T. C. W. Stinton was a highly respected classical scholar who died in 1985. He was a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, for over thirty years and devoted his life to teaching, inspiring his pupils with his own passionate love for the classics. As well as generously encouraging the work and publications of others, he also spent much time himself in researching and writing, concentrating mainly on Greek tragedy. This volume presents twenty-six of Tom Stinton's essays and reviews, mainly on Greek tragedy, covering his work from 1960 until his death in 1985. The papers include `Euripides and the Judgement of Paris', `The Scope and Limits of Allusion in Greek Tragedy', `The Apotheosis of Heracles from the Pyre', and `Greek Tragic Texts and the Limits of Conservatism'. Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, formerly Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford, has written a foreword especially for this collection.

Adorno and Modern Theatre explores the drama of Edward Bond, David Rudkin, Howard Barker and Sarah Kane in the context of the work of leading philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969). The book engages with key principles of Adorno's aesthetic theory and cultural critique and examines their influence on a generation of seminal post-war dramatists.

This is the first book-length analysis of Shakespeare's depiction of specula (mirrors) to reveal the literal and allegorical functions of mirrors in the playwright's art and thought. Adding a new dimension to the plays" Troilus and Cressida," "Julius Caesar," "Macbeth, ""Hamlet, ""King Henry the Fifth," "Love's Labor's Lost," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and "All's Well That Ends Well, "Maurice A. Hunt also references mirrors in a wide range of external sources, from the Bible to demonic practices." "Looking at the concept of speculation through its multiple meanings--cognitive, philosophical, hypothetical, and provisional--this original reading suggests Shakespeare as a craftsman so prescient and careful in his art that he was able to criticize the queen and a former patron with such impunity that he could still live as a gentleman.

"Unhistorical Shakespeare" argues that the way in which we study history has significant bearing on what desire we study, and how we study it. Menon argues that our embrace of difference as the template for relating past and present produces a hetero temporality in which chronology determines identity. In turn, such an understanding of history fixes sexual identity as the domain of the present and relegates nebulous desire to a thing of the past. In contrast to this temporal-sexual reification, "Unhistorical Shakespeare" outlines the idea of homohistory, which questions the fundamental historicist assumptions of teleology, facticity, citation, origins, and authenticity to lay bare their investments in compulsory hetero temporality.

William Saroyan, one of the most prolific writers in America, was the first playwright to win simultaneously both the New York Drama Critics' Circle award and the Pulitzer Prize in playwriting for T"he Time of Your Life" in 1940. In spite of his success, he quickly disappeared from the public eye. During the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote plays but did not allow them to be produced or published. Shortly before his death in 1981, his "Play Things" was produced at Vienna's English Theatre.

This volume concentrates in one source the tremendous amount of information available about Saroyan's life and work in the theatre. A chronology provides a capsule summary of the chief events in his career, and a critical overview assesses his place in American theatre. Entries for his plays include plot synopses, production information, and critical commentary. Annotated primary and secondary bibliographies list his published works, production reviews, and other writings about his theatrical career. The volume also includes archival sources to foster additional research about Saroyan.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) are major plays by Tennessee Williams, one of America's most significant dramatists. They both received landmark productions and are widely-studied and performed around the world. The plays have also inspired popular screen adaptations and have generated a body of important and lasting scholarship.
In this indispensable Reader's Guide, Thomas P. Adler:
- charts the development of the criticism surrounding both works, from the mid-twentieth century through to the present day
- provides a readable assessment of the key debates and issues
- examines a range of theoretical approaches from biographical and New Criticism to feminist and queer theory.
In so doing, Adler helps us to appreciate why these plays continue to fascinate readers, theatregoers and directors alike.

