This eighth volume of The Shakespearean International Yearbook presents a special section on 'European Shakespeares', proceeding from the claim that Shakespeare's literary craft was not just native English or British, but was filtered and fashioned through a Renaissance awareness that needs to be recognized as European, and that has had effects and afterlives across the Continent. Guest editors Ton Hoenselaars and Clara Calvo have constructed this section to highlight both how the spread of 'Shakespeare' throughout Europe has brought together the energies of a wide variety of European cultures across several centuries, and how the inclusion of Shakespeare in European culture has been not only a European but also a world affair. The Shakespearean International Yearbook continues to provide an annual survey of important issues and developments in contemporary Shakespeare studies. Contributors to this issue come from the US and the UK, Spain, Switzerland and South Africa, Canada, The Netherlands, India, Portugal, Greece, France, and Hungary. In addition to the section on European Shakespeares, this volume includes essays on the genre of romance, issues of character, and other topics.

Writers of the English Renaissance, like their European contemporaries, frequently reflect on the phenomenon of exile-an experience that forces the individual to establish a new personal identity in an alien environment. Although there has been much commentary on this phenomenon as represented in English Renaissance literature, there has been nothing written at length about its counterpart, namely, internal exile: marginalization, or estrangement, within the homeland. This volume considers internal exile as a simultaneously twofold experience. It studies estrangement from one's society and, correlatively, from one's normative sense of self. In doing so, it focuses initially on the sonnet sequences by Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare (which is to say, the problematics of romance); then it examines the verse satires of Donne, Hall, and Marston (likewise, the problematics of anti-romance). This book argues that the authors of these major texts create mythologies-via the myths of (and accumulated mythographies about) Cupid, satyrs, and Proteus-through which to reflect on the doubleness of exile within one's own community. These mythologies, at times accompanied by theologies, of alienation suggest that internal exile is a fluid and complex experience demanding multifarious reinterpretation of the incongruously expatriate self. The monograph thus establishes a new framework for understanding texts at once diverse yet central to the Elizabethan literary achievement.

'By far the best edition of King Lear - in respect of both textual and other matters - that we now have.' John Lyon, English Language Notes 'This volume is a treasure-trove of precise information and stimulating comments on practically every aspect of the Lear-universe. I know of no other edition which I would recommend with such confidence: to students, professional colleagues and also the 'educated public'.' Dieter Mehl, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol 134

Published in 1908, this book considers the work of William Shakespeare. Providing notes and commentaries on some of his poems and plays, as well as context from English history, and analysis from his contemporaries and successors, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher and Massinger, this book will be an interesting read for those interested in his work.

Located at the intersection of new historicism and the 'new formalism', historical formalism is one of the most rapidly growing and important movements in early modern studies: taking seriously the theoretical issues raised by both history and form, it challenges the anti-formalist orthodoxies of new historicism and expands the scope of historicist criticism. Shakespeare and Historical Formalism is the first volume devoted exclusively to collecting and assessing work of this kind. With essays on a broad range of Shakespeare's works and engaging topics from performance theory to the emergence of 'the literary' and from historiography to pedagogy, the volume demonstrates the value of historical formalism for Shakespeare studies and for literary criticism as a whole. Shakespeare and Historical Formalism begins with an introduction that describes the nature and potential of historical formalism and traces its roots in early modern literary theory and its troubled relationship with new historicism. The volume is then divided into two sections corresponding to the two chief objectives of historical formalism: a historically informed and politically astute formalism, and a historicist criticism revitalized by attention to issues of form. The first section, 'Historicizing Form', explores from a variety of perspectives the historical and political sources, meanings and functions of Shakespeare's dramatic forms. The second section, 'Re-Forming History', uses questions of form to rethink our understanding of historicism and of history itself, and in doing so challenges some of our fundamental literary-critical, pedagogical and epistemological assumptions. Concluding with suggestions for further reading on historical formalism and related work, Shakespeare and Historical Formalism invites scholars to rethink the familiar categories and principles of formal and historical criticism.

First published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Bringing together some of the best current practitioners of historical and formal criticism, Reading Renaissance Ethics assesses the ethical performance of renaissance texts as historical agents in their time and in ours.

