This volume considers the influential revival of ancient philosophical skepticism in the 16th and early 17th centuries and investigates, from a comparative perspective, its reception in early modern English, Spanish and French drama, dedicating detailed readings to plays by Shakespeare, Calderon, Lope de Vega, Rotrou, Desfontaines, and Cervantes. While all the plays employ similar dramatic devices for "putting skepticism on stage", the study explores how these dramas, however, give different "answers" to the challenges posed by skepticism in relation to their respective historico-cultural and "ideological" contexts.

A radical re-examination of Oscar Wilde's plays, Revising Wilde challenges long-established views of the writer as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert traditional values. Sos Eltis examines early drafts of the major plays (Lady Windermere's Fan; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband; and The Importance of Being Earnest) as well as the little-known Vera; or, The Nihilists, to demonstrate that Wilde was in fact an anarchist, a socialist, and a feminist.

Published with the Shakespeare Association of America, Shakespeare in Our Time offers lead essays by the distinguished scholars who have served as presidents of the Association over the past two decades. They introduce a range of topics: text, performance, gender, sexuality, the body, history, religion, biography, and global and digital Shakespeare. Each of their essays is counterpointed and complemented by a satellite of shorter contributions by other scholars, new and established. Shakespeare in Our Time represents the shared commitment of its authors and of the Shakespeare Association of America to advancing our understanding of Shakespeare's works, his times, and his afterlife in literary, theatrical, and public culture. This intellectually vibrant and diverse book reflects current debates in the field of Shakespeare studies and points to its possible futures.

The year is 1616. William Shakespeare has just died and the world of the London theatres is mourning his loss. 1616 also saw the death of the famous Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu. Four hundred years on and Shakespeare is now an important meeting place for Anglo-Chinese cultural dialogue in the field of drama studies. In June 2014 (the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth), SOAS, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the National Chung Cheng University of Taiwan gathered 20 scholars together to reflect on the theatrical practice of four hundred years ago and to ask: what does such an exploration mean culturally for us today? This ground-breaking study offers fresh insights into the respective theatrical worlds of Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu and asks how the brave new theatres of 1616 may have a vital role to play in the intercultural dialogue of our own time.

This volume analyzes early modern cultural representations of children and childhood through the literature and drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Contributors include leading international scholars of the English Renaissance whose essays consider asexuals and sodomites, roaring girls and schoolboys, precocious princes and raucous tomboys, boy actors and female apprentices, while discussing a broad array of topics, from animal studies to performance theory, from queer time to queer fat, from teaching strategies to casting choices, and from metamorphic sex changes to rape and cannibalism. The collection interrogates the cultural and historical contingencies of childhood in an effort to expose, theorize, historicize, and explicate the spectacular queerness of early modern dramatic depictions of children.

This book traces the formation and impact of the New Shakspere Society, created in 1873, which dedicated itself to solving the mysteries of Shakespeare's authorship by way of science. This promise, however, was undermined not only by the antics of its director, Frederick J. Furnivall, but also by the inexactitudes of the tests. Jeffrey Kahan puzzles out how a society geared towards science quickly devolved into a series of grudge matches. Nonetheless, the New Shakspere Society set the bibliographical and biographical agenda for the next century-an unusual legacy for an organization that was rife with intrigue, enmity, and incompetence; lives were ruined, lawyers consulted, and scholarship (mostly bad) produced and published.

Perhaps more than any other single work, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has popularized the image of Brutus as a ruthless and cowardly traitor, Caesar as a noble ruler and sympathetic victim, and the Ides of March as a time of danger and duplicity. On the surface, the play is comparatively simple and straightforward, and thus it has served to introduce generations of students to Shakespeare's works. But the play is deceptive in its apparent simplicity. While Brutus joins the conspirators in assassinating Caesar, his possibly selfless motives may make him the noblest Roman of them all. And while Caesar emerges as a beneficent leader in Antony's funeral oration, other traditions with which Shakespeare's audience would have been familiar paint him as a tyrannical despot. The play, then, is laden with ambiguity, and it raises more questions about human nature than it answers about Roman history. And while some scholars have criticized the play's language for being relatively unpoetic and inferior to some of Shakespeare's later tragedies, Julius Caesar has given us some of the most memorable passages in English literature. This addition to the "Greenwood Guides to Shakespeare" series offers a comprehensive overview of Julius Caesar and the issues central to an understanding and appreciation of the tragedy. Written at a level accessible to readers of all backgrounds, from secondary school students to scholars, the volume gives full attention to textual, contextual, dramatic, thematic, critical, and performance aspects of the play. The book begins with a look at the history of the text and a consideration of some modern editions. It then examines the historical and cultural contexts ofShakespeare's England and shows how they shaped his work. The book discusses Shakespeare's likely sources and how he adapted them, and it analyzes his dramatic art, including his characterizations, language, and imagery. The guide then turns to the themes treated throughout the play, and it surveys the tragedy's critical reception. Finally, the book charts the drama's lengthy stage history and looks closely at representative productions, including some film versions. An annotated bibliography and comprehensive index conclude the work.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - BERNARDO. Who's there.? FRANCISCO. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself. BERNARDO. Long live the King FRANCISCO. Bernardo? BERNARDO. He. FRANCISCO. You come most carefully upon your hour. BERNARDO. 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

