When Shakespeare gave up tragedy around 1607 and turned to the new form we call romance or tragicomedy, he created a distinctive poetic idiom that often bewildered audiences and readers. The plays of this period, Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, as well as Shakespeare's part in the collaborations with John Fletcher (Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen), exhibit a challenging verse style - verbally condensed, metrically and syntactically sophisticated, both conversational and highly-wrought. In Shakespeare's Late Style, McDonald anatomizes the components of this late style, illustrating in a series of topically organized chapters the contribution of such features as ellipsis, grammatical suspension, and various forms of repetition. Resisting the sentimentality that frequently attends discussion of an artist's 'late' period, Shakespeare's Late Style shows how the poetry of the last plays reveals their creator's ambivalent attitude towards art, language, men and women, the theatre, and his own professional career.

Anthony Neilson is often described as one of the most exciting and challenging voices in contemporary British theatre. For over two decades he has acquired a reputation for innovation and experimentation in both writing and directing having worked with companies such as The Royal Court, The RSC and the National Theatre. This third play collection of his most recent major works brings together five plays in publication for the first time, offering an important documentary of his original work since 2008. Relocated (2008) originally premiered at the Royal Court, directed by the author, where it was described as a "sinister mystery" play and "not an experience for the faint-hearted...morally challenging and riveting...leaves an indelible stain on the memory" (The Times). Get Santa! (2010) is a magical, musical and mischievous Christmas show with a fresh moral featuring music by Nick Powell. It's Christmas Eve but Holly isn't happy. All she's ever wanted from Santa is to meet her real Dad for the first time. And every time, Santa's failed to deliver, bringing lots of useless presents instead. Well, Holly's had enough. This year she has a plan. She's going to wait up and trap Santa when he arrives and get from him the only present she's ever wanted. Narrative (2013) originally premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs. Devised throughout rehearsal with a seven-strong cast it's a play about storytelling and the narratives of our everyday lives. Unreachable (2016) was described as an "intoxicatingly chaotic comedy" (Time Out) which follows a film director on an obsessive quest to capture the perfect light. Originally running at the Royal Court Theatre in a production that starred Matt Smith, it broke boundaries by offering audiences a digital insight into the rehearsal process through online content which documented and shaped the devising process. The Prudes (2018) is a comedy about relationships in the current sexual climate; and a vicious satire on the male response to it. Jess and Jimmy haven't done it in a year. Fourteen months and four days to be exact. It's definitely not the seven year itch - they've been together nine. Now they're coming together in a last-ditch effort to re-boot their sex life and save their relationship. But a lot has changed in a year; for them and for the world. Described as a "smart, sketchy, amusing, awkward, stimulating two-hander" (The Times), it originally premiered at the Royal Court Upstairs. Published to coincide with his adaptation of The Tell-Tale Heart at the National Theatre in December 2018, this play collection is an important and unique anthology of a major international voice of contemporary theatre.

Jealousy and suspicion shape the tragic opening of The Winter's Tale, one of Shakespeare's final plays, yet in time romance and redemption ultimately lead to a happy ending. Leontes, King of Sicilia, convinced of his wife's infidelity, is consumed by a jealous rage. Sure that she is pregnant with his old friend King Polixenes' child and unmoved by the entreaties of his wife proclaiming her innocence, he tears his family apart. He imprisons his wife and sends the newborn daughter into exile, while Polixenes escapes back to his homeland of Bohemia. The years pass and in a pastoral haven a young girl, Perdita, raised by shepherds falls in love with a prince, Florizel. Thus begins a magical journey of love and redemption that will at last heal the family's wounds.

Best known as a revolutionary playwright of the 1930s, Clifford Odets may have reached his zenith when four of his plays were produced on Broadway in 1935: "Waiting for Lefty," "Till the Day I Die," "Awake and Sing ," and "Paradise Lost." His plays, however, also show a romantic strain and are at least as much inimate and personal as they are political, often reflecting the isolation and loneliness of individuals in family settings. Never achieving the acclaim of Eugene O'Neill, who came before, or Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, who followed, Odets bridged the gap between earlier melodramatic theatre and the mature post-World War II drama on the American stage, creating rich and varied drama well into the 1950s. That his plays continue to be appraised and performed is clearly evident in this detailed and carefully articulated sourcebook.

A near-exhaustive resource for both literary and theatrical research materials on Odets's dramatic career, the volume is organized and indexed for quick reference. Included are a biographical essay; critical overview, production history, and plot summary of each dramatic product; annotated primary and secondary bibliographies and information on archival sources; and production credits. Essential for research libraries and theatre collections, the volume will be useful to theatre scholars and practitioners and to anyone interested in the work of this significant modern American playwright.