Exploring the nature and mechanics of cultural agency, the book explains with greater clarity just what is at stake when canon-formation, aesthetic evaluation and curricular reform are questioned and revised. Taking seriously the question of what to read requires us to consider exactly what it is that we do when we read and when we write about our reading. Reading Renaissance Ethics asks what sorts of events took place when Renaissance texts were first read and how this differs from the way we read and teach them now.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Winter's Tale, one of Shakespeare's later romantic comedies, offers a striking and challenging mixture of tragic and violent events, lyrical love-speeches, farcical comedy, pastoral song and dance, and, eventually, dramatic revelations and reunions. Thematically, there is a rich orchestration of the contrasts between age and youth, corruption and innocence, decline and regeneration. Both Leontes' murderous jealousy and Perdita's love-relationship with Florizel are eloquently intense. In the theatre, The Winter's Tale often proves to be diversely entertaining and deeply moving.

Powerful tragedy of an aging king, betrayed by his daughters, robbed of his kingdom, descending into madness. Perhaps the bleakest of Shakespeare's tragic dramas, it explores themes of filial ingratitude, injustice, wretchedness and the meaninglessness of life with unsurpassed power and depth. Reprinted here from an authoritative British edition, complete with explanatory footnotes.

"Presentist Shakespeares "constitutes the first extended exposition and exploration of the principles and the practice of presentism. Although an emphasis on history or historical context has been very important in recent Shakespeare scholarship, no critic is able to make direct contact with a past uncontaminated by their own contemporary concerns. By the same token, all experience of the present is moulded by the past. "Presentism," as elaborated in this volume, takes account of the never-ending dialogue between past and present, scrupulously seeking out salient aspects of the present as a crucial trigger for its investigations and arguing that an intrusive, shaping awareness of ourselves deserves our closest attention.
The distinguished team of contributors to this volume demonstrate the way in which presentist readings make possible a fuller engagement with the ironies generated by our inescapable involvement in time. These ironies, the contributors argue, are a fruitful, necessary and inescapable aspect of any text's being, which also function as agents of change, flowing unstoppably back into the events of the past, coloring how we perceive them, modifying our sense of what they signify. In respect of Shakespeare, they point to shades of implication suddenly available here and now within the wide range of plays examined, subtly challenging, changing and adding to our sense of what they are able to tell us. Perhaps, it is suggested, they offer the only effective purchase on these texts that we are able to make.
Presentist criticism is an open-ended and on-going project, located at a particularly interesting and demanding juncture in modern Shakespeare studies. Its boundariesremain to be defined. It is envisaged, however, that the new essays of this collection will establish a landmark: one which reflects, develops and even rejoices in this indeterminacy.

"Presentist Shakespeares "constitutes the first extended exposition and exploration of the principles and the practice of presentism. Although an emphasis on history or historical context has been very important in recent Shakespeare scholarship, no critic is able to make direct contact with a past uncontaminated by their own contemporary concerns. By the same token, all experience of the present is moulded by the past. "Presentism," as elaborated in this volume, takes account of the never-ending dialogue between past and present, scrupulously seeking out salient aspects of the present as a crucial trigger for its investigations and arguing that an intrusive, shaping awareness of ourselves deserves our closest attention.
The distinguished team of contributors to this volume demonstrate the way in which presentist readings make possible a fuller engagement with the ironies generated by our inescapable involvement in time. These ironies, the contributors argue, are a fruitful, necessary and inescapable aspect of any text's being, which also function as agents of change, flowing unstoppably back into the events of the past, coloring how we perceive them, modifying our sense of what they signify. In respect of Shakespeare, they point to shades of implication suddenly available here and now within the wide range of plays examined, subtly challenging, changing and adding to our sense of what they are able to tell us. Perhaps, it is suggested, they offer the only effective purchase on these texts that we are able to make.
Presentist criticism is an open-ended and on-going project, located at a particularly interesting and demanding juncture in modern Shakespeare studies. Its boundariesremain to be defined. It is envisaged, however, that the new essays of this collection will establish a landmark: one which reflects, develops and even rejoices in this indeterminacy.

"Much Ado About Nothing "presents a battle of the sexes in more ways than one: as both a lightning-fast skirmish of wits between two famously disputatious lovers, and a near-deadly conflict built on conventions of gender and male rivalry. Claire McEachern's new introduction brings this best-seller right up to date, analysing recent developments in criticism and the latest productions of this comedy.

