Originally adapted for the stage, Peter Meineck's revised translations achieve a level of fidelity appropriate for classroom use while managing to preserve the wit and energy that led The New Yorker to judge his Clouds The best Greek drama we've ever seen anywhere," and The Times Literary Supplement to describe his Wasps as "Hugely enjoyable and very, very funny. A general Introduction, introductions to the plays, and detailed notes on staging, history, religious practice and myth combine to make this a remarkably useful teaching text.

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre and a popular poet. This is the sixth volume in a set of seven which comprises a complete edition of all her works.

The political events of "annus mirabilis" 1989 marked a rare turning point in world history, but the significance of the year for German literary history is unique. As the 40-year-old German Democratic Republic ceased to exist, so too did the special circumstances which had fostered a literature separate from and in competition with that of the Federal Republic of Germany. A new period of literary history was delimited almost overnight: Germany Democratic Republic literature now was something to be examined as a whole, cultural movement. At the same time, the literary traditions of the German Democratic Republic have continued to influence the contemporary cultural scene, often in ways that are only gradually becoming clear.
The essays, memoirs, and plays collected in this special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review represent an early attempt to assess and reassess one of the German Democratic Republic's richest cultural domains: its theatre. Contributors include David W. Robinson, C

This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation.

This series gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and little-published documentary material such as letters and diaries. Pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation.

This series gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and little-published documentary material such as letters and diaries. Pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation.

"The Critical Heritage" gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects. "The Critical Heritage" set is available as a set of 67 volumes, as mini-sets selected by period (in slipcase boxes) or as individual volumes.

This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects.

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre, a popular poet and author of the influential novel "Oroonoko". This is a seven-volume set of all her works. Volumes 5,6 and 7 are scheduled for publication in early 1996.

Introduction - Cuchulain and the Sidhe: Vision and Tragic Encounter - The Landscape of Tragedy: Three Dance Plays - A Tragic Universe: The Framework of A Vision - Four Plays and the Problem of Evil - Conclusion: The Death of the Hero - Notes - Bibliography - Index

Peterson has done a great service to students of African-American theater. . . . Peterson's scholarship is impressive; the book's format is inviting . . . an indispensable reference book for academic libraries. "Choice"

This reference volume addresses an often overlooked area in the history of the American theatre, the contributions of early black playwrights and dramatic writers. At a time when they were denied full participation in many aspects of American life, including the mainstream of the theatre itself, black artists were compiling an impressive record of achievement on the American stage. This book, the most comprehensive on the subject, provides a complete look at these achievements by offering biographical information and a catalog of works for approximately 200 writers, including playwrights, librettists, screenwriters, and radio scriptwriters. From the emergence of black playwrights in the time prior to the Civil War, to the early days of film and radio in this century, the efforts of early black writers are fully documented in this work.

The book begins with an author's preface and is followed by an introductory essay that discusses the development of black American playwrights from the antebellum period to World War II. The heart of the book, the biographical directory, is organized alphabetically, with each entry providing highlights of the author's life and career; collected anthologies that include any works; and an annotated chronological list of individual dramatic works, including genre, length, synopses, production history, prizes and awards, and script sources. Three appendixes offer information on other playwrights and their works, additional librettists and descriptions of their shows, and a chronology of dramatic works by genre. A bibliography cites such information sources as reference books and critical studies, dissertations, play anthologies, and newspapers and periodicals frequently consulted, as well as significant libraries and repositories. The book concludes with title and general indexes and an index to early black theatre organizations. This work will be an important reference source for courses in black American drama and theatre history, and a valuable addition to both public and academic libraries.

Mourning and memorialization are at the very centre of literary culture. They take on forms deeply resonant of the sundry traditions of poetic elegy even when those elegiac conventions are displaced, concealed, or plainly unintentional. For all of its pervasiveness, however, the "elegy" remains remarkably ill-defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead. This Handbook is the single most comprehensive study of its subject. It provides both a historical survey and a thematic engagement with the relevant issues in elegy. It is responsive to a pressing need for clarification of the relevant issues, and to the exciting developments currently under way in elegy studies.
Such a volume is especially timely, since in recent years there has been a veritable explosion in interest in elegies about AIDS, cancer, and war; various reconsiderations of the role of women in the history of elegiac writing; and readings of elegy in relation to ethics, philosophy and theory, and political structure.
With 38 chapters by leading specialists, ranging from Gregory Nagy's reconsideration of Ancient Greek elegy through Stuart Curran's novel engagement with Romantic elegiac hybridity, and on to Elizabeth Helsinger's consideration of elegy and painting, this Handbook offers groundbreaking scholarship and remarkable historical breadth.

Shakespeare's plays were immensely popular in their own day - so why do we refuse to think of them as mass entertainment? In Pleasing Everyone, author Jeffrey Knapp opens our eyes to the uncanny resemblance between Renaissance drama and the incontrovertibly mass medium of Golden-Age Hollywood cinema. Through fascinating explorations of such famous plays as Hamlet, The Roaring Girl, and The Alchemist, and such celebrated films as Citizen Kane, The Jazz Singer, and City Lights, Knapp challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the relationship between art and mass audiences. Above all, Knapp encourages us to resist the prejudice that mass entertainment necessarily simplifies and cheapens whatever it touches. As Knapp shows, it was instead the ceaseless pressure to please everyone that helped generate the astonishing richness and complexity of Renaissance drama as well as of Hollywood film.

