Has any other love story become so enmeshed in our culture as the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet? In fair Verona the families of Montague and Capulet are locked in a long-standing, bitter blood feud when young Romeo Montague slips into a masquerade party at the Capulet's. During the dance he glimpses Juliet, the daughter of the house, and is struck by love at first sight. She returns his passion and they promise each other everlasting love notwithstanding the rift between their families. Despite their extraordinary circumstances, the story of Romeo and Juliet has become the archetypal tale of young love. Reflecting the seemingly insurmountable hurdles young lovers perceive and the conviction that even death is preferable to separation. Perhaps the fascination also lies in Shakespeare's exquisite language that so perfectly expresses the depths of feeling that manifests what all lovers would say if they found the words.

This book examines the important themes of sexuality, gender, love, and marriage in stage, literary, and film treatments of Shakespeare's plays. The theme of sexuality is often integral to Shakespeare's works and therefore merits a thorough exploration. Sexuality in the Age of Shakespeare begins with descriptions of sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome, medieval England, and early-modern Europe and England, then segues into examinations of the role of sexuality in Shakespeare's plays and poetry, and also in film and stage productions of his plays. The author employs various theoretical approaches to establish detailed interpretations of Shakespeare's plays and provides excerpts from several early-modern marriage manuals to illustrate the typical gender roles of the time. The book concludes with bibliographies that students of Shakespeare will find invaluable for further study. Includes excerpts of four English early-modern marriage manuals A bibliography contains sources regarding Greek, Roman, medieval, and early-modern European sexuality as well as Shakespearean criticism A glossary clarifies unfamiliar terms

This important collection brings together leading scholars to examine crucial questions regarding the theory and practice of editing Shakespeare's plays. In particular the essays look at how best to engage editorially with evidence provided by historical research into the playhouse, author's study, and printing house. How are editors of playscripts to mediate history, in its many forms, for modern users? Considering our knowledge of the past is partial (in the senses both of incomplete and ideological), where are we to draw the line between legitimate editorial assistance and unwarranted interference? In what innovative ways might current controversies surrounding the mediation of Shakespeare's drama shape future editorial practice? Focusing on the key points of debate and controversy of the present moment, this collection makes a vital contribution to a better understanding of how editorial practice (on the page and in cyberspace) might develop in the twenty-first century.

Can the inadvertent clashes between collaborators produce more powerful effects than their concordances? For Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, the playwriting team best known for their tragedy The Changeling, disagreements and friction proved quite beneficial for their work. This first full-length study of Middleton and Rowley uses their plays to propose a new model for the study of collaborative authorship in early modern English drama. David Nicol highlights the diverse forms of collaborative relationships that factor into a play's meaning, including playwrights, actors, companies, playhouses, and patrons. This kaleidoscopic approach, which views the plays from all these perspectives, throws new light on the Middleton-Rowley oeuvre and on early modern dramatic collaboration as a whole.

Octavia is a work of exceptional historical and dramatic interest. It is the only surviving complete example of the Roman historical drama known as the fabula praetexta. Written shortly after Nero's death by an unknown author, the play deals with events at the court of Nero in the decisive year 62 CE, for which it is the earliest extant (almost contemporary) literary source; its main themes are sex, murder, politics, power and the perceptions and constructions of history. It is a powerful, lyrical and spectacular play. This is the first critical edition of Octavia, with verse translation and commentary, which aims to elucidate the text dramatically as well as philologically, and to locate it firmly in its historical and theatrical context. The verse translation is designed for both performance and serious study.

Following the ethos and ambition of the Shakespeare NOW series, and harnessing the energy, challenge and vigour of the 'minigraph' form, Shakespeare and I is a provocative appeal and manifesto for a more personal form of criticism. A number of the most exciting and authoritative writers on Shakespeare examine and scrutinise their deepest, most personal and intimate responses to Shakespeare's plays and poems, to ask themselves if and how Shakespeare has made them the person they are. Their responses include autobiographical histories, reflections on their relationship to their professional, institutional or familial roles and meditations on the person-making force of religious or political conviction. A blog at http: //shakespearenowseries.blogspot.com enables both contributors and readers to continue the debate about why Shakespeare keeps us reading and what that means for our lives today. The book aims to inspire readers to think and write about their ever-changing personal relationship with Shakespeare: about how the poems and plays - and writing about them - can reveal or transform our sense of ourselves.

