In this engaging text, Arthur F. Kinney introduces students to Shakespeare's plays in the context of Elizabethan and Jacobean theater. He focuses on the material conditions of playing and of playgoing in order to show how they both inspired and restricted Shakespeare's art. Subjects treated range from the venues where Shakespeare's plays were first performed and the practicalities of the acting profession to the composition of audiences and the cultural and regulatory contexts in which companies of players operated. Each topic is discussed in relation to a diverse selection of Shakespeare's plays as well as contemporary documents, so that the plays and the theatrical world in which they were produced constantly illuminate one another. A core of 22 plays is considered in total.

Co-founder of the Provincetown Players and one of its leading writers, Susan Glaspell won the Pulitzer Prize for Alison's House (1930) and was also successful as an actress, producer, and novelist. Her plays were compared, often favorably, with O'Neill's. After a period of eclipse, Glaspell's concern with woman's desire for selfhood brought her plays to the attention of feminist scholarship beginning in the 1970s. Mary Papke argues in this work for a reassessment of Glaspell as a major American playwright. This sourcebook begins with a bio-critical survey and includes plot summaries for each staged work, complete with production history and critical reception. An annotated bibliography of primary works includes plays, novels, short fiction, nonfiction, nonprint, and archival sources. The secondary bibliography documents reviews and provides extensive annotations for a broad range of materials. Chronologically organized, it constitutes a detailed examiniation of Glaspell criticism.

Shakespeare, Dissent and the Cold War is the first book to read Shakespeare's drama through the lens of Cold War politics. The book uses the Cold War experience of dissenting artists in theatre and film to highlight the coded religio-political subtexts in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and The Winter's Tale.

Luigi Pirandello is best known in the English-speaking world for his radical challenge to traditional Western theatre with plays such as Six Characters in Search of an Author. But theatre is just one manifestation of his experiments with language which led to a remarkable collection of novels, short stories, and essays as well as his work for a film industry then in its infancy. This study, which is based on the view that Pirandello's writings are most fruitfully discussed in a European context, takes as its starting-point the author's belief in the primacy of the literary character in a creative process which is necessarily conflictual. The book argues that all Pirandello's characters are engaged in a continual performance which transcends the genre distinction between narrative and dramatic forms. In this performance it is the spoken word in which the characters invest most heavily as they struggle to sustain an identity of their own, tell their life-stories, and assert themselves before their most prominent antagonist, the author himself.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Willis Richardson (1889-1977) was highly respected as a leading African-American playwright and drama anthologist. His plays were performed by numerous black high school, college, and university drama groups and by theater companies in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Baltimore, and Atlanta. With the opening of "The Chip Woman's Fortune" (1923), he became the first African American to have a play produced on Broadway. Several of his 46 plays were published in assorted magazines, and in his essays, he urged black Americans to seek their dramatic material in their own lives and circumstances. In addition, he edited three anthologies of plays by African-Americans. But between 1940 and his death in 1977, Richardson came to realize that his plays were period pieces and that they no longer reflected the problems and situations of African-Americans. In the years before his death, he attempted vigorously yet unsuccessfully to preserve several of his plays through publication, if not production. But the man who has been called the father of African-American drama and who was considered the hope and promise of African-American drama died in obscurity.

Richardson has even been neglected by the scholarly community. This critical biography, the first extensive consideration of his life and work, firmly reestablishes his pioneering role in American theater. The book begins with a detailed chronology, followed by a thoughtful biographical essay. The volume then examines the nature of African-American drama in the 1920s, the period during which Richardson was most productive, and it analyzes his approach to drama as a means of educating African-American audiences. It then explores the African-American community as the central theme in Richardson's plays, for Richardson typically looks at the consequences of refusals by blacks to help one another. The work additionally considers Richardson's history plays, his anthologies, his dramas intended for black children, and his essays. A concluding chapter summarizes his lasting influence; the book closes with a listing of his plays and an extensive bibliography.