Contemporary performance is a particularly stimulating area for the study of how Shakespeare is produced and received in different cultural contexts. Francesca Clare Rayner's original and thought-provoking book highlights the diversity and experimentalism of contemporary performance practices through a focus on unexplored performances in Portugal. This book references key debates within contemporary performance studies on intermediality, globalization and political participation and analyses their particular configurations within the Portuguese context. These case studies represent clear alternatives to the market-driven view of the contemporary as the continual reproduction of the new and the topical for global consumers. Instead, they recast the contemporary as a site of disempowerment, crisis and erasure in a Europe fragmented by economic austerity, political divisions around Brexit, ecological vacillation and an anxious refashioning of global relations between North and South.

For anyone interested in drama, " Playwrights on Playwriting: From Ibsen to Ionesco " offers revealing and astute insights on modern theater and the creation of plays. The book gathers the opinions and theories of the greatest names in the past 200 years of drama, among them Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, Federico Garcia Lorca, Eugene O'Neill, Bertolt Brecht, Tenessee Williams, Sean O'Casey, and Arthur Miller, to name a few. In the first part of the book, "Credos and Concepts," the playwrights offer their differing philosophies on the dynamics of theatrical performance and the changes in drama since Aristotle. In the second part, "Creations," the same dramatists look at specific plays of their own, commenting on their intended goals and the works' overall success. A unique and enlightening collection, Playwrights on Playwriting is an essential resource for the enthusiast of theater.

Essential for students of Theatre Studies, this series of six decadal volumes provides a critical survey and reassessment of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1950s to the present. Each volume equips readers with an understanding of the context from which work emerged, a detailed overview of the range of theatrical activity and a close study of the work of four of the major playwrights by a team of leading scholars. Chris Megson's comprehensive survey of the theatre of the 1970s examines the work of four playwrights who came to promience in the decade and whose work remains undiminished today: Caryl Churchill (by Paola Botham), David Hare (Chris Megson), Howard Brenton (Richard Boon) and David Edgar (Janelle Reinelt). It analyses their work then, its legacy today and provides a fresh assessment of their contribution to British theatre. Interviews with the playwrights, with directors and with actors provides an invaluable collection of documents offering new perspectives on the work. Revisiting the decade from the perspective of the twenty-first century, Chris Megson provides an authoritative and stimulating reassessment of British playwriting in the 1970s.

A collection of essays on the ways the senses 'speak' on Shakespeare's stage. Drawing on historical phenomenology, science studies, gender studies and natural philosophy, the essays provide critical tools for understanding Shakespeare's investment in staging the senses.

Matthew Woodcock provides a survey of the critical responses to this popular play, as well as the key debates and developments, from the seventeenth century to the present day. Leading the reader through material chronologically, the Guide summarizes and assesses key interpretations, setting them in their intellectual and historical context.

Behrman's prolific career as a Broadway playwright and Hollywood screenwriter spans a period from the 1920s to the mid-1960s. As a writer for popular performance, he had to contend with commercial influences and with producers and directors involved in the dynamics of the collaborative process. Though eminently successful, his works have not received adequate critical scrutiny. His ouevre probably will never be fully determined because of collaboration, numerous rewrites, and the many unpublished and unproduced plays and scripts. Author Robert F. Gross here provides an immensely detailed record of the primary materials, published and unpublished, including plays, filmscripts, fiction, and essays, and of the critical response, both reviews and analytical studies. Focusing on Behrman as a dramatist, Gross has written extensive plot summaries and critical overviews for each of fifty-one plays. Where applicable, full production credits are given for premieres and revivals, and references are made to reviews and commentary about specific productions as well as to the plays in general. The annotated secondary bibliography is divided into chronologically organized sections for reviews and for books, parts of books, and articles. Fully cross-referenced, the material is also accessible through an author index to the secondary bibliography and a general subject index. In an opening appraisal, Gross expresses his appreciation for Behrman, whose high comedies he finds to be informed by a probing ethical conscience and whose goal of scrupulosity he emulates in his own work. This scrupulous playwright is here given his due in a comprehensive sourcebook of value for theatre historians and theatre professionals.

In this volume on "Othello," Laurie Maguire examines the use and misuse of language, the play's textual and performance histories and how critics and directors have responded to the language of sexual jealousy.