Packed full of analysis and interpretation, historical background, discussions and commentaries, York Notes will help you get right to the heart of the text you're studying, whether it's poetry, a play or a novel. You'll learn all about the historical context of the piece; find detailed discussions of key passages and characters; learn interesting facts about the text; and discover structures, patterns and themes that you may never have known existed. In the Advanced Notes, specific sections on critical thinking, and advice on how to read critically yourself, enable you to engage with the text in new and different ways. Full glossaries, self-test questions and suggested reading lists will help you fully prepare for your exam, while internet links and references to film, TV, theatre and the arts combine to fully immerse you in your chosen text. York Notes offer an exciting and accessible key to your text, enabling you to develop your ideas and transform your studies!

Despite the recent turn to affects and emotions in the humanities and despite the unceasing popularity of romantic and erotic love as a motif in fictional works of all genres, the subject has received surprisingly little attention in academic studies of contemporary drama. Love in Contemporary British Drama reflects the appeal of love as a topic and driving force in dramatic works with in-depth analyses of eight pivotal plays from the past three decades. Following an interdisciplinary and historical approach, the study collects and condenses theories of love from philosophy and sociology to derive persisting discourses and to examine their reoccurrence and transformation in contemporary plays. Special emphasis is put on narratives of love's compensatory function and precariousness and on how modifications of these narratives epitomise the peculiarities of emotional life in the social and cultural context of the present. Based on the assumption that drama is especially inclined to draw on shared narratives for representations of love, the book demonstrates that love is both a window to remnants of the past in the present and a proper subject matter for drama in times in which the suitability of the dramatic form has been questioned.

One of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, Othello sets itself apart with its personal scale, fascinating plot and compelling, exotic characters. It shows the two sides of passion with shocking clarity. At first great love overcomes the great differences in social status, age, and race between Othello and Desdemona and their mutual devotion seems invulnerable. But the waves of passion are turned to obsessive jealousy at the hand of Iago, the perfect villain, who has set out to destroy Othello on a personal mission of revenge. With a faultlessly executed plan, Iago sews the seeds of doubt and mistrust that pervert Othello's once noble mind and ensnares those closest to him into a miserable web of deceit and doom. This powerful drama, with its gripping dialogue and unequalled poetry, is not to be missed.

This book examines the two-way impacts between Brecht and Chinese culture and drama/theatre, focusing on Chinese theatrical productions since the end of the Cultural Revolution all the way to the first decades of the twenty-first century. Wei Zhang considers how Brecht's plays have been adapted/appropriated by Chinese theatre artists to speak to the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural developments in China and how such endeavors reflect and result from dynamic interactions between Chinese philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics, especially as embodied in traditional xiqu and the Brechtian concepts of estrangement (Verfremdungseffekt) and political theatre. In examining these Brecht adaptations, Zhang offers an interdisciplinary study that contributes to the fields of comparative drama/theatre studies, intercultural studies, and performance studies.

Reiko Oya explores theatrical expressions of Shakespearean tragedy in Georgian London and the relations between the representative players of the time - David Garrick, John Philip Kemble and his sister Sarah Siddons, and Edmund Kean - and their close circle of friends. The book begins by analysing the tragic emotion that Garrick conveyed through his performance of King Lear, and the responses to it from such critics as Samuel Johnson and Elizabeth Montagu. The second chapter examines the concept of sublimity in Kemble and Siddons??? interpretations of Macbeth. The final chapter studies the disparity between the literary and the theatrical Hamlet in Kean??'s impersonation and William Hazlitt??'s response to it. With subjects ranging from Shakespearean promptbooks to paintings and the poetics of Romanticism, the book offers great insights into the exchange of ideas and inspirations among the cultural luminaries who surrounded the London stage.