What have we learned from the first experiments performed at the reconstructed Globe on Bankside? What light have recent productions shed on the way Shakespeare intended his plays to be seen? Written by the Leverhulme Fellow appointed to study and record actor use of this new-old playhouse, here is the first analytical account of the discoveries that have been made in its important first years, in workshops, rehearsals and performances. It shows how actors, directors and playgoers have responded to the demands of 'historical' constraints (and unexpected freedoms) to provide valuable new insights into the dynamics of Elizabethan theatre.

Current norms of literary criticism tend to ignore ways in which literary experiences relate to life experience, and some ways in which literary experiences can be intensified and deepened. In this vibrant and controversial book, David Fuller seeks to recover the life in Shakespeare's sonnets, arguing that feeling and emotion, often ignored in criticism, should be central. He offers two ways of attempting this - first engaging with the poems through kinds of feeling fundamental to the young man sequence as presented in other kinds of writing and art - philosophy (Plato), poetry and visual art (Michelangelo), fiction (Mann), music (Britten), and film (Jarman). He then discusses reading the poems aloud, showing that dwelling in the words without translating them into other terms brings out their beauty and expressivity, and leads to fuller understanding of their form, structure, and meaning.

'York Notes Advanced' offer an accessible approach to English Literature. This 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' introduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

This original and provocative reinterpretation of Hamlet presents the play as the original audiences would have viewed it--a much bleaker, stronger, and more deeply religious play than it has usually been assumed to be. Arthur McGee draws a picture of a Devil-controlled Hamlet in the damnable Catholic court of Elsinore, and he shows that the evil natures of the Ghost and of Hamlet himself were understood and accepted by the Protestant audiences of the day. Using material gleaned from an investigation of play-censorship, McGee offers a comprehensive discussion of the Ghost as Demon. He then moves to Hamlet, presenting him as satanic, damned as revenger in the tradition of the Jacobean revenge drama. There are, he shows, no good ghosts, and Purgatory, whence the Ghost came, was reviled in Protestant England. The Ghost's manipulation extends to Hamlet's fool/madman role, and Hamlet's soliloquy reveals the ambition, conscience, and suicidal despair that damn him. With this viewpoint, McGee is able to shed convincing new light on various aspects of the play. He effectively strips Ophelia and Laertes of their sentimentalized charm, making them instead chillingly convincing, and he works through the last act to show damnation everywhere. In an epilogue, he sums up the history of criticism of Hamlet, demonstrating the process by which the play gradually lost its Elizabethan bite. Appendixes develop aspects of Ophelia.

This is the story of 'the greatest book' written in the English language. The First Folio (1623) was the first collection of Shakespare's drama, and the only source for half the plays. The present volume traces the Folio's sales and prices from one pound in the seventeenth century to over half a million pounds today. Counting the extant copies and showing their worldwide distribution, it also indicates their history of ownership - ranging from country parson to President of Standard Oil.

Among extant Greek comedies, the Frogs is unique for the light it throws on classical Greek attitudes to tragedy and to literature in general. Sir Kenneth Dover's edition, with a full introduction and extensive commentary, has been the most comprehensive edition available, drawing together the relevant scholarship that has accumulated on the subject. The general purpose and character of the abridged version remains the same: to provide a helpful guide on a difficult author for students who wish to translate the play, or need to interpret it for performance. In this edition, nothing relevant to the performance of the play on stage has been sacrificed although information on manuscripts and discussion of the history of the text have been pared to the minimum, and arguments on controversial points have been abbreviated. Where relevant, conclucions reached in the original edition have been changed in the light of work done by others since 1993. The inclusion of a vocabulary should reduce the need for students to have a recourse to a lexicon.

Giving equal space to the sanctity of script and the artistic freedom of directors, this book addresses the difficulties encountered by playwrights and directors as they bring a script to the stage. Inspired directors can help a writer of genius turn his play into exciting theatre, but playwrights find that giving directors leeway to interpret and modify text can result in directors' overriding authorial intentions. This book presents the best that has been written by literary theorists on the current definitions of text and attempts to depart from quick rule-of-thumb assessments of the problem.

Drawing from definitive articles in literary and theatre journals, part one gives the reader basic concepts and terminology. Interviews with playwrights and directors, showing the complexity of the issue, appear in part two, and part three includes case studies of playwrights and directors who faced production crises. Legal aspects of collaboration are considered in part four. The book concludes with a positive approach and possible solution to the problem.