Applause BooksThe acclaimed stage director and theatre critic Charles Marowitz in tandem with Jan Kott, one of the most penetrating and incisive Shakespearean scholars to emerge in the 20th Century, probe the mysteries of some of the more problematic plays in Shakespeare's canon. The innovative director and dazzling classicist bring two complementary viewpoints to bear as they delve into the collected works, illuminating the constantly changing nature and philosophic nuances of the various plays.The book's centerpiece consists of Kott and Marowitz's insights on such plays as Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Troilus & Cressida and Measure for Measure. They reveal the ideas behind Shakespeare's plays and the process of making them come alive before and audience and present frank, no-holds barred discussions on such subjects as The Shakespeare Industry, The Boundaries of Interpretation, Dramaturgy and Mise-en-scene.

Shaul Bassi is Associate Professor of English and Postcolonial Literature at Ca'Foscari University of Venice, Italy. His publications include Visions of Venice in Shakespeare, with Laura Tosi, and Experiences of Freedom in Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures, with Annalisa Oboe.

This Norton Critical Edition includes: The 1633 quarto (Q) text-the only authoritative version-with modernised spelling and silent alteration of obvious errors, of confusing punctuation and of word-form changes. A Textual Notes section follows the play. Editorial matter by Lloyd Kermode. Six illustrations and one map. An unusually rich selection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century contexts, thematically organised to promote classroom discussion. Topics include "Theater and Marlowe", "Machiavelli and Mediterranean Identities" and "Ideas of the Jew". Twenty-seven critical interpretations spanning three centuries and including seven considerations of The Jew of Malta in performance. A chronology and a selected bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format-annotated text, contexts and criticism-helps students to better understand, analyse and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

This book is an attempt to explore Shakespearean drama from the vantage point of the oppressed, invisible, and silent individuals and collectivities constructed in the plays. It examines the ideological apparatuses which produce and naturalise oppression and the political structures through which that oppression is sustained. Derek Cohen is concerned to demonstrate the many ways in which political and personal life, always interdependent, intersect. contradict, and disrupt one another often in the interests of and to the advantage of the dominant social ideology.

Shakespeare and the Embodied Heroine is a bold new investigation of Shakespeare's female characters using the late plays and the early adaptations written and staged during the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

This book is a comprehensive study of Peer Gynt, a drama that forms the foundation of not only the entire Ibsen canon but also modern drama as a whole. It provides scene-by-scene commentary on the drama, showing how the literature and ideas of the drama resemble, and sometimes duplicate, the literature and philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. It is the first such study since Henri Logeman's commentary on the drama published in 1917. Although the main focus of the book is Ibsen's drama, Bruce Shapiro's study provides some substantial insights into Kierkegaard. He demonstrates how Ibsen's poem was influenced by Kierkegaard's philosophy and literature. One of the most perplexing questions about Peer Gynt is how the ending of the drama functions as a resolution to the whole. This study formulates an understanding, based upon Kierkegaardian philosophy, that accounts for this scene. Moreover, the revelation of Kierkegaard's influence on Ibsen allows the contemporary reader to experience the essence of the drama within the same intellectual context in which it made its first literary appearance. When Kierkegaard's philosophy is artistically brought back into existence through a reader's experience of Peer Gynt, it is as if that reader is a contemporary of those very thoughts. With Kierkegaardian philosophy as the common horizon of understanding, Peer Gynt may be perceived as a complete and unified drama from its beginning to its conclusion. Shapiro's book is the first comprehensive study of Peer Gynt to be published. It may also be the first study to demonstrate one way in which the entire Kierkegaardian dialetic was understood during the philosopher's lifetime. This unique work will be a valuablebook for scholars and students of drama, Scandinavian studies, modern philosophy, and existentialism.