This book establishes an analytical model for the description of existing translations in their historical context within a framework suggested by systemic concepts of literature. It argues against mainstream 20th-century translation theory and, by proposing a socio-cultural model of translation, takes into account how a translation functions in the receiving culture. The case studies of successive translations of "Hamlet" in France from the eighteenth century neoclassical version of Jean-Francois Ducis to the 20th-century Lacanian, post-structuralist stage production of Daniel Mesguich show the translator at work. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the changing theatrical and literary norms to which translators through the ages have been bound by the expectations both of their audiences and the literary establishment.

Often regarded as Shakespeare's most complex and difficult play Hamlet is also one of his most popular. It has been performed countless times on the stage and has been produced in many film and television versions. Even those who have never read the complete play or seen a performance know a few lines of "To be or not to be" and the image of a young man contemplating the skull of his dead friend Yorick. The play continues to attract the attention of high school students and scholars alike and has generated a tremendous amount of criticism. Because Hamlet exists as text, performance, and cultural icon, only through a study of the play in these three different dimensions can Shakespeare's complex work be appreciated. The purpose of this reference book is to introduce students and others first approaching Hamlet to the traditions of scholarship, criticism, and performance that it has inspired in four centuries. The volume gives close attention to the textual history of the play and to the historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts in which it emerged. Special attention is given to the religious, philosophical, and psychological aspects of the text. The book also treats Shakespeare's language, imagery, themes, and dramatic art, and it offers a summary of the play's critical reception. Throughout an attempt is made to visualize the play in performance, and constant reference is made to the conventions of staging in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

What existed before there was a subject known as English? How did English eventually come about? Focusing specifically on Shakespeare's role in the origins of the subject, Rhodes addresses the evolution of English from the early modern period up to the late eighteenth century. He deals with the kinds of literary and educational practices that would have formed Shakespeare's experience and shaped his work and traces the origins of English in certain aspects of the educational regime that existed before English literature became an established part of the curriculum. Rhodes then presents Shakespeare both as a product of Renaissance rhetorical teaching and as an agent of the transformation of rhetoric in the eighteenth century into the subject that emerged as the modern study of English. By transferring terms from contemporary disciplines, such as 'media studies' and 'creative writing', or the technology of computing, to earlier cultural contexts Rhodes aims both to invite further reflection on the nature of the practices themselves, and also to offer new ways of thinking about their relationship to the discipline of English. Shakespeare and the Origins of English attempts not only an explanation of where English came from, but suggests how some of the things that we do now in the name of 'English' might usefully be understood in a wider historical perspective. By extending our view of its past, we may achieve a clearer view of its future.

Alcestis is one of Euripides' richest and most brilliant - as well as most controversial - plays. But, apart from D. J. Conacher's student text, no annotated edition in English has appeared for more than fifty years. The present work is designed to aid close reading and to serve as an introduction to the serious study of the play in its various aspects. The introduction covers the background to the story in myth and folktale, its treatment by other writers from antiquity to the present, the critical reception of Euripides' play, and its textual transmission and metres. The notes are designed in particular to help readers who have been learning Greek for a relatively short time. More advanced matter, such as discussion of textual problems, is placed in square brackets at the end of the note.

The first Hamlet on film was Sarah Bernhardt. Probably the first Hamlet on radio was Eve Donne. Ever since the late eighteenth century, leading actresses have demanded the right to play the role - Western drama's greatest symbol of active consciousness and conscience. Their iconoclasm, and Hamlet's alleged 'femininity', have fascinated playwrights, painters, novelists and film-makers from Eugene Delacroix and the Victorian novelist Mary Braddon to Angela Carter and Robert Lepage. Crossing national and media boundaries, this book addresses the history and the shifting iconic status of the female Hamlet in writing and performance. Many of the performers were also involved in radical politics: from Stalinist Russia to Poland under martial law, actresses made Hamlet a symbol of transformation or crisis in the body politic. On stage and film, women reinvented Hamlet from Weimar Germany to the end of the Cold War. This book aims to put their half-forgotten achievements centre-stage.

In what is perhaps Shakespeare's earliest play, love goes astray, deception and betrayal cause confusion, and a multilayered plot keeps the pace energetic and joyful. Proteus and Valentine are each sent from Verona to the court of the Duke of Milan. They are the best of friends, until Proteus is enamored by Silvia, though she is the new object of Valentine's affections. Despite having sworn constancy to his own betrothed, Julia, Proteus sets out to betray his unsuspecting friend, only to find that both Silvia and Julia have a thing or two to teach him about loyalty and love. The play reveals how the ideal of male friendship can crumble under the strain of conflicting love interests. A wonderful comedy filled with passionate lovers, women disguised, outlaws, fights, sudden revelations, and a happy denouement, all highlighted by a farcical subplot featuring the character Launce and his dog Crab.

