, if an author became famous, the desire for an archive of his works prompted the invention of textual relics, the restoration of remainders ruined by the passing of time or, in order to fill in the gaps, in some cases, even the fabrication of forgeries. Such was the fate of "Cardenio" in the eighteenth century.

Retracing the history of this play therefore leads one to wonder about the status, in the past, of works today judged to be canonical. In this book the reader will rediscover the malleability of texts, transformed as they were by translations and adaptations, their migrations from one genre to another, and their changing meanings constructed by their various publics. Thanks to Roger Chartier's forensic skills, fresh light is cast upon the mystery of a play lacking a text but not an author.

'On Beckett' is a collection of writings about the Nobel Prize-winning author that covers the entire spectrum of his work, and also affords a rare glimpse of the private Beckett.

Ibsen and Chekhov on the Irish Stage presents articles on the theories of translation and adaptation, new insights on the work of Brian Friel, Frank McGuinness, Thomas Kilroy, and Tom Murphy, historical analyses of theatrical productions during the Irish Revival, interviews with contemporary theatre directors, and a round-table discussion with the playwrights, Michael West and Thomas Kilroy. Ibsen and Chekhov on the Irish Stage challenges the notion that a country's dramatic tradition develops in cultural isolation. It uncovers connections between past productions of plays by Ibsen and Chekhov and contemporary literary adaptations of their works by Irish playwrights, demonstrating the significance of international influence for the formation of national canon. Conceived in the spirit of a round-table discussion, Ibsen and Chekhov on the Irish Stage is a collective study of the intricacies of trans-cultural migration of dramatic works and a re-examination of Irish theatre history from 1890 to the present day.

This revelatory study explores how Scottish history plays, especially since the 1930s, raise issues of ideology, national identity, historiography, mythology, gender and especially Scottish language. Covering topics up to the end of World War Two, the book addresses the work of many key figures from the last century of Scottish theatre, including Robert McLellan and his contemporaries, and also Hector MacMillan, Stewart Conn, John McGrath, Donald Campbell, Bill Bryden, Sue Glover, Liz Lochhead, Jo Clifford, Peter Arnott, David Greig, Rona Munro and others often neglected or misunderstood. Setting these writers' achievements in the context of their Scottish and European predecessors, Ian Brown offers fresh insights into key aspects of Scottish theatre. As such, this represents the first study to offer an overarching view of historical representation on Scottish stages, exploring the nature of 'history' and 'myth' and relating these afresh to how dramatists use - and subvert - them. Engaging and accessible, this innovative book will attract scholars and students interested in history, ideology, mythology, theatre politics and explorations of national and gender identity.

The Nation of Islam and Black Consciousness: The Works of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Other Writers engages in the scholarly discussions about the origins and formation of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which rarely give credit to the role of the Nation of Islam's (NOI) teachings in the emergence of the movement and in shaping the subjects and themes of its literary works. This book reevaluates the common belief that Malcolm X is the most appealing black historical figure in the movement's literature and demonstrates how the NOI's perception of black consciousness shaped the aesthetic sensibilities of the movement's poets and playwrights in their fights against anti-black racism. The Nation of Islam and Black Consciousness can be used in African American literature courses as it provides a thorough analysis of hidden literary texts written by black writers in the 1960s and 1970s. Reading this book today will help readers reflect on how a narrow understanding of "Americanness" is threatening to the American ideals of diversity and inclusiveness on which America was founded. Moreover, this book is useful for those who are interested in studying how identity politics functions to achieve certain social and cultural goals.

This series of volumes aims to provide an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of literature and religion, concerned with the fundamentally important issues of the imagination, literary perceptions and an understanding of poetics for theology and religious studies, and the underlying religious implications in so much literature and literary criticism. This introduction to the theatre also attempts to offer a meditation on the theatricality of the Incarnation. Arguing that both biblical and dramatic texts should be approached with a theatrical rather than a literary imagination, the author explores theatrical history, looking at plays as diverse as the medieval Cornish "Ordinalia" and Rostand's romantic "Cyrano de Bergerec". At the same time, he observes the comic potential of the Gospel narratives and the affirmation of humanity entailed in the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation.

This book paints a vivid portrait of Anton Chekhov - a Russian writer whose elusive personality and richly detailed plays have left an indelible imprint upon the world's theatre. Every page reveals the joys and difficulties of his short life, his comic sensibility, deep compassion, and often puzzling use of dramatic style and genre. Carnicke demystifies Chekhov's plays - forged from his literary innovations, avid theatre going, love of vaudeville, and loathing of melodrama. She interweaves biographical and cultural information with insightful case studies and close analysis to leave her reader with a full and fresh perspective on an artist, who is as foundational to theatrical traditions as are Shakespeare and Stanislavsky.