In Shakespeare and the Dawn of Modern Science, renowned astronomy expert Peter Usher expands upon his allegorical interpretation of Hamlet and analyzes four more plays, Love's Labour's Lost, Cymbeline, The Merchant of Venice, and The Winter's Tale. With painstaking thoroughness, he dissects the plays and reveals that, contrary to current belief, Shakespeare was well aware of the scientific revolutions of his time. Moreover, Shakespeare imbeds in the allegorical subtext information on the appearances of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars that he could not have known without telescopic aid, yet these plays appeared coeval with or prior to the commonly accepted date of 1610 for the invention and first use of the astronomical telescope. Dr. Usher argues that an early telescope, the so-called perspective glass, was the likely means for the acquisition of these data. This device was invented by the mathematician Leonard Digges, whose grandson of the same name contributed poems to the First and Second Folio editions of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare and the Dawn of Modern Science is an important addition to literature, history, and science collections as well as to personal libraries.

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.

Debate has swirled for years around that most significant of literary problems, the authorship of Shakespeare's works. Now Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, a recognized poet and playwright, has eclipsed Bacon, Marlowe, and all the other candidates for authorship honors. Lengthy and specialized studies have detailed the historico-literary case for Oxford and against the man from Stratford-on-Avon . . . Shakespeare: Who Was He? is the first book to give the general reader a clear, readable, concise analysis of the arguments for both men. Most intriguing are the many direct parallels between Oxford's life and Shakespeare's works, especially in Hamlet, the most autobiographical of the plays. Shakespeare: Who Was He? is a literary mystery of monumental proportions. Whalen's presentation breathes new life into the plays and sonnets through this breakthrough examination of the real-life Hamlet, Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford. William Shakespeare is the only literary figure whose very identity is a matter of long-standing and continuing dispute. Was he really the glover's son from Stratford-on-Avon? Or was he someone else writing under the pseudonym William Shakespeare? The question has been called the foremost literary problem in world literature and history's biggest literary whodunnit. Interest in it has never been greater, and that interest is growing now that a consensus has formed for Edward de Vere, the seventeenth earl of Oxford, as the leading candidate. Oxford, a recognized poet, playwright, and patron of acting companies, has eclipsed Bacon, Marlowe, and all the other candidates. The Oxfordian challenge is now being covered in scholarly books, in articles in magazines such as The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, and on television, including an hour-long PBS FrontLine program. The issue has even been debated in a moot court before three justices of the Supreme Court--with an intriguing outcome. Whalen's book is the first to provide a clear, concise, readable summary for the general reader, one that analyzes the main arguments for both the man from Stratford-on-Avon and the earl of Oxford. His conclusion? The case for Oxford is much more persuasive. Oxford's life in general and in its particulars is mirrored throughout the works of Shakespeare in many striking ways, particularly in Hamlet, the most autobiographical of the plays. Many who have examined the case for Oxford have had their appreciation of Shakespeare transformed and immensely enriched. This book will be required reading for those who love Shakespeare and want to know more about why the authorship controversy persists. The main narrative, which takes the reader easily through the pros and cons for each man, is supplemented by extensive, entertaining endnotes and appendixes, plus a comprehensive, annotated bibliography.

This is a guide to the ailments, general medical concepts and cures and therapies in Shakespeare that includes recent critical work on the early modern body. Physicians, readers and scholars have long been fascinated by Shakespeare's medical language and the presence or mentioning of healers, wise women, surgeons and doctors in his work. This dictionary includes ailments, general medical concepts (elements, humours, spirits) and cures and therapies (ranging from blood-letting to herbal medicines) in Shakespeare, but also body parts, bodily functions, and entries on 'the pathological body' taking into account recent critical work on the early modern body. It will provide a comprehensive guide for those needing to understand specific references in the plays, in particular, archaic diagnoses or therapies ('choleric', 'tub-fast') and words that have changed their meanings ('phlegmatic', 'urinal'); those who want to learn more about early modern medical concepts ('elements', 'humors'); and those who might have questions about the embodied experience of living in Shakespeare's England. Entries reveal what terms and concepts might mean in the context of Shakespeare's plays, and the significance that a particular disease, body part or function has in individual plays and the Shakespearean corpus at large. "The Continuum Shakespeare Dictionary" series provides authoritative guides to major subject-areas covered by the poetry and plays. The dictionaries provide readers with a comprehensive guide to the topic under discussion, especially its contemporary meanings, and to its occurrence and significance in Shakespeare's works. Comprehensive bibliographies accompany many of the items. Entries range from a few lines in length to mini-essays, providing the opportunity to explore an important literary or historical concept or idea in depth.

