Launching a much-needed new series discussing each comedy that survives from the ancient world, this volume is a vital companion to Terence's earliest comedy, Andria, highlighting its context, themes, staging and legacy. Ideal for students it assumes no knowledge of Latin, but is helpful also for scholars wanting a quick introduction. This will be the first port of call for anyone studying or researching the play. Though Andria launched Terence's career as a dramatist at Rome, it has attracted comparatively little attention from modern critics. It is nevertheless a play of great interest, not least for the sensitivity with which it portrays family relationships and for its influence on later dramatists. It also presents students of Roman comedy with all the features that came to characterize Terence's particular version of traditional comedy, and it raises all the interpretive questions that have dogged the study of Terence for generations. This volume will use a close reading of the play to explore the central issues in understanding Terence's style of play-making and its legacy.

Shakespeare's Villains--and Calumniators and Tyrants is a close reading of Shakespeare's plays to investiage the nature of evil. Charney closely considers the way that dramatic characters are developed in terms of language, imagery, and nonverbal stage effects. With chapters on Iago, Tarquin, Aaron, Richard Duke of Glaucester, Shylock, Claudius, Polonius, Macbeth, Edmund, Goneril, Regan, Angelo, Tybalt, Don John, Iachimo, Lucio, Julius Caesar, Leontes, and Duke Frederick, this book is the first comprehensive study of the villains in Shakespeare.

By connecting Shakespeare's language to the stunning artwork that depicted the end of the world, this study provides not only provides a new reading of Shakespeare but illustrates how apocalyptic art continues to influence popular culture today. Drawing on extant examples of medieval imagery, Roger Christofides uses poststructuralist and psychoanalytic accounts of how language works to shed new light on our understanding of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. He then links Shakespeare's dependence on his audience to appreciate the allusions made to the religious paintings to the present day. For instance, popular television series like Battlestar Galactica, seminal horror movies such as An American Werewolf in London and Carrie and recent novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road. All draw on imagery that can be traced directly back to the depictions of the Doom, an indication of the cultural power these vivid imaginings of the end of the world have in Shakespeare's day and now.

Music pervades Shakespeare's work. In addition to vocal songs and numerous instrumental cues there are thousands of references to music throughout the plays and many of the poems. This book discusses Shakespeare's musical imagery according to categories defined by occurrence in the plays and poems. In turn, these categories depend on their early modern usage and significance. Thus, instruments such as lute and viol deserve special attention just as Renaissance ideas relating to musical philosophy and pedagogical theory need contextual explanation. The objective is to locate Shakespeare's musical imagery, reference and metaphor in its immediate context in a play or poem and explain its meaning. Discussion and explanation of the musical imagery suggests a range of possible dramatic and poetic purposes these musical references serve.

The First World War (1914-1918) marked a turning point in modern history and culture and its literary legacy is vast: poetry, fiction and memoirs abound. But the drama of the period is rarely recognised, with only a handful of plays commonly associated with the war."First World War Plays" draws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted World War I in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, and historical revisionism. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain and the United States.Plays from the period, like "Night Watches" by Allan Monkhouse (1916), "Mine Eyes Have Seen" by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) and "Tunnel Trench" by Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war in "Post Mortem" by Noel Coward (1930, performed 1944) and "Oh What A Lovely War" by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later works "The Accrington Pals" by Peter Whelan (1982) and "Sea and Land and Sky "by Abigail Docherty (2010).Accompanied by a general introduction by editor, Dr Mark Rawlinson.

"""The Theatre of Caryl Churchill" documents and analyses the major plays and productions of one of Britain's greatest and most innovative playwrights. Drawing on hundreds of never-before-seen archival sources from the US and the UK, it provides an essential guide to Churchill's groundbreaking work for students and theatregoers. Each chapter illuminates connections across plays and explores major scripts alongside unpublished and unfinished projects. Each considers the rehearsal room, the stage, and the printed text. Each demonstrates how Churchill has pushed the boundaries of dramatic aesthetics while posing urgent political and theoretical questions. But since each maps Churchill's work in a different way, each deploys a different reading practice - for many approaches are necessary to characterise such a restlessly imaginative and prolific career. Through its five interlocking parts, "The Theatre of Caryl Churchill "tells a story about the playwright, her work, and its place in contemporary drama.