A vivid snapshot of America's kaleidoscopic literary tradition, A Journey Through American Literature illuminates the authors, works, and events that have shaped our cultural heritage. Kevin J. Hayes charts this history through a series of approachable thematic chapters-Narrative Voice and the Short Story, the Drama of the Everyday, the Great American Novel-that reveal the richness of our literature while providing a compelling set of footholds with which to engage it. Among the topics covered are the role of travel and the symbolism of geography, characters and the importance of voice and dialect, self-definition and the American dream, new beginnings, and the role of memory. Hayes not only discusses the main canonical genres like poetry, drama, and the novel, but also looks at travel writing, autobiography, and frame tales. Key writers like Mark Twain, Ralph Ellison, Emily Dickinson, and Harriet Jacobs are central players in the drama while dozens more create a backdrop that gives this history depth. The book also features over 20 illustrations, a bibliography, and a chronology listing the key events and work in America's literary history.

For more than 150 years, Irish playwrights, beginning with Dion Boucicault, have been celebrated by American audiences. However, Irish theater as represented on the American stage is merely a sampling of the national drama, and the underlying causes of Irish dramatic success in America illuminate the cultural state of both countries at specific historical moments. ""Irish Theater in America"" is the first book devoted entirely to the long history of this transatlantic exchange.Born out of the Irish Theatrical Diaspora project, this collection brings together leading American and Irish scholars with established theater critics. The contributors explore the history of Irish theater in America, from Harrigan and Hart to the recent productions of senior Irish playwrights such as Brian Friel and younger writers such as Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson. Examining the complexity of the relationship between Irish theater and American audiences, this volume goes beyond analyses of plays to include examinations of company dynamics, tours of companies and actors, audience reception, and the production history of individual works.

Originally published in 1990, Medieval English Drama is an exhaustive bibliography of scholarship on medieval English drama. Each item has been annotated in the bibliography with considerable care; these annotations are descriptive rather than critical and give a clear synopsis of the content of each reference, the texts with which it deals, and a brief indication of its critical position. The bibliography is divided into two sections; editions and collections of plays, and critical works. The bibliography is exhaustive rather than selective and provides English annotations for foreign language works, as well as a list of reviews for most books. The book covers liturgical and folk drama, other forms of entertainment, and related material useful to researchers in the field. The book provides an update of sources not listed in Carl J. Stratman's comprehensive Bibliography of Medieval Drama published in 1972.

"And Yet I Remember" explores representations of ageing and old age in English drama from 1660 to the 1750s. Within these approximately ninety years, England witnessed significant developments in medicine and the advent of sentimental philosophy, which began to transform attitudes toward old age and ageing. This study discusses the enduring cultural and literary stereotyping of old(er) people in culture and drama of this period. The chapters are organised around the stereotypes that kept reappearing in cultural, medical and religious narratives on old age, namely the desiring old man (senex amans) and woman (the "lusty old widow") and the nostalgic and wise elder. Exploring many diverse storylines between 1660 and the 1750s that treat old age and present old(er) characters, the analyses in this study further show how the choice of genre, personal experiences and attitudes of the playwright, and political and cultural revolutions affected the representation of older people.

The 15th in a series drawn from scholarship presented at the annual Comparative Drama Conference at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, this collection provides insights into texts and practices currently at the forefront of theatrical discussion. The volume includes various essays on the intersections of script and performance, and features an exclusive interview with keynote speaker, playwright Simon Stephens.

To what extent is a great comic writer the product of his time? How far is he (or she) influenced by factors of personal psychology upbringing and environment? To what is the writing actually part of a long continuum in which there is continuity within change and change within continuity? The Progress of Fun considers principally the last of these areas, focussing on the case of W.S. Gilbert and challenging the frequently held view that he is pre-eminently a typical Victorian. This it does by tracing his roots back to Ancient Greek comedy and to the various comedic developments that have dominated Western Europe thereafter. Also included is a careful examination of the constraints and limitations that in various forms have long affected comedy-writing, and an evaluation of Gilbert's particular skills and legacy within the on-going process. The whole is a suitable prelude to a second volume (Pipes and Tabors) which will consider Genre in W.S. Gilbert, again relating it to comedic precedents and the universally timeless within the particular.