Key Features: * Study methods * Introduction to the text * Summaries with critical notes * Themes and techniques * Textual analysis of key passages * Author biography * Historical and literary background * Modern and historical critical approaches * Chronology * Glossary of literary terms

Beckett's Voices / Voicing Beckett uses 'voice' as a prism to investigate Samuel Beckett's work across a range of texts, genres, and performance cultures. Twenty-one contributors, all members of the Samuel Beckett Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research, discuss the musicality of Beckett's voices, the voice as 'absent other', the voices of the vulnerable, the cinematic voice, and enacted voices in performance and media. The volume engages not only with Beckett's history and legacy, but also with many of the central theoretical issues in theatre studies as a whole. Featuring testimonies from Beckett practitioners as well as emerging and established scholars, it is emblematic of the thriving and diverse community that is twenty-first century Beckett Studies. Contributors: Svetlana Antropova, Linda Ben-Zvi, Jonathan Bignell, Llewellyn Brown, Julie Campbell, Thirthankar Chakraborty, Laurens De Vos, Everett C. Frost, S. E. Gontarski, Mariko Hori Tanaka, Nicholas E. Johnson, Kumiko Kiuchi, Anna McMullan, Melissa Nolan, Cathal Quinn, Arthur Rose, Teresa Rosell Nicolas, Jurgen Siess, Anna Sigg, Yoshiko Takebe, Michiko Tsushima

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Pathos as Communicative Strategy in Late-Medieval Religious Drama and Art explores the strategies employed to trigger emotional responses in late-medieval dramatic texts from several Western European traditions, and juxtaposes these texts with artistic productions from the same areas, with an emphasis on Britain. The aim is to unravel the mechanisms through which pathos was produced and employed, mainly through the representation of pain and suffering, with mainly religious, but also political aims. The novelty of the book resides in its specific linguistic perspective, which highlights the recurrent use of words, structures and dialogic patterns in drama to reinforce messages on the salvific value of suffering, in synergy with visual messages produced in the same cultural milieu.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

This study originates in the observation that improv comedy or improvised theater has such a vast majority of white people practicing it, while other improvisational or comedic art forms (jazz, freestyle rap, stand up) are historically grounded in and marked as Black cultural production. What it is about improv that makes it such a white space? Can an absence be an object of study? If so, what is there to study? Where should one look?

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

To Die Upon a Kiss-- Othello is Shakespeare's great tragic play of love, trust, and deceit. Iago, an officer of the watch, sets out to destroy Othello by convincing him that his young bride, Desdemona, has betrayed him and is secretly in love with another man. What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust? I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me; I slept the next night well, was free and merry; I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips. He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n, Let him not know't and he's not robb'd at all.

Verbatim theatre, a type of performance based on actual words spoken by ''real people'', has been at the heart of a remarkable and unexpected renaissance of the genre in Great Britain since the mid-nineties. The central aim of the book is to critically explore and account for the relationship between contemporary British verbatim theatre and realism whilst questioning the much-debated mediation of the real in theses theatre practices.

This is the first critical edition of Exiles, Joyce's only extant play and his least appreciated work. A. Nicholas Fargnoli and Michael Patrick Gillespie contend that the play deserves the same serious study as Joyce's fiction and stands on the cutting edge of modern drama. Their introduction situates Exiles in the context of Irish history and Joyce's other works, highlighting its often-overlooked complexity. The text of the play is newly annotated and unregularized, appearing as Joyce originallyintended. Containing a variety of critical responses to the text, including an interview with a recent director of the play, this edition establishes Exiles as an important component of Joyce's canon.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

