An extensive history of The Royal Shakespeare Company's studio theatre, Studio Shakespeare: The Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place also includes a biography of its founder and first artistic director, Mary Ann 'Buzz' Goodbody (1947-75). Alycia Smith-Howard reveals how, as a socialist, feminist, and the RSC's first female director, Goodbody sought to invigorate classical theatre and its approach to producing the works of Shakespeare. The Other Place, which opened its doors in 1973, was her greatest achievement, and was, in the words of Ron Daniels of the American Repertory Theatre, 'a training ground for an entire generation of Shakespeare actors and directors'. The volume examines Shakespeare productions at The Other Place from 1973 to its closure in 1989. The author's sources include Goodbody's 'Mission Statement' for the studio theatre as well as other previously unavailable materials such as Goodbody's private papers, journal entries, director's notes and correspondence. In addition, it contains interviews and commentary from such theatrical luminaries as Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, Cicely Berry, Trevor Nunn, Peter Hall, Patrick Stewart, and many others. Smith-Howard's narrative discusses productions of twelve plays at The Other Place, among them King Lear (1974), Hamlet (1975), The Merchant of Venice (1978), Antony and Cleopatra (1982), King John (1988) and Othello (1989). The cast lists of productions at The Other Place are included in an appendix. Smith-Howard's study captures the spirit and ethos of an important and radical exercise in theatre which influenced the mainstream work of The Royal Shakespeare Company. It is a lucid, compelling and valuable contribution not only to Shakespeare studies but also to theatre history. This book, as directors once said, 'has legs'.

This collection of essays centres on Double Falsehood, Lewis Theobald's 1727 adaptation of the "lost" play of Cardenio, possibly co-authored by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. In a departure from most scholarship to date, the contributors fold Double Falsehood back into the milieu for which it was created rather than searching for traces of Shakespeare in the text. Robert D. Hume's knowledge of theatre history permits a fresh take on the forgery question as well as the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Diana Solomon's understanding of eighteenth-century rape culture and Jean I. Marsden's command of contemporary adaptation practices both emphasise the play's immediate social and theatrical contexts. And, finally, Deborah C. Payne's familiarity with the eighteenth-century stage allows for a reconsideration of Double Falsehood as integral to a debate between Theobald, Alexander Pope, and John Gay over the future of the English drama.

Constructing 'Monsters' in Shakespearean Drama and Early Modern Culture argues for the crucial place of the 'monster' in the early modern imagination. The author traces the metaphorical significance of 'monstrous' forms across a range of early modern exhibition spaces - fairground displays, 'cabinets of curiosity' and court entertainments - to contend that the 'monster' finds its most intriguing manifestation in the investments and practices of contemporary theater. The study's new readings of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson make a powerful case for the drama's contribution to debates about the 'extraordinary body'.

People find me. When it's dark. 1863. An asylum. A woman locked in a windowless cell, with no memory as to who she is, or how she arrived there. When spiritualist medium Mrs Lyall requires a new assistant, this nameless woman seems the perfect candidate. But as the woman's past begins to reveal itself, so do new powers neither are prepared for. Alistair McDowall's haunting new play The Glow was the 2018 Pinter Commission, an award given annually by Lady Antonia Fraser to support a new commission at the Royal Court Theatre. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Royal Court Theatre in January 2022.

Coleridge was a major critic of Shakespeare and a seminal influence on modern criticism. Earlier selections of his Shakespeare criticism are now out of print. This new selection is drawn largely from Professor Foakes' authoritative edition of Coleridge's Literary Lectures and it makes this material available in a format which allows the student to follow the development of Coleridge's ideas and the changes in his critical procedures. There is a considerable Introdcution. Professor Foakes teaches in the Department of English as the University of California in Los Angeles. He is the editor of Coleridge's Literary Lectures (1986) for the new Princeton Collected Coleridge.

Language and Politics in the Sixteenth-Century History Play examines a key preoccupation of historical drama in the period 1538-1600: the threat presented by uncivil language. "Unlicensed" speech informs the presentation of political debate in Tudor history plays and it is also the subject of their most daring political speculations. By analysing plays by John Bale, Thomas Norton, Thomas Sackville, and Robert Greene, as well as Shakespeare, this study also argues for a more inclusive approach to the genre.