Fifteen distinguished scholars contribute original essays that analyze A Streetcar Named Desire, one of the most significant plays in modern theatre, from various critical or cultural stances, methods, or modalities. Represented as individual points of view or touched upon in the analysis are the theories of Lacan and Foucault and the tenets of Marxism; the approaches of Feminism, Reader Response Criticism, Deconstructionism, Chaos and Anti-Chaos Theory, Translation Theory, Formalism, Mythology, Perception Theory, and Gender Theory; and the perceptions of Popular Culture, Film History and Theory, Southern Letters, and assorted cultural and regional studies. The volume introduction charts the course of Streetcar criticism from its inception to the present. Each essay begins by articulating the theoretical principles and methods behind the critical approach pursued, then applies these to readings from Streetcar, utilizing and documenting relevant major research. Insightful and challenging, the readings, individually and collectively, advance the study of the play and Tennessee Williams's canon and reputation generally. Each essay offers a fresh, provocative view of a play that has long been discussed in simplistic and dichotomized terms: Blanche as victim/Stanley as predator; Streetcar as a play about a failed southern belle meeting a brutish Pole; or Streetcar as a work of Southern literature. Viewing the play through the lenses of cultural and critical pluralism, the contributors open up the script and expand our awareness of the problems and possibilities offered by this great modern classic.

Aeschylus' Oresteia is a tragedy of inescapable killing within one family, such that each generation must avenge it in kind. This new and close translation tries to preserve its theatrical and poetic qualities: introductory and explanatory matter emphasizes the interconnection of scenes, ideas, and language which distinguishes this unique work, the only trilogy to survive from Greek tragedy.

Among the most commercially successful female playwrights of all times, Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) is best remembered as the author of "The Women" (1936), a biting social comedy. Beginning in 1942, she spent less of her time writing plays and turned instead to the wider stage of politics and world affairs. She was the editor of Vanity Fair magazine, a congresswoman, and an ambassador to Italy during the Eisenhower administration.

This book traces her transition from playwright to politician to Catholic apologist. It uncovers for the first time plays, both early and late, that dramatize her spiritual and artistic journey. A comprehensive survey of her plays and the world's reception to them, the book provides a thorough treatment of Luce's published and unpublished work. For each play, the volume includes a plot summary, critical commentary, and production information. The book also includes an exhaustive and generously-annotated bibliography of both popular reviews and scholarly criticism.

Eugene O'Neill has long been celebrated as America's greatest playwright. This year, in the centennial of his birth, Yale University Press takes pride in bringing out an edition of O'Neill's little-known works of the imagination and his principal critical statements, most of which have not hitherto been published. Edited and introduced by eminent O'Neill scholar Travis Bogard, the pieces-mostly early works-shed valuable light on O'Neill's artistic development. Contained here are a four-act tragedy, "The Personal Equation"; the original version of Marco Millions; a dramatic adaptation of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"; a scenario "The Reckoning," and Bolton O'Neill; the fourth act of "The Ole Davil," which became, with some alteration of tone, "Anna Christie"; and two short stories, "Tomorrow" and "S.O.S." Also included are an unpublished love poem and several critical and occasional pieces, composition of Mourning Becomes Electra and "The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill," written on behalf of his Dalmatian, Blemie. "There is here no undiscovered masterwork," says Bogard in his foreword, "but much here foreshadows what was to come as 'Tomorrow,' written in 1917, explores the ground on which The Iceman Cometh was to be created. In some of the writing, O'Neill is struggling to learn his craft: the scenario of 'The Reckoning,' for example, shows him in the process of forming a lifelong habit of detailing a play in a long narrative account. In the poem to Jane Caldwell and the memorial for Blemie, glimpses of a gentle, private man can be caught. In the critical pieces, O'Neill attempts an uncharacteristic but interesting articulation of his theatrical principles. In all the fugitive works gathered here, the O'Neill voice sounds clear.... It remains worth hearing." "An important work about an unknown O'Neill that will reveal this fascinating personality to the general public." -Paul Shyre Travis Bogard, emeritus professor of dramatic art at the University of California, Berkeley, has edited many works and papers of O'Neill, including, with Jackson R. Bryer, "The Theatre We Worked For": The Letters of Eugene O'Neill to Kenneth Macgowan.