God and the Gothic: Romance and Reality in the English Literary Tradition provides a complete reimagining of the Gothic literary canon to examine its engagement with theological ideas, tracing its origins to the apocalyptic critique of the Reformation female martyrs, and to the Dissolution of the monasteries, now seen as usurping authorities. A double gesture of repudiation and regret is evident in the consequent search for political, aesthetic, and religious mediation, which characterizes the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution and Whig Providential discourse. Part one interprets eighteenth-century Gothic novels in terms of this Whig debate about the true heir, culminating in Ann Radcliffe's melancholic theology which uses distance and loss to enable a new mediation. Part two traces the origins of the doppelganger in Calvinist anthropology and establishes that its employment by a range of Scottish writers offers a productive mode of subjectivity, necessary in a culture equally concerned with historical continuity. In part three, Irish Gothic is shown to be seeking ways to mediate between Catholic and Protestant identities through models of sacrifice and ecumenism, while in part four nineteenth-century Gothic is read as increasingly theological, responding to materialism by a project of re-enchantment. Ghost story writers assert the metaphysical priority of the supernatural to establish the material world. Arthur Machen and other Order of the Golden Dawn members explore the double and other Gothic tropes as modes of mystical ascent, while raising the physical to the spiritual through magical control, and the M. R. James circle restore the sacramental and psychical efficacy of objects.

This collection of essays is aimed at students who are working on The Merchant of Venice and who are looking for new ways of thinking about the play and new ways of thinking about their own practice as critics. The collection offers a spectrum of the more recent writings on the play, that open up its historical, cultural and political significance and serve to demonstrate some of the ways in which contemporary criticism is not only based upon critical theory but is also about the practice of criticism. This is a strong collection of essays about Shakespeare's most controversial play.

Gene A. Plunka argues that drama is the ideal art form to revitalize the collective memory of Holocaust resistance. Drama of and about the Holocaust can be staged worldwide, thereby introducing the Shoah to diverse audiences. Moreover, theatre affects audiences emotionally, subliminally, or intellectually (sometimes simultaneously) in a direct way that many other art forms cannot match. This comparative drama study examines a variety of international plays - some quite well-known, others more obscure - that focus on collective or individual defiance of the Nazis.

Shakespeare in the Spanish Theatre offers an account of Shakespeare's presence on the Spanish stage, from a production of the first Spanish rendering of Jean-Francois Ducis's Hamlet in 1772 to the creative and controversial work of directors like Calixto Bieito and Alex Rigola in the early 21st century. Despite a largely indirect entrance into the culture, Shakespeare has gone on to become the best and known and most widely performed of all foreign playwrights. What is more, by the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century there have been more productions of Shakespeare than of all of Spain's major Golden Age dramatists put together. This book explores and explains this spectacular rise to prominence and offers a timely overview of Shakespeare's place in Spain's complex and vibrant culture.

'Julius Caesar is, simply, Shakespeare's African play' John Kani In 2012, actor Paterson Joseph played the role of Brutus in the Royal Shakespeare Company's acclaimed production of Julius Caesar - Gregory Doran's last play before becoming Artistic Director for the RSC. It is a play, Joseph is quick to acknowledge, that is widely misunderstood - even dreaded - when it comes to study and performance. Alongside offering fascinating insights into Julius Caesar and Shakespeare's writing, Joseph serves up details of the rehearsal process; his key collaborations during an eclectic career; as well as his experience of working with a majority black cast. He considers the positioning of ethnic minority actors in Shakespeare productions in general, and female actors tackling so seemingly masculine a play in particular. Audience reactions are also investigated by Joseph, citing numerous conversations he has had with psychologists, counsellors and neurologists on the subject of what happens between performer and spectator. For Paterson Joseph, his experience of playing Brutus in Julius Caesar with the RSC was a defining point in his career, and a transformative experience. For any actor or practitioner working on Shakespeare - or for any reader interested in his plays - this is a fascinating and informative read, which unlocks so much about making and understanding theatre from the inside.