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.

Alongside the works of the better-known classical Greek dramatists, the tragedies of Lucius Annaeus Seneca have exerted a profound influence over the dramaturgical development of European theatre. The Senecan Aesthetic surveys the multifarious ways in which Senecan tragedy has been staged, from the Renaissance up to the present day: plundered for neo-Latin declamation and seeping into the blood-soaked revenge tragedies of Shakespeare's contemporaries, seasoned with French neoclassical rigour, and inflated by Restoration flamboyance. In the mid-eighteenth century, the pincer movement of naturalism and philhellenism began to squeeze Seneca off the stage until August Wilhelm Schlegel's shrill denunciation silenced what he called its 'frigid bombast'. The Senecan aesthetic, repressed but still present, staged its return in the twentieth century in the work of Antonin Artaud, who regarded Seneca as 'the greatest tragedian of history'. This volume restores Seneca to a canonical position among the playwrights of antiquity, recognizing him as one of the most important, most revered, and most reviled, and in doing so reveals how theory, practice, and scholarship have always been interdependent and inseparable.

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.

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.

Shakespeare, Court Dramatist centres around the contention that the courts of both Elizabeth I and James I loomed much larger in Shakespeare's creative life than is usually appreciated. Richard Dutton argues that many, perhaps most, of Shakespeare's plays have survived in versions adapted for court presentation, where length was no object (and indeed encouraged) and rhetorical virtuosity was appreciated. The first half of the study examines the court's patronage of the theatre during Shakespeare's lifetime and the crucial role of its Masters of the Revels, who supervised all performances there (as well as censoring plays for public performance). Dutton examines the emergence of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men, to whom Shakespeare was attached as their 'ordinary poet', and reviews what is known about the revision of plays in the early modern period. The second half of the study focuses in detail on six of Shakespeare's plays which exist in shorter, less polished texts as well as longer, more familiar ones: Henry VI Part II and III, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare, Court Dramatist argues that they are not cut down from those familiar versions, but poorly-reported originals which Shakespeare revised for court performance into what we know best today. More localised revisions in such plays as Titus Andronicus, Richard II, and Henry IV Part II can also best be explained in this context. The court, Richard Dutton argues, is what made Shakespeare Shakespeare.

Human sacrifice, a spirited heroine, a quest ending in a hairsbreadth escape, the touching reunion of long-lost siblings, and exquisite poetry-these features have historically made Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris one of the most influential of Greek tragedies. Yet, despite its influence and popularity in the ancient world, the play remains curiously under-investigated in both mainstream cultural studies and more specialized scholarship. With Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris, Edith Hall provides a much-needed cultural history of this play, giving as much weight to the impact of the play on subsequent Greek and Roman art and literature as on its manifestations since the discovery of the sole surviving medieval manuscript in the 1500s. The book argues that the reception of the play is bound up with its spectacular setting on the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula in what is now the Ukraine, a territory where world history has often been made. However, it also shows that the play's tragicomic tenor and escape plot have had a tangible influence on popular culture, from romantic fiction to Hollywood action films. The thirteen chapters illustrate how reactions to the play have evolved from the ancient admiration of Aristotle and Ovid, the Christian responses of Milton and Catherine the Great, the anthropological ritualists and theatrical Modernists including James Frazer and Isadora Duncan, to recent feminist and postcolonial dramatists from Mexico to Australia. Individual chapters are devoted to the most significant adaptations of the tragedy, Gluck's opera Iphigenie en Tauride and Goethe's verse drama Iphigenie auf Tauris. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, with all texts translated into English, Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris argues elegantly for a reappraisal of this Euripidean masterpiece.