The Faerie Queene anticipates postmodernist concerns with destabilizing language, and Lauren Silberman's stimulating study of Books III and IV of the poem proceeds from the assumption that Spenser has something important to say to us in the late twentieth century. In these books, Spenser exposes fictions of total control for what they are-fictions. The text affirms the value of risk and improvisation over the temptation to seek guarantees. The books examine the role of desire in moving us to function in an uncertain world and tempting us to foreclose that uncertainty by strategies that seek to frame knowledge through total mastery of it.

Samuel Beckett's 1976 Television play Ghost Trio is one of his most beautiful and mysterious works. It is also the play that most clearly demonstrates Beckett's imaginative and aesthetic engagement with the visual arts and the history of painting in particular. Drawing on the work of Stanley Cavell and Michael Fried, On Ghost Trio demonstrates Beckett's exploration of the relationship between theatricality, absorption and objecthood, and shows how his work anticipates the development of video and installation art. In doing so Conor Carville develops a new and highly original reading of Beckett's art, rooted in both archival sources and philosophical aesthetics.

This major work brings together, for the first time in a single volume, all the recognized sources of Marlowe's dramatic work. Many of the forty-two texts presented here are of outstanding interest in their own right. Together they illuminate the cultural milieu which fostered Marlowe's talent, and deepen our appreciation of his dramatic methods.
* Each of the texts is accessibly presented for the modern reader and is fully annotated.
* Works in Latin or foreign vernaculars are translated, many for the first time, and modern spelling and punctuation are used throughout.
* The sources for each play are examined individually and are thoroughly edited.
Few libraries provide the range of sources contained in this one volume. The editors include texts of works such as the English Faust-Book from which Marlowe borrowed heavily, and provide substantial extracts from other books with which he was no doubt familiar.
This book is an invaluable resource for all those interested in Marlowe and the development of Elizabethan theatre.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203379837

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre and a popular poet. This is the fourth volume in a set of seven which comprises a complete edition of all her works.

'I could fly to New York and back every day for seven years and still not leave a carbon footprint as big as if I have a child. Ten thousand tonnes of CO2. That's the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I'd be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.' In a time of global anxiety, terrorism, erratic weather and political unrest, a young couple want a child but are running out of time. If they over think it, they'll never do it. But if they rush, it could be a disaster.They want to have a child for the right reasons. Except, what exactly are the right reasons? And what will be the first to destruct - the planet or the relationship?

Introduction - PART 1 - The Ghost - Thyestes and Revenge Structure - The Spanish Tragedy: Dagger and Mirror - Antonio's Revenge: Stoic and Player - The Revenger's Tragedy: Mirror and Dagger - PART 2 HAMLET - Commandment - Performance - Unmasking - I Antithesis - II Deliverance - Appendix - Notes - Index

Zoe Akins was an artist who became successful as a Broadway playwright. For Akins, this was a hard earned title, which she achieved after years of false starts and near misses. She wrote over 40 plays, 18 of which appeared on the Broadway stage between 1919 and 1944. Also in her oeuvre are two novels, numerous short stories and essays, several film and television scripts, and two volumes of poetry. Akins constantly tried to balance her writing style so that it would suit her own moral code and simultaneously appeal to a paying audience. She was a woman in a field dominated by men, but she persevered and accomplished much including winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1935 for "The Old Maid."

This volume follows the progression of Akin's writing career. It primarily focuses on her Broadway plays, but also highlights other plays and writings (such as poems, film scripts, and short stories) which reflect various aspects of Akin's artistry. It will appeal to theatre, history, and women's studies scholars, as well as anyone interested in the literary career of a unique individual.

I come no more to make you laugh; things now That bear a weighty and a serious brow, Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, We now present. Those that can pity here May, if they think it well, let fall a tear: The subject will deserve it. Such as give Their money out of hope they may believe May here find truth too. Those that come to see Only a show or two, and so agree The play may pass, if they be still and willing, I'll undertake may see away their shilling Richly in two short hours. Only they That come to hear a merry bawdy play, A noise of targets, or to see a fellow In a long motley coat guarded with yellow, Will be deceiv'd; for, gentle hearers, know,

"Performing Libertinism in Charles II's Court: Politics, Drama, Sexuality" examines the performative nature of Restoration libertinism by reading reports of libertine activities and texts of libertine plays within the context of the fraternization between George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Sir Charles Sedley, Sir George Etherege, and William Wycherley. Webster argues that libertines, both real and imagined, performed traditionally secretive acts, including excessive drinking, sex, sedition, and sacrilege, in the public sphere. This eruption of the private into the public challenged a Stuart ideology that distinguished between the nation's public life and the king's and his subjects' private consciences. Although this eruption was contained by the early 1680s, the libertine performances this book analyzes nevertheless played an important part in the history of English radicalism.