The courtship and remarriage of a rich widow was a popular motif in early modern comic theatre. Jennifer Panek brings together a wide variety of texts, from ballads and jest-books to sermons and court records, to examine the staple widow of comedy in her cultural context and to examine early modern attitudes to remarriage. She persuasively challenges the critical tendency to see the stereotype of the lusty widow as a tactic to dissuade women from second marriages, arguing instead that it was deployed to enable her suitors to regain their masculinity, under threat from the dominant, wealthier widow. The theatre, as demonstrated by Middleton, Dekker, Beaumont and Fletcher and others, was the prime purveyor of a fantasy in which a young man's sexual mastery of a widow allowed him to seize the economic opportunity she offered.

This is the first collection from groundbreaking playwright Alistair McDowall, "an exceptionally talented and fast-rising writer. Still only in his twenties, this writer is surely going places. Whatever he dreams up next, his name will almost certainly be in lights at the Royal Court soon, if not at the National Theatre." (The Times) Having won a Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize in 2011 and been shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Best Play Award in 2013, Alistair McDowall is one of the most exciting playwrights of this generation. The anthology features the play that brought McDowall to people's attention, Brilliant Adventures, up to his latest major play, Pomona, that received ecstatic reviews, transferred to the National Theatre, and hailed him as one of the most important playwrights of this generation. It also includes two previously unpublished plays. Brilliant Adventures (Royal Exchange/Live Theatre, 2013) is a fast paced tale of brotherhood, addiction and breaking the laws of physics. It won McDowall a Bruntwood Prize. Captain Amazing (Live Theatre, 2013) is a funny and poignant one-man show that thrusts us into the life of Britain's only part-time superhero. Talk Show (Royal Court, 2013) is black comedy about talking and transmission. It was premiered as part of the Royal Court's Open Court season and has not previously been published. Pomona (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama/Orange Tree Theatre, 2014) is a sinister and surreal thriller, which takes as its setting Manchester's Pomona - an abandoned concrete island at the heard of the city; a place where journeys end and nightmares are born. The anthology is introduced by the author and includes a foreword by Olivier-award-winning playwright Simon Stephens.

Aristophanes' Peace was performed at the City Dionysia in Athens in 421 BC as a decade-long war with Sparta seemed finally to be drawing to an end, and is one of only eleven extant plays by the greatest Old Comic poet. Olson's edition of the play, which replaces Platnauer's of 1969, is based on a complete new collation of the manuscripts, many of which have never been adequately reported before. The extensive commentary explores matters of all sorts, but it focuses in particular on the realities of day-to-day life in classical Athens and also examines the practical problems of staging. The substantial introduction includes essays on Aristophanes' early career, the politics of the Greek world in the late 420s, and the poet's theology.

The relation between body and mind is one of the oldest riddles that has puzzled mankind. That material and mental events may interact is accepted even by the law: our mental capacity to concentrate on the task can be seriously reduced by drugs. Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical events, upon the mind of the recipient of the letter. This is what the authors of this book call the 'interaction of mental and physical events'. We know very little about this interaction; and according to recent philosophical fashions this is explained by the alleged fact that we have brains but no thoughts. The authors of this book stress that they cannot solve the body mind problem; but they hope that they have been able to shed new light on it. Eccles especially with his theory that the brain is a detector and amplifier; a theory that has given rise to important new developments, including new and exciting experiments; and Popper with his highly controversial theory of 'World 3'. They show that certain fashionable solutions which have been offered fail to understand the seriousness of the problems of the emergence of life, or consciousness and of the creativity of our minds. In Part I, Popper discusses the philosophical issue between dualist or even pluralist interaction on the one side, and materialism and parallelism on the other. There is also a historical review of these issues. In Part II, Eccles examines the mind from the neurological standpoint: the structure of the brain and its functional performance under normal as well as abnormal circumstances. The result is a radical and intriguing hypothesis on the interaction between mental events and detailed neurological occurrences in the cerebral cortex. Part III, based on twelve recorded conversations, reflects the exciting exchange between the authors as they attempt to come to terms with their opinions.

Comparatively little is known about Shakespeare's first audiences. This study argues that the Elizabethan audience is an essential part of Shakespeare as a site of cultural meaning, and that the way criticism thinks of early modern theatregoers is directly related to the way it thinks of, and uses, the Bard himself.

In this work of scholarship and creativity, Meagher argues that Shakespeare has been misunderstood because of a failure to recognize his own directions as a playwright. Through an examination of several of his plays Meagher uncovers Shakespeare as artist, director, and actor.

Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Oedipus plays, Euripides' Medea and Bacchae, and Aristophanes' Birds and Lysistrata are discussed in this lively and scholarly volume. The author's experience teaching these plays to gifted high school students makes this volume particularly useful. The drama festivals, the adaptations of myth, the relevance of Aristotelian criteria, and the political and cultural background of each play are described fully, and the nature of tragedy and comedy, plot construction, stagecraft, theme, character, imagery and individual odes and speeches are analyzed in depth. The 5th century BC witnessed the flourishing of Athenian culture and was one of the most influential periods in history. The achievements of the Greeks at that time forever shaped our political and legal institutions and provided the foundation for Western civilization. At the same time, the world of the Greeks is distant and exotic to contemporary students. The values and beliefs of the Greeks are best represented in the plays that were crafted at that time, and these works continue to be widely read and studied. This book is a valuable introduction to ancient Greek drama. Designed for high school students, undergraduates, and their teachers, this work describes the origins and physical aspects of ancient Greek theatre, discusses Aristotle's Poetics, and analyzes, in ten separate chapters, ten frequently studied Greek plays: Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, Euripides' Medea and Bacchae and Aristophanes' Birds and Lysistrata. For each there is cultural, political and mythological background, plot synopsis, and analysis of overall structure and importantscenes, speeches and odes. The Aristophanes chapters explore comic method and all chapters discuss theme and stagecraft in depth.

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 (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.

Shakespeare's famous play, "Hamlet," has been the subject of more scholarly analysis and criticism than any other work of literature in human history. For all of its generally acknowledged virtues, however, it has also been treated as problematic in a raft of ways. In "Philosophy and the Puzzles of Hamlet," Leon Craig explains that the most oft-cited problems and criticisms are actually solvable puzzles. Through a close reading of the philosophical problems presented in "Hamlet," Craig attempts to provide solutions to these puzzles. The posing of puzzles, some more conspicuous, others less so, is fundamental to Shakespeare's philosophical method and purpose. That is, he has crafted his plays, and "Hamlet "in particular, so as to stimulate philosophical activity in the "judicious" (as distinct from the "unskillful") readers. By virtue of showing what so many critics treat as faults or flaws are actually intended to be interpretive challenges, Craig aims to raise appreciation for the overall coherence of "Hamlet" that there is more logical rigor to its plot and psychological plausibility to its characterizations than is generally granted, even by its professed admirers. "Philosophy and the Puzzles of Hamlet" endeavors to make clear why "Hamlet," as a work of reason, is far better than is generally recognized, and proves its author to be, not simply the premier poet and playwright he is already universally acknowledged to be, but a philosopher in his own right.

Examining the ways in which contemporary Western theatre protests against the 'War on Terror', this book analyses six twenty-first century plays that respond to the post-9/11 military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. The plays are written by some of the most significant writers of this century and the last including Elfriede Jelinek, Caryl Churchill, Helene Cixous and Tony Kushner. Anti-war Theatre After Brecht grapples with the problem of how to make theatre that protests the policies of democratically elected Western governments in a post-Marxist era. It shows how the Internet has become a key tool for disseminating anti-war play texts and how online social media forums are changing traditional dramatic aesthetics and broadening opportunities for spectator access, engagement and interaction with a work and the political alternatives it puts forward.

This study explores the relationship between humans and machines during an age when technology became increasingly domesticated and accepted as an index to the American dream. The marriage between dramatic art and dramatic technology stems from the physical realities of staging and from the intimate connection of technology with human labor inside and outside the household. This book examines how American dramatists of the 1920s drew upon European Expressionism and innovative staging techniques to develop their characters and themes, and how later playwrights, such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, established the American dramatic canon when technology had become a conventional and integral component of domestic life.

"Technology in American Drama, 1920-1950," explores the relationship between humans and machines during an age when technology became increasingly domesticated and accepted as an index to the American dream. The marriage between dramatic art and dramatic technology stems from both the physical realities of staging and the intimate connection of technology with human labor inside and outside the household. Technology shapes and defines the values of the soul, individually and collectively, in addition to producing the external environment in which people live. This book studies how playwrights of the era reflected the changing role of technology in American society.

Drawing on the experiments of European Expressionism, American dramatists of the 1920s found new techniques for developing character and theme, along with innovative staging devices, such as the threatening machines in Elmer Rice's "The Adding Machine," Sophie Treadwell's "Machinal," and Eugene O'Neill's "Dynamo." By the time Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller established the canon of American drama, technology was no longer an impersonal force to be resisted, but a conventional and integral component of domestic life. In examining these dramatists and their works, this book provides an insightful analysis of a largely neglected topic.

This 11-volume collection contains titles originally published between 1931 and 1992. It examines the genre of comedy, from its roots in ancient Greece, through the centuries, to the relatively modern stand-up variety. The individual titles include the theory of comedy; perspectives on women and comedy; comedy in film; European comedy; Restoration comedy and more. This set will be a valuable resource for those students interested in comedy in both literature and drama.

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.