This is a detailed historical analysis of Shakespeare and food that provides fascinating insights into early modern attitudes to the body and domestic life. This dictionary is the first to analyze Shakespeare's language of food. It provides an historically accurate account of the role of food in early modern culture and the way this intersected with Shakespeare's writings and introduces contemporary ideas that informed the representations of food and feeding in his plays and poems. Drawing on early modern dietaries as well as other sources including religious sermons and tracts, legal documents, recipe books and conduct manuals, it provides the historical and cultural context to Shakespeare's depictions of food and feeding. This comprehensive analysis of Shakespeare and food also offers fascinating insights into early modern attitudes to food, drink, the body and domestic life. "The Continuum Shakespeare Dictionary" series provides authoritative guides to major subject-areas covered by the poetry and plays. The dictionaries provide readers with a comprehensive guide to the topic under discussion, especially its contemporary meanings, and to its occurrence and significance in Shakespeare's works. Comprehensive bibliographies accompany many of the items. Entries range from a few lines in length to mini-essays, providing the opportunity to explore an important literary or historical concept or idea in depth.

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.

Contemporary Irish Documentary Theatre is the first anthology of Irish documentary drama. It features five challenging plays by Irish writers, and one by an international author, interrogating and commenting on crucial events of Irish history and of the diaspora, with introductory essays by established academics. Together these plays represent the most innovative development in contemporary Irish theatre and illuminate the social and political realities of contemporary Ireland. The first two plays, of 2010 and 2013, deal with scandals of clerical and institutional abuse, and use as source material the Ryan Report of 2009, and the documents from the 2008 Irish Bank Guarantee. The next two, of 2014 and 2013, concern interpretations of the most iconic moment of Irish history: the Easter Rising. The first of these is based on published statements of participants in the event and the second on the lived experiences of those in the contemporary Republic whose founding ideals have not been realized . The last two plays, of 2015 and 2016, widen the view to the history of the Irish in the diaspora: one retelling the history of emigration to England based on published research material; and the other tracing Roger Casement's experiences in the Amazon and his subsequent participation in the Easter Rising using extracts from his diaries and other writings. The plays included and discussed are: No Escape by Mary Raftery Guaranteed by Colin Murphy Of This Brave Time by Jimmy Murphy History by Grace Dyas My English Tongue, My Irish Heart by Martin Lynch The Two Deaths of Roger Casement by Domingos Nunez

As perhaps the best-known and most-studied work in the canon of Shakespeare's leading contemporary rival, Ben Jonson's Volpone (1606) is a particularly important play for thinking about early modern drama as a whole. This guide offers students an introduction to its critical and performance history, including recent versions on stage and screen. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays presenting contrasting critical approaches focusing on literary intertextuality; performance studies; political history; and broader social history. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further individual research.

A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams provides the essential guide to Williams' most studied and revived dramas. Authored by a team of leading scholars, it offers students a clear analysis and detailed commentary on four of Williams' plays: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth. A consistent framework of analysis ensures that whether readers are wanting a summary of the play, a commentary on the themes or characters, or a discussion of the work in performance, they can readily find what they need to develop their understanding and aid their appreciation of Williams' artistry. A chronology of the writer's life and work helps to situate all his works in context and the introduction reinforces this by providing a clear overview of Williams' writing, its recurrent themes and concerns and how these are intertwined with his life and times. For each play the author provides a summary of the plot, followed by commentary on: * The context * Themes * Characters * Structure and language * The play in production (both on stage and screen adaptations) Questions for study, and notes on words and phrases in the text are also supplied to aid the reader. The wealth of authoritative and clear commentary on each play, together with further questions that encourage comparison across Williams' work and related plays by other leading writers, ensures that this is the clearest and fullest guide to Williams' greatest plays.