'Conversation is the beginning and end of knowledge', wrote Stephano Guazzo in his Civil Conversation. Like Guazzo's, this is a book dedicated to the Renaissance concept of conversation, a concept that functioned simultaneously as a privileged literary and rhetorical form (the dialogue), an intellectual and artistic program (the humanists' interactions with ancient texts), and a political possibility (the king's council, or the republican concept of mixed government). In its varieties of knowledge production, the Renaissance was centrally concerned with debate and dialogue, not only among scholars, but also, and perhaps more importantly, among and with texts. Renaissance reading practices were active and engaged: such conversations with texts were meant to prepare the mind for political and civic life, and the political itself was conceived as fundamentally conversational. The humanist idea of conversation thus theorized the relationships among literature, politics, and history; it was one of the first modern attempts to locate cultural production within a specific historical and political context. The essays in this collection investigate the varied ways in which the Renaissance incorporated textual conversation and dialogue into its literary, political, juridical, religious, and social practices. They focus on the importance of conversation to early modern understandings of ethics; on literary history itself as an ongoing authorial conversation; and on the material and textual technologies that enabled early modern conversations.

The One-Hour Shakespeare series is a collection of abridged versions of Shakespeare's plays, designed specifically to accommodate both small and large casts. This volume, The Tragedies, includes the following plays: Hamlet Julius Caesar Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet These accessible and versatile scripts are supported by: an introduction with emphasis on the evolution of the series and the creative process of editing; the One-Hour projects in performance, a chapter on implementing money-saving ideas and suggestions for production, whether in or outside a classroom setting; specific lesson plans to incorporate these projects successfully into an academic course; and cross-gender casting suggestions. These supplementary materials make the plays valuable not only for actors, directors and professors, but for any environment, cast or purpose. Ideal for both academics and professionals, One-Hour Shakespeare is the perfect companion to teaching and staging the most universally read and performed playwright in history.

Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reassessment of cultural materialism as a way of understanding textuality, history and culture, by one of the founding figures of this critical movement. Alan Sinfield examines cultural materialism both as a body of ongoing argument and as it informs particular works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, especially in relation to sexuality in early-modern England and queer theory. The book has several interlocking preoccupations: theories of textuality and reading the political location of Shakespearean plays and the organisation of literary culture today the operation of state power in the early-modern period and the scope for dissidence the sex/gender system in that period and the application of queer theory in history. These preoccupations are explored in and around a range of works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Throughout the book Sinfield re-presents cultural materialism, framing it not as a set of propositions, as has often been done, but as a cluster of unresolved problems. His brilliant, lucid and committed readings demonstrate that the 'unfinished business' of cultural materialism - and Sinfield's work in particular - will long continue to produce new questions and challenges for the fields of Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies.

Namesake princes and presidents; stolen thrones and elections; plutocrats and insurgents; campaign trails and war-mongering; waning monarchy and imperilled democracy; and revengers, early modern and postmodern: these themes drive this provocative study of Shakespeare's legacy in contemporary American and British politics.
Linked by focused readings o"f Hamlet and the Henriad, "the essays follow Shakespeare's two most famous royal sons, the Princes Hamlet and Hal, as they haunt contemporary political psychology in the early years of a new millennium, and especially in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Between devolution in Britain and the new "doctrine" of pre-emptive strike in the United States, our contemporary Hamlets and Hals epitomize a debate-as fraught now as in Shakespeare's day-about the cost of spin-doctoring legacies. In exploring how current political culture inherits Shakespeare, Hamlet's Heirs challenges scholarly assumptions about historical periodicity, modernity, and the uses of Shakespeare in present-day contexts.
Speaking to readers in a voice that is adventurous rather than authoritative, innovative rather than institutional, and speculative rather than orthodox, Charnes reveals that when it comes to legacy we are all, in one way or another, Hamlet's heirs.

Witches, murder, ghosts, and madness -- one of Shakespeare's finest tragedies is also a perfect fit for the graphic novel format. This compelling adaptation depicts every blood-curdling scene in easy-to-follow illustrations, accompanied by Shakespeare's original text. An illustrated cast of characters reminds readers who's who, and fascinating background information on Shakespeare and the real Macbeth adds historical context.

This manga recreation of Shakespeare's tricksiest comedy plays out its serial deceptions and counterfeits against the operatic backdrop of a later Italian landscape. But don't believe everything you hear...