Shakespeare and Cognition challenges orthodox approaches to Shakespeare by using recent psychological findings about human decision-making to analyse the unique characters that populate his plays. It aims to find a way to reconnect readers and watchers of Shakespeare's plays to the fundamental questions that first animated them. Why does Othello succumb so easily to Iago's manipulations? Why does Anne allow herself to be wooed by Richard III, the man who killed her husband and father? Why does Macbeth go from being a seemingly reasonable man to a cold-blooded killer? Why does Hamlet take so long to kill Claudius? This book aims to answer these questions from a fresh perspective.

"Published in the U.S.A. in 1985 under the title To analyze delight"--T.p. verso.

David and Bathsheba presents a modernised edition of George Peele's explosive biblical drama about the tangled lives, deadly liaisons, and twisted histories of Ancient Israel's royal family. Martin's critical edition is the first modern single-volume edition of the play since 1912 and opens up this unduly neglected gem of English Renaissance drama to student and scholar alike. The introduction examines such topics as the play's treatment of its biblical and poetic sources, its engagement with Elizabethan politics, and its forceful representations of religious fanaticism, genocide, and sexual violence. Its commentary notes clarify the text's meaning and staging, guide the reader through the play's dramatisation of the turbulent Davidic period of Ancient Israel's history, and place the play in its broader cultural and artistic milieu. Martin's edition aims to encourage new contemporary critical study of Peele's powerful and disturbing drama. -- .

Teaching Shakespeare through performance has a long history, and active methods of teaching and learning are a logical complement to the teaching of performance. Virtual reality ought to be the logical extension of such active learning, providing an unrivalled immersive experience of performance that overcomes historical and geographical boundaries. But what are the key advantages and disadvantages of virtual reality, especially as it pertains to Shakespeare? And more interestingly, what can Shakespeare do for VR (rather than vice versa)? This Element, the first on its topic, explores the ways that virtual reality can be used in the classroom and the ways that it might radically change how students experience and think about Shakespeare in performance.

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.

Can postmodern accounts of the gaze--deriving from the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Lacan, Fanon, and Riviere—tell us anything about those structures of vision prior to, and repressed by, modernity? Shakespeare's Visual Regime examines the tragedies, histories, and Roman plays for an emergent early modern spectatorial subject, thereby locating Shakespearean theater within those discourses most crucial to the contemporary exposition and disruption of regimes of vision: perspective painting, cartography, optics, geometry, Puritan anti-theatrical polemic, and the occult.

With its fantasy of magical travel and inexhaustible riches, Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus is the quintessential early modern journeying play. The adventures of Fortunatus and his sons, aided by a magical purse and wishing-hat, offers the period's most overt celebration of the pleasures of travel, as well as a sustained critique of the dangers of intemperance and prodigality. Written following a period of financial difficulty for Dekker, the play is also notable for its fascination with the symbolic, mercantile and ethical uses of gold. This Revels Plays edition is the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of Old Fortunatus. It offers scholarly discussion of the play's performance and textual history, including attention to the German version printed and performed in the early seventeenth century. It provides a long overdue critical reappraisal of this unjustly neglected play. -- .

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.

Volumes in this series trace the course of Shakespeare criticism, play-by-play, from the earliest items of recorded criticism to the beginnings of the modern period. The focus of the documentary material is from the late 18th century to the first half of the 20th century. The series makes a major contribution to our understanding of the plays and traditions of Shakespearean criticism as they have developed from century to century. The introduction to each volume constitutes an important chapter of literary history, tracing the entire critical career of each play from the beginnings to the present day. Includes English, European and American excerpts from Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Ruskin, Walt Whitman, Algernon Charles Swinburne, George Bernard Shaw, John Masefield, Lytton Strachey, John Middleton Murray, and Wyndham Lewis.

An outline of dramatic history which marks the great turning points in the development of theatre. A delineation of the conventions which various playwrights invented, and of the societies in which they wrote. The author intends to explain what has happened in the history of the stage, why it happened, and what it means.

This revised edition of the successful Casebook first published in 1969, has been brought up-to-date with the inclusion of more recent criticism, whilst retaining early comments and critiques. Contributors include A.C.Bradley, A.Wilson Knight, Enid Welsford, George Orwell, Robert B.Heilman, Barbara Everett, John Holloway, W.R.Elton, Stanley Cavell and Stephen Greenblatt.