In the Alcestis, the title character sacrifices her own life to save that of her husband, Admetus, when he is presented with the opportunity to have someone die in his place. Alcestis compresses within itself both tragedy and its apparent reversal, staging in the process fascinating questions about gender roles, family loyalties, the nature of heroism, and the role of commemoration. Alcestis is Euripides's earliest complete work and his only surviving play from the period preceding the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Currently dominant post-structuralist models of Greek tragedy focus on its 'oppositional' role in the discourse of war and public values. This study challenges not only this politicised model of tragic discourse but also both traditional masculinist and more recent feminist readings of the discourse and performance of gender in this remarkable play. The play survived in the performance repertoire of antiquity into the Roman period. Euripides' version strongly influenced the reception of the myth through the middles ages into the Renaissance, and the story enjoyed a lively afterlife through opera. Alcestis' contested reception in the last two centuries charts our changing understanding of tragedy. Niall Slater's study explores the reception and afterlife of the play, as well as its main themes, the myth before the play, the play's historical and social context and the central developments in modern criticism.

Where is the pleasure in tragedy? This question, how suffering and sorrow become the stuff of aesthetic delight, is at the center of Charles Segal's new book, which collects and expands his recent explorations of Euripides' art.
"Alcestis, Hippolytus," and "Hecuba," the three early plays interpreted here, are linked by common themes of violence, death, lamentation and mourning, and by their implicit definitions of male and female roles. Segal shows how these plays draw on ancient traditions of poetic and ritual commemoration, particularly epic song, and at the same time refashion these traditions into new forms. In place of the epic muse of martial glory, Euripides, Segal argues, evokes a muse of sorrows who transforms the suffering of individuals into a "common grief for all the citizens," a community of shared feeling in the theater.
Like his predecessors in tragedy, Euripides believes death, more than any other event, exposes the deepest truth of human nature. Segal examines the revealing final moments in "Alcestis, Hippolytus," and "Hecuba," and discusses the playwright's use of these deaths--especially those of women--to question traditional values and the familiar definitions of male heroism. Focusing on gender, the affective dimension of tragedy, and ritual mourning and commemoration, Segal develops and extends his earlier work on Greek drama. The result deepens our understanding of Euripides' art and of tragedy itself.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Theatre of the Borderlands: Conflict, Violence, and Healing is an enlightening and encompassing study that focuses on how dramatists from the Northern Mexico border territories write about theater. The plays analyzed in this study are representative of the most important Northern Border playwrights whose plays' themes present the US-Mexico Borderlands in a socio-historical and political context. The most important themes observed include topics that engage in discussions of: the indigenous, Border crossings, heroes and folk saints, the city of Tijuana, and violence in the Borderlands, to name a few. These themes have led to the birth of the Teatro del Norte movement, a group of determined playwrights insistent on presenting dramaturgical themes that show the bond between their particular geographies, histories, socio-political and economic situations, thereby giving birth to an original voice and new aesthetic of representation. Dealing with the topics already mentioned, and pairing them with more timely ones like immigration reform, namely, this study can serve as an invaluable resource to many interdisciplinary academic settings, and can grant an eye-opening insight to Border relations through several critical readings.

This book examines the continuing relevance of Buchner in the early twenty-first century, in terms of politics, science, philosophy, aesthetics, performance and cultural studies, uniquely combining close readings with wide-ranging cultural, theatrical, philosophical and theoretical contextualizations. Der Band beschaftigt sich mit Buchners anhaltender Aktualitat in den verschiedensten Bereichen. Er zeichnet sich durch detailliert textbezogene Interpretationen aus, die gleichzeitig zahlreiche aktuelle kultur- und theaterwissenschaftliche, philosophische, naturwissenschaftliche, asthetische und theoretische Themen ansprechen.

This book is a collection of 22 essays by scholars in the field of Medieval Drama, mostly relating to performance both past and present. Alford wrote one essay in the book.