Poor women do not fit easily into the household in Shakespeare. They shift in and out of marriages, households, and employments, carrying messages, tallying bills, and making things happen; never the main character but always evoking the ever-present problem of female poverty in early modern England. Like the illegal farthings that carried their likenesses, poor women both did and did not fit into the household and marriage market. They were both essential to and excluded from the economy. They are both present and absent on the early modern stage. In the drama, they circulate between plots, essential because they are so mobile, but largely unnoticed because of their mobility. These female characters represent an exploration of gender and economic roles at the bottom, as England shifted from feudalism to empire in the span of Shakespeare's lifetime. We find their dramas played out in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Plays from Romania: Dramaturgies of Subversion reflects the diversity of dramatic writing exploring the past and present of Romania, and takes stock thirty years after the collapse of communism. In addition to plays originally written in Romanian, the collection includes work by German, Hungarian and Roma authors born and/or working in Romania, and brings together plays written during the communist period and its aftermath. The plays included in the collection, edited and translated by Jozefina Komporaly and fully published for the first time in English, demonstrate broad variety in terms of form and content - ranging from family dramas to allegories, and absurdist experiments to modular texts rooted in open dramaturgy - and are the work of both individual playwrights and the results of collective creation. These works share a preoccupation with critically reflecting urgent concerns rooted in Romanian realities, and are notable dramaturgical experiments that push the boundaries of the genre. In addition, these plays also seek novel ways to examine universal experiences of the human condition, such as love, loss, abuse, betrayal, grief, violence, manipulation and despair. This unique anthology celebrates the renewed vitality and variety of writing for the stage after 1990, and endeavours to place Romanian theatre in a forward-looking transnational context. Lowlands ('Niederungen') by Herta Muller, adapted for the stage by Mihaela Panainte (German) This stage adaptation is based on a volume of short stories by Herta Muller written in German in 1982 and focuses on the perspective of a child narrator, by way of a series of episodes that centre on mundane aspects of daily life in a remote village against the backdrop of the oppressive atmosphere of mid-twentieth century Romania. The Spectator Sentenced to Death ('Spectatorul condamnat la moarte') by Matei Visniec (Romanian) This play is a bitter parody of the Stalinist justice system, which totally disregards the fundamental question whether the accused is actually guilty or not. The Passport ('Kalucsni') by Gyoergy Dragoman (Hungarian) This play is set pre-1989 in a typical small town in the Transylvanian province of Romania, in which the lives of the various social classes, and the fate of the persecuted and that of those who persecute are closely intertwined. The Man Who Had His Inner Evil Removed ('Omul din care a fost extras raul') by Matei Visniec (Romanian) This topical play is a sharp reflection on the voluntary servitude in which we place ourselves, often unawares, in conditions of our contemporary consumer culture, and a fierce critique of increasingly dominant tendencies to abandon moral criteria in political life. Stories of the Body (Artemisia, Eva, Lina, Teresa) ('A test toertenetei') by Andras Visky (Hungarian) The cycle Stories of the Body comprises four plays based on real life stories as experienced by remarkable women (including Mother Teresa and Italian Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi), and are connected to various cities including Budapest, Cluj/Kolozsvar, Kolkata and Rome, from the 17th to the 21st century. Sexodrom by Giuvlipen Theatre Company (Mihaela Dragan, Antonella Lerca Duda, Nicoleta Ghita, Zita Moldovan, Bety Pisica, Oana Rusu, Raj Alexandru Udrea), based on a concept by Bogdan Georgescu.(Roma) This is a work of collective creation by members of the Roma Theatre company Giuvlipen, aiming to bring to public attention taboo subjects, to enhance the visibility of Roma performers and to experiment with new forms of theatre-making in a Romanian context.

This book analyses the drama of memory in Shakespeare's history plays. Situating the plays in relation to the extra-dramatic contexts of early modern print culture, the Reformation and an emergent sense of nationhood, it examines the dramatic devices the theatre developed to engage with the memory crisis triggered by these historical developments. Against the established view that the theatre was a cultural site that served primarily to salvage memories, Isabel Karremann also considers the uses and functions of forgetting on the Shakespearean stage and in early modern culture. Drawing on recent developments in memory studies, new formalism and performance studies, the volume develops an innovative vocabulary and methodology for analysing Shakespeare's mnemonic dramaturgy in terms of the performance of memory that results in innovative readings of the English history plays. Karremann's book is of interest to researchers and upper-level students of Shakespeare studies, early modern drama and memory studies.

THE ULTIMATE GUIDES TO EXAM SUCCESS from York Notes - the UK's favourite English Literature Study Guides. York Notes for AS & A2 have been specifically designed for AS & A2 students to help you get the very best grade you can. They are comprehensive, easy to use, packed with valuable features and written by experienced examiners and teachers to give you an expert understanding of the text, critical approaches and the all-important exam. This edition covers Dr Faustus and includes: An enhanced exam skills section which includes essay plans, expert guidance on understanding questions and sample answers. You'll know exactly what you need to do and say to get the best grades. A wealth of useful content like key quotations, revision tasks and vital study tips that'll help you revise, remember and recall all the most important information. The widest coverage and the best, most in-depth analysis of characters, themes, language, form, context and style to help you demonstrate an exhaustive understanding of all aspects of the text. York Notes for AS & A2 are also available for these popular titles: The Bloody Chamber(9781447913153) Doctor Faustus(9781447913177) Frankenstein (9781447913214) The Great Gatsby(9781447913207) The Kite Runner(9781447913160) Macbeth(9781447913146) Othello(9781447913191) WutheringHeights(9781447913184)