This innovative volume testifies to the current revived interest in Shakespeare's language and style and opens up new and captivating vistas of investigation. Transcending old boundaries between literary and linguistic studies, this engaging collaborative book comes up with an original array of theoretical approaches and new findings. The chapters in the collection capture a rich diversity of points of view and cover such fields as lexicography, versification, dramaturgy, rhetorical analyses, cognitive and computational corpus-based stylistic studies, offering a holistic vision of Shakespeare's uses of language. The perspective is deliberately broad, confronting ideas and visions at the intersection of various techniques of textual investigation. Such novel explorations of Shakespeare's multifarious artistry and amazing inventiveness in his use of language will cater for a broad range of readers, from undergraduates, postgraduates, scholars and researchers, to poetry and theatre lovers alike.

Winner of the Roma Gill Prize 2015, Marlowe's Literary Scepticism re-evaluates the representation of religion in Christopher Marlowe's plays and poems, demonstrating the extent to which his literary engagement with questions of belief was shaped by the virulent polemical debates that raged in post-Reformation Europe. Offering new readings of under-studied works such as the poetic translations and a fresh perspective on well-known plays such as Doctor Faustus, this book focuses on Marlowe's depiction of the religious frauds denounced by his contemporaries. It identifies Marlowe as one of the earliest writers to acknowledge the practical value of religious hypocrisy, and a pivotal figure in the history of scepticism.

Ferdinand forbids his widowed sister to marry again. When he discovers that she is not only married but had a child he is driven mad with fury. The Duchess of Malfi is a study in strong characters, dark deeds and dreadful revenge. This edition includes close textual analysis, notes on different interpretations, interviews with actors and directors and a selection of critical scenes.

First published in 2006, Alek's Sierz's "The Theatre of Martin Crimp "provided a groundbreaking study of one of British theatre's leading contemporary playwrights. Combining Sierz's lucid prose and sharp analysis together with interviews with Martin Crimp and a host of directors and actors who have produced the work, it offered a richly rewarding and engaging assessment of this acutely satirical playwright. The second edition additionally explores the work produced between 2006 and 2013, both the major new plays and the translations and other work. The second edition considers "The City," the 2008 companion play to "The Country," "Play House" from 2012 and the new work for the Royal Court in late 2012. The two works that have brought Crimp considerable international acclaim in recent years, the updated rewrite of Th"e Misanthrope" which in 2009 played for several months in the West End starring Keira Knightley, and Crimp's translation of Botho Strauss's "Big and Small" (Barbican, 2012), together with Crimp's other work in translation are all covered. "The Theatre of Martin Crimp "remains the fullest, most readable account of Crimps's work for the stage.

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.

Joseph O'Neill's novel, Netherland, has won many prestigious awards and recognitions, including the PEN/Faulker Award and The New York Times Book Review's "Best Book of the Year." This book, written and published in the first decade of the 21st century, accurately captures the zeitgeist of the American people and American people's perception about American politics, War against Terror, and American capitalism. Dr. Heerak Christian Kim, who has identified the literary device of "The Key Signifier," analyzes Joseph's O'Neill's book, Netherland, with the view to understanding the current irregularities in US domestic politics as well as the general zeitgeist of the American people. There is no question that the first decade of the 21st century has been the most "odd" decade of American history in terms of politics. The anti-Washington sentiment that is sweeping the nation from the agricultural heartland of America and the labor-centric cities of America, such as Boston, is creating unprecedented questioning of what makes America what it is and the values that motivate the American people. Professor Kim's important historical-literary criticism book on Joseph O'Neill's novel, Netherland, provides valuable insights into understanding the current trends in American society. This book is a valuable resource for not only literary critics and English teachers, but also for the educated public interested in understanding current trends in American society and politics. Dr. Heerak Christian Kim is the author of the scholarly monograph, Key Signifier as Literary Device: Its Definition and Function in Literature and Media.