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"This powerful and lively package of primary materials and historical context will demonstrate how historical 'forces' play themselves out on the ground. Kierner's collection offers a fresh lens on a new world struggling into being and will inspire teachers and students of all ages alike."
--Catherine Allgor, author of "A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation"

aThe Contrast makes a real contribution to the existing scholarship on this period, it has great appeal for classroom use, and it puts back in print an amusing play that is instrumental in understanding critical issues in the new nation. The play aThe Contrasta centers on gender roles, relations, and expectations, mocking the gender stereotypes of the day and is a rich source for understanding a host of political and social issues in the Early Republic. It is funnyaeven to a modern audienceaand replete with literary references.a
--Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, author of "Ladies and Gentlemen on Display: Planter Society at the Virginia Springs, 1790-1860"

aI can think of no other text of the period that lays out the drive toward transparency more clearly or denigrates coquettes and libertines more entertainingly. The play is a pivotal piece of American cultural history.a
--Norma Basch, author of "Framing American Divorce: From the Revolutionary Generation to the Victorians"

"The Contrast," which premiered at New York City's John Street Theater in 1787, was the first American play performed in public by a professional theater company. The play, written by New England-born, Harvard-educated, Royall Tyler was timely, funny, andextremely popular. When the play appeared in print in 1790, George Washington himself appeared at the head of its list of hundreds of subscribers.

Reprinted here with annotated footnotes by historian Cynthia A. Kierner, Tyler's play explores the debate over manners, morals, and cultural authority in the decades following American Revolution. Did the American colonists' rejection of monarchy in 1776 mean they should abolish all European social traditions and hierarchies? What sorts of etiquette, amusements, and fashions were appropriate and beneficial? Most important, to be a nation, did Americans need to distinguish themselves from Europeans -- and, if so, how?

Tyler was not the only American pondering these questions, and Kierner situates the play in its broader historical and cultural contexts. An extensive introduction provides readers with a background on life and politics in the United States in 1787, when Americans were in the midst of nation-building. The book also features a section with selections from contemporary letters, essays, novels, conduct books, and public documents, which debate issues of the era.

Bertolt Brecht's reputation as a flawed, irrelevant or difficult thinker for the theatre can often go before him to such an extent that we run the risk of forgetting the achievements that made him and his company, the Berliner Ensemble, famous around the world. David Barnett examines both Brecht the theorist and Brecht the practitioner to reveal the complementary relationship between the two.This book aims to sensitize the reader to the approaches Brecht took to the world and the stage with a view to revealing just how carefully he thought about and realized his vision of a politicized, interventionist theatre. What emerges is a nuanced understanding of his concepts, his work with actors and his approaches to directing. The reader is encouraged to engage with Brecht's method that sought to 'make theatre politically' in order to locate the innovations he introduced into his stagecraft. There are many examples given of how Brecht's ideas can be staged, and the final chapter takes two very different plays and asks how a Brechtian approach can enliven and illuminate their production. Ultimately, the book invites readers, students and theatre-makers to discover new ways of apprehending and making use of Brecht.

Is loyalty to the state worth everything? Titus Andronicus, Rome's most honored general, has led twenty-one of his sons to their death on battlefields, fighting for Rome, even killing one for, in his judgment, behaving disloyalty to the emperor. With the Roman emperorship uncertain, he returns triumphant from wars against the Goths, bringing with him the captives Queen Tamora, her sons, and her lover Aaron. From the beginning the violent and tragic consequences of this action decide the course of the play. Undoubtedly Shakespeare at his most violent, Titus Andronicus is not for the faint-hearted. Beyond the bloodshed it is an examination of the state: Rome in which law, custom, and tradition have come to be so powerful as to obscure reality, and so make possible a barbarity that understands itself as the peak of civilization; and the individual: driven by loyalty, revenge, and the desire for power, and yet endowed with the capacity to change.

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can best re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. The tragedies collected here were originally available as single volumes. This new collection retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions, with Greek line numbers and a single combined glossary added for easy reference.
This volume collects for the first time three of Sophocles most moving tragedies, all set in mythical Thebes: Oedipus the King, perhaps the most powerful of all Greek tragedies; Oedipus at Colonus, a story that reveals the reversals and paradoxes that define moral life; and Antigone, a touchstone of thinking about human conflict and human tragedy, the role of the divine in human life, and the degree to which men and women are the creators of their own destiny.