Clifford Odets, one of the 20th century's leading American playwrights, was a fervent believer in democracy and the human ability to overcome obstacles. Yet his legacy has been overshadowed by persistent attempts to read him as a thoroughly political playwright. This new consideration reads his career--the work itself and the conditions of its invention--as cultural creations in a time of political, social, and economic change. Spanning two World Wars, the Depression, and the Cold War, the works of Clifford Odets illuminate a period of tremendous change in American life and theatre. Herr adroitly examines Odets's plays and screenplays against the backdrop of the artistic and economic pressures placed upon him by the Group Theatre, Broadway, Hollywood, and the 1952 HUAC hearings in which he testified. He avers that Odets's experience as a writer in the film and theatre industries is reflected in expressions of economic struggle in his plays. While a "culture of abundance" in the face of economic catastrophe shaped the structure and content of his early works, political pressures, especially during the Cold War, shaped his later career. This book illustrates the deeply utopian nature of Odets's vision, which existed alongside a continuing ambivalence toward consumer culture as a means of political and social change. Herr's fresh new look at Odets's works and contributions to the American stage invites readers to reconsider accepted notions about the playwright's importance.

Shakespeare's effect on America's intellectual and artistic life has been much discussed, but what role does he play on the American popular stage? This study changes our understanding of Shakespeare's presence in American life. The book looks at how Shakespeare came to America just before the Revolutionary War. As Americans broke with Britain, they embraced Britain's playwright. Teague re-examines P. T. Barnum's attempt to buy Shakespeare's Birthplace, the Astor Place Riot when twenty-three people died, and the way both Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth regarded Shakespeare. In the history of Broadway, more musicals have drawn on Shakespeare than any other author. Shakespeare musicals like Kiss Me, Kate and West Side Story can tell us much about America's culture, but sometimes failed musicals such as Swingin' the Dream can tell us more. With discussion of over twenty Shakespeare musicals, this study demonstrates that Shakespeare has always been present in popular shows.

Written by an international team of literary scholars and historians, this collaborative volume illuminates the diversity of early modern religious beliefs and practices in Shakespeare's England, and considers how religious culture is imaginatively reanimated in Shakespeare's plays. Fourteen new essays explore the creative ways Shakespeare engaged with the multifaceted dimensions of Protestantism, Catholicism, non-Christian religions including Judaism and Islam, and secular perspectives, considering plays such as Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King John, King Lear, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Winter's Tale. The collection is of great interest to readers of Shakespeare studies, early modern literature, religious studies, and early modern history.

Shakespeare's Company, the King's Men, played at the Globe, and also in an indoor theatre, the Blackfriars. The year 2014 witnesses the opening of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, based on seventeenth-century designs of an indoor London theatre and built within the precincts of the current Globe on Bankside. This volume, edited by Andrew Gurr and Farah Karim-Cooper, asks what prompted the move to indoor theatres, and considers the effects that more intimate staging, lighting and music had on performance and repertory. It discusses what knowledge is required when attempting to build an archetype of such a theatre, and looks at the effects of the theatre on audience behaviour and reception. Exploring the ways in which indoor theatre shaped the writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the late Jacobean and early Caroline periods, this book will find a substantial readership among scholars of Shakespeare and Jacobean theatre history.

Shakespeare and the Book Trade follows on from Lukas Erne's groundbreaking Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist to examine the publication, constitution, dissemination and reception of Shakespeare's printed plays and poems in his own time and to argue that their popularity in the book trade has been greatly underestimated. Erne uses evidence from Shakespeare's publishers and the printed works to show that in the final years of the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth century, 'Shakespeare' became a name from which money could be made, a book-trade commodity in which publishers had significant investments and an author who was bought, read, excerpted and collected on a surprising scale. Erne argues that Shakespeare, far from indifferent to his popularity in print, was an interested and complicit witness to his rise as a print-published author. Thanks to the book trade, Shakespeare's authorial ambition started to become bibliographic reality during his lifetime.

How did Shakespeare sound to the audiences of his day? For the first time this disc offers listeners the chance to hear England's greatest playwright performed by a company of actors using the pronunciation of his time. Under the guidance of Ben Crystal, actor, author of Shakespeare on Toast and an expert in original Shakespearian pronunciation, the company performs some of Shakespeare's best-known poems, solo speeches and scenes from the plays. Hear new meanings uncovered, new jokes revealed, poetic effects enhanced. The CD is accompanied by an introductory essay by Professor David Crystal. An essential purchase for every student and lover of Shakespeare.

This concise introduction to American drama gives readers an overview of how American drama developed from the end of the Second World War to the turn of the twenty-first century.
Provides a balanced assessment of the major plays and playwrights of the period.
Shows how these dramatists broke new ground in their contribution to political, economic, social and cultural debates, as well as in their dramaturgical strategies.
Organized chronologically, with plays, playwrights and movements clustered around different movements such as realism and experimentalism.
Gives readers a sense of the development of American drama over time.