During the past century, the interpretation given by the various directors staging Greek drama has varied, and the critical reception accorded the productions has also altered. While the texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides remain constant, the meanings drawn from their plays do not. The director who decides to offer a Greek tragedy in the modern American commercial theater believes in the ability of the text to reach the contemporary audience, and the reviewers assess the success of the venture: their words become a record of both a particular performance and the time in which it played. Hartigan explores how drama and society interact and witnesses the continued vitality of the Greek tragedy.

Lost Plays in Shakespeare's England examines assumptions about what a lost play is and how it can be talked about; how lost plays can be reconstructed, particularly when they use narratives already familiar to playgoers; and how lost plays can force us to reassess extant plays, particularly through ideas of repertory studies.

As the first collection of essays about Oscar Wilde's comedies, the contributors re-evaluate Oscar Wilde's society plays as 'comedies of manners" to see whether this is actually an apt way to read Wilde's most emblematic plays. Focusing on both the context and the texts, the collection locates Wilde both in his social and literary contexts.

This book, the first to trace revenge tragedy's evolving dialogue with early modern law, draws on changing laws of evidence, food riots, piracy, and debates over royal prerogative. By taking the genre's legal potential seriously, it opens up the radical critique embedded in the revenge tragedies of Kyd, Shakespeare, Marston, Chettle and Middleton.

This unique volume examines the evolution of British historical drama from the birth of modern British drama with John Osborne's Look Back in Anger in 1956 to the establishment of the right-wing government of Margaret Thatcher during the early 1980s. The book illustrates how the ruling group within a society establishes a cultural hegemony by which it perpetuates its values as society's norms. Radical Stages demonstrates how historical drama within the period increasingly was employed as a weapon in an assault upon this cultural hegemony. First defining historical drama, Peacock differentiates the historical drama after 1956 from its predecessors as representing a shift from concern with individual psychology to an emphasis upon the socioeconomic context in which personality is formed. The first stage of this development, to 1968, was marked by a populist concern with ordinary people and by an absence of specific political propaganda. Following the defeat of student revolutionary movements in 1968, the gradual change in left-wing political inclination from anarchism to Marxism was treated in historical settings by such dramatists as Howard Brenton, Trevor Griffiths, Edward Bond, and David Edgar. Radical Stages analyzes these movements as reflected in drama and also considers the place of women in the revolutionary movements of the 1960s and in the British theatre and historical drama of the period. The final chapter speculates on the future of British historical drama in the wake of the fall of both the Thatcher government and communist governments in Eastern Europe.

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.

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.

The cultural and ethnic diversity of contemporary American society is represented in plays by women. These women playwrights of diverse backgrounds, however, are too infrequently seen on the stage or read in the classroom. This reference highlights the careers and work of more than 80 women playwrights whose writings portray the African American, Latina, Asian American and lesbian sensibility in the United States. Each profile includes a biographical sketch, a description of plays, a selected production history of each work, information on the availability of plays, awards won by the playwright, and a selected bibliography of critical articles and reviews. Introductory essays begin the volume, and the work concludes with a selected bibliography of major studies.

The ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States is well represented by contemporary dramatists. Women playwrights have made many contributions to American drama, and their plays portray a broad range of cultural experiences. These dramatists, however, are too frequently underrepresented on the stage and in the classroom. This reference book presents the African American, Latina, Asian American, and lesbian perspective in the United States. Many of the playwrights are established; others are emerging. Playwrights were selected based on the recommendations of theatre professionals and leading scholars, along with the production record of the writer and the production potential for the plays.

Included are alphabetically arranged entries for dramatists such as Maria Irene Fornes, the Five Lesbian Brothers, Adrienne Kennedy, Velina Hasu Houston, Holly Hughes, Lisa Loomer, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Wakako Yamauchi. Each entry includes a brief biographical narrative, descriptions of individual plays, a selected production history of each drama, information on the availability of both published and unpublished works, a listing of awards won by the playwright, and a selected bibliography of critical articles and reviews. The volume begins with introductory essays which overview the contributions of African American, Asian American, Latina, and lesbian women playwrights, providing a valuable context for the profiles that follow. The book concludes with a selected bibliography of major critical and scholarly studies.

Fictional or real, pirates haunted the imagination of the 18th and 19th century-British public during this great period of maritime commerce, exploration, and naval conflict. British Pirates in Print and Performanc e explores representations of pirates through dozens of stage performances, including adaptations by Byron, Scott, and Cooper.