Brecht was never inclined to see any of his plays as completely finished, and this volume collects some of the most important theatrical projects and fragments that were always to remain 'works in progress'. Offering an invaluable insight into the writer's working methods and practices, the collection features the famous Fatzer as well as The Bread Store and Judith of Shimoda, along with other texts that have never before been available in English. Alongside the familiar, 'completed' plays, Brecht worked on many ideas and plans which he never managed to work up even once for print or stage. In pieces like Fleischhacker, Garbe/Busching and Jacob Trotalong we see how such projects were abandoned or interrupted or became proving grounds for ideas and techniques. The works collated here span over thirty years and allow the reader to follow Brecht's creative process as he constantly revised his work to engage with new contexts. This treasure-trove of new discoveries is also annotated with dramaturgical notes to present readable and useable texts for the theatre. The volume is edited by Tom Kuhn and Charlotte Ryland, with the translation and dramaturgical edition of each play provided by a team of experienced writers, scholars and translators.

Originally published in 1973 and 1977 respectively, these two volumes, now available together for the first time examine the history of French drama. The first traces tragedy, from its origins in the sixteenth century through to the last years of Louis XVI's reign. The second covers comedy, from the Renaissance, extending beyond Louis XVI into the eighteenth century and right up to the eve of the Revolution. Accessible to the general reader they would also be particularly useful for students of French drama.

A study of the 30-year collaboration between playwright Samuel Beckett and director Alan Schneider, Bianchini reconstructs their shared American productions between 1956 and 1984. By examining how Beckett was introduced to American audiences, this book leads into a wider historical discussion of American theatre in the mid-to-late 20th century.

The Tempest contains sublime poetry and catchy songs, magic and low comedy, while it tackles important contemporary concerns: education, power politics, the effects of colonization, and technology. In this guide, Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan open up new ways into one of Shakespeare's most popular, malleable and controversial plays.

This checklist is witness to the vast and varied production of 20th-century French women playwrights. Like Beach's preceding volume, "French Women Playwrights Before the Twentieth Century: A Checklist" (Greenwood, 1994), this reference book presents an extensive list of dramatic works. Beach provides biographical information about the authors when known, as well as name variations (pseudonyms, maiden name, other marriages, etc.)

The plays are listed chronologically under each author's name, followed by a variety of information about each work: genre, the place and date of publication and performances, and the location of over 2000 texts in published or manuscript form in French holding libraries. The checklist also includes a title index and a bibliography. This book provides a useful research tool not only for scholars interested in drama and/or women's literature, but also for theatre professionals.

This title presents a comprehensive critical analysis of the most important Shakespearean critics, editors, actors and directors. It concentrates on key actors and directors from the Eighteenth-Century. "Great Shakespeareans" offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of David Garrick, John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons and Edmund Kean to the afterlife and reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution assesses the double impact of Shakespeare on the figure covered and of the figure on the understanding, interpretation and appreciation of Shakespeare, provide a sketch of their subject's intellectual and professional biography and an account of the wider cultural context, including comparison with other figures or works within the same field.

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

A new type of study aid which combines lively critical insight with practical guidance on the critical writings skills students need to develop in order to engage fully with Shakespeare's texts. The book's core focus is on language: both understanding and enjoying Shakespeare's complex dramatic language, and expanding the student's own critical vocabulary as they respond to the play. The book explores several different approaches to Shakespeare's language. It looks at how the subtleties of Shakespeare's language reveal the thought processes and motivations of his characters, often in ways those characters themselves don't recognise; it analyses how Shakespeare's language works within or sometimes against various historical contexts, the contexts of stage performance, of genre and of discourses of his day (of religion, law, commerce, and friendship); and it explores how the peculiarities of Shakespeare's language often point to broad issues, themes, or ways of thinking that transcend any one character or line of action. Each chapter includes a "Writing Matters" section, giving students ideas and guidance for building their own critical response to the play and the skills to articulate it with confidence.

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.