Shaughnessy's Eugene O'Neill in Ireland: The Critical Response is both more and less than a detailed study of how O'Neill's plays have fared in his ancestral homeland. Part theater history and part influence study, part production sourcebook and part anthology of criticism, this volume touches on all the possible connections between the playwright and the country to which he was so closely tied. American Literature Although Eugene O'Neill felt that his Irishness was the single feature that came closest to explaining his work, the reaction of the Irish critics and public to his plays has never been systematically explored. This new study is the first to focus on Irish perceptions of O'Neill. It traces the discussion carried on by Irish critics, scholars, and theatre professionals and reveals, in the process, many exciting new insights into the nature and significance of the dramatist's work. A balanced and informative treatment, it includes the author's penetrating analysis of the ways O'Neill's Irish heritage affected his work, a selection of essays by Irish critics, and information on Irish productions of his plays. Shaughnessy first examines the dimensions of the playwright's Irish connections -- his ancestry and cultural heritage and his use of Irish-related themes, symbols, and language. He looks at the history of productions staged in Ireland between 1922 and 1987 and at the Irish perceptions of 'the O'Neill issue.' Drawing on reviews, personal interviews, questionnaires, and letters, Shaughnessy reveals the complexity of the controversy surrounding the playwright's work. Selected essays, editorials, reviews, and scholarly commentaries -- many reprinted here for the first time -- demonstrate the range of opinion and the continuing impact of O'Neill plays on Irish thought. A catalog of productions of O'Neill plays in both the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland provides information on the dates and locations of productions as well as casts and directors. This lively and informative work also includes a selection of superb photos of O'Neill productions staged by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin Gate Theatre, and Belfast Lyric Players.

York Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

What is Restoration comedy? What pleasure does it offer its audience, and what significance does it find in exploring that pleasure? Edward Burns here provides a new account of the origins and nature of Restoration comedy as a distinct genre. The book enlarges the usual focus with a wider range of writers than the conventional ossified canon taking in a revaluation of many rarely studied dramatists, a reconsideration of pastoral, and the instatement of women writers as major contributors to the culture of the age. It offers a substantial and original interpretation of one of the most intriguing of seventeenth-century literature forms.

Performing Transversally expands on Bryan Reynolds' controversial transversal theory in exciting ways while offering groundbreaking analyses of Shakespeare's plays--Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Henry V, The Tempest, and Coriolanus--and textual, filmic, and theatrical adaptations of them. With his collaborators, Reynolds challenges traditional readings of Shakespeare, reevaluating the critical methodologies that characterize them, in regard to issues of cultural difference, authorship, representation, agency, and iconography. Reynolds demonstrates the value of his “investigative-expansive mode,” outlining a “transversal poetics” that points toward a critical future that is more aware of its subjective interconnectedness with the topics and audiences it seeks to engage than is reflected in most Shakespeare criticism and literary-cultural scholarship.

Shakespeare's Sublime Ethos: Matter, Stage, Form breaks new ground in providing a sustained, demystifying treatment of its subject and looking for answers to basic questions regarding the creation, experience, aesthetics and philosophy of Shakespearean sublimity. More specifically, it explores how Shakespeare generates a sublime mood or ethos which predisposes audiences intellectually and emotionally for the full experience of sublime pathos, explored in the companion volume, Shakespeare's Sublime Pathos. To do so, it examines Shakespeare's invention of sublime matter, his exploitation of the special characteristics of the Elizabethan stage, and his dramaturgical and formal simulacra of absolute space and time. In the process, it considers Shakespeare's conception of the universe and man's place in it and uncovers the epistemological and existential implications of key aspects of his art. As the argument unfolds, a case is made for a transhistorically baroque Shakespeare whose "bastard art" enables the dramatic restoration of an original innocence where ignorance really is bliss. Taken together, Shakespeare's Sublime Ethos and Shakespeare's Sublime Pathos show how Shakespearean drama integrates matter and spirit on hierarchical planes of cognition and argue that, ultimately, his is an immanent sublimity of the here-and-now enfolding a transcendence which may be imagined, simulated or evoked, but never achieved.

This volume offers a new introduction which provides a wide-ranging survey of criticism of "Macbeth" and four new essays. The new essays from Muriel Bradbrook, Malcolm Evans, Graham Holderness and Germaine Greer bring this edition up-to-date with current critical approaches. The essays are contributed by - A.C. Bradley, S. Freud, G. Wilson Knight, C. Spurgeon, J. Masefield, C. Brooks, L.C. Knight's, M. Bradbrook, G. Holderness, G. Greer and M. Evans.