Drawing on entirely new evidence, The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts in England 1580-1630 examines the history of English dramatic form and its relationship to the mathematics, technology, and early scientific thought during the Renaissance period. The book demonstrates how practical modes of thinking that were typical of the sixteenth century resulted in new genres of plays and a new vocabulary for problems of poetic representation. In the epistemological moment the book recovers, we find new ideas about form and language that would become central to Renaissance literary discourse; in this same moment, too, we find new ways of thinking about the relationship between theory and practice that are typical of modernity, new attitudes towards spatial representation, and a new interest in both poetics and mathematics as distinctive ways of producing knowledge about the world. By emphasizing the importance of theatrical performance, the book engages with continuing debates over the cultural function of the early modern stage and with scholarship on the status of modern authorship. When we consider playwrights in relation to the theatre rather than the printed book, they appear less as "authors" than as figures whose social position and epistemological presuppositions were very similar to the craftsmen, surveyors, and engineers who began to flourish during the sixteenth century and whose mathematical knowledge made them increasingly sought after by men of wealth and power.

This is a fresh reassessment of the work of the principal playwrights associated with the Irish Dramatic Revival, a movement that was to radically redefine Irish theatre and see the birth of the world's first national theatre, the Abbey, in 1904. The work of O'Casey and Synge has had a profound influence on generations of writers and remains key to the study of modern drama, whereas work by Yeats and Lady Gregory has received renewed attention among theatre makers and scholars owing to their radical innovation and range.From a consideration of the twin strands of Irish drama prior to the revival, Anthony Roche considers the work of Synge and his experimentation in the creation of a new national drama that drew on native sources while developing a modern and prophetic form of theatre. He explores the role of Yeats as founder and playwright; the role of women and in particular Lady Gregory as producer and dramatist; and the playwrights who emerged following independence. O'Casey's ground-breaking Dublin plays receive detailed consideration, and the new Irish modernism that followed in the 30s and which also witnessed the founding of the Gate Theatre in Dublin.The Companion also features a number of essays from other leading scholars and contemporary practioners offering a variety of critical perspectives on this period of radical change and development in modern Irish theatre.

Shakespeare's plays were the product of his culture and reflect the daily life of Elizabethans. This book examines the religious background of his works and helps students use his plays to understand religion in Elizabethan England. The initial chapters survey the role of religion in Shakespeare's world. The volume then looks at religion in his plays and how productions from different periods have addressed the religious issues of his drama. A chapter then overviews criticism on Shakespeare and religion, while a selection of primary documents illuminates his religious milieu. Students often find the Elizabethan world fascinating yet challenging. The same can be said of Shakespeare's plays, which reflect the daily life and concerns of Elizabethan England and grew out of his milieu. Written for students, this book illuminates the religious life of Elizabethan England, promotes a greater understanding of Shakespeare's plays, and uses Shakespeare's works to examine Early Modern religious culture. The volume begins with a quick overview of the origins of Elizabethan religious traditions, followed by a more detailed consideration of the chief religious beliefs and concerns of Shakespeare's world. It then discusses the role of religion in Shakespeare's plays. This is followed by a look at how various productions have interpreted his religious concerns. A review of criticism on Shakespeare and religion follows, along with a selection of primary documents related to religion in his world. A glossary defines key terms and concepts, and a bibliography cites print and electronic resources for further study. Literature students will welcome this book as a guide to Shakespeare's plays, while history students will value it for using his plays to examine religion in the Early Modern era.