"Dances of Shakespeare" gives a brief introduction to how to perform all of the dance styles featured in Shakespeare's plays. Designed for the practicing director, actor, or choreographer, it gives clear instruction on how to perform popular dances of Shakespeare's day, including masques, brawls, canaries, corantos, galliards, jigs, La Volta, pavans, morris dances, and roundels. Accompanied by clear illustrations, these instructions allow even the dance-challenged to quickly master enough technique to suit amateur, community, college, or semi-professional productions. Other useful features include a chronological listing of popular dances similar in spirit to those of Shakespeare's days, designed for those staging Shakespeare's work in periods other than as written, as well as an appendix list of the plays grouped by what is called for in the text: a "dance," a "masque," or a specific dance form. Dances of Shakespeare is a "must have" for all student directors and performers interested in staging Shakespeare's works.

This remarkable volume challenges scholars and students to look beyond a dominant European and North American "metropolitan bank" of Shakespeare knowledge. As well as revealing the potential for a new understanding of Shakespeare's plays, Martin Orkin explores a fresh approach to issues of power, where "proximations" emerge from a process of dialogue and challenge traditional notions of authority.
Since their first performances, Shakespeare's plays and their audiences or readers have journeyed to one another across time and space, to and from countless and always different historical, geographical and ideological locations. Engagement with a Shakespeare text always entails in part, then, cultural encounter or clash, and readings are shaped by a reader's particular location and knowledge. Part I of this book challenges us to recognize the way in which "local" or "non-metropolitan" knowledges and experiences might extend understanding of Shakespeare's texts and their locations. Part II demonstrates the use of local as well as metropolitan knowledges in exploring the presentation of masculinity in Shakespeare's late plays. These plays themselves dramatize encounters with different cultures and, crucially, challenges to established authority.
Challenging the authority of metropolitan scholarship, twenty-first-century global capitalism and the masculinist imperatives that drive it, Orkin's daring, powerful work will have reverberations throughout but also well beyond the field of Shakespeare studies.

No Fear

Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Read& nbsp; A Midsummer Night's Dream in all its brilliance and actually understand what it means.

& nbsp;

No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete text of A Midsummer Night's Dream on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right.

Starting from the early modern presumption of the incorporation of role with authority, Jean Lambert explores male teachers as representing and engaging with types of authority in English plays and dramatic entertainments by Shakespeare and his contemporaries from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth century. This book examines these theatricalized portraits in terms of how they inflect aspects of humanist educational culture and analyzes those ideas and practices of humanist pedagogy that carry implications for the traditional foundations of authority. Teachers in Early Modern English Drama is a fascinating study through two centuries of teaching Shakespeare and his contemporaries and will be a valuable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century drama, writing, and culture.

This unique study investigates the ways in which the staging convention of direct address - talking to the audience - can construct selfhood, for Shakespeare's characters. By focusing specifically on the relationship between performer and audience, Talking to the Audience examines what happens when the audience are in the presence of a dramatic figure who knows they are there. It is a book concerned with theatrical illusion; with the pleasures and disturbances of seeing 'characters' produced in the moment of performance.
Through analysis of contemporary productions Talking to the Audience serves to demonstrate how the study of recent performance helps us to understand both Shakespeare's cultural moment and our own. Its exploration of how theory and practice can inform each other make this essential reading for all those studying Shakespeare in either a literary or theatrical context.

This unique study investigates the ways in which the staging convention of direct address - talking to the audience - can construct selfhood, for Shakespeare's characters. By focusing specifically on the relationship between performer and audience, Talking to the Audience examines what happens when the audience are in the presence of a dramatic figure who knows they are there. It is a book concerned with theatrical illusion; with the pleasures and disturbances of seeing 'characters' produced in the moment of performance.
Through analysis of contemporary productions Talking to the Audience serves to demonstrate how the study of recent performance helps us to understand both Shakespeare's cultural moment and our own. Its exploration of how theory and practice can inform each other make this essential reading for all those studying Shakespeare in either a literary or theatrical context.

Each edition includes:
- Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
- Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages_facing the text of the play
- Scene-by-scene plot summaries
- A key to famous lines and phrases
- An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
- An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing_a modern perspective on the play
- Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare_Library's vast holdings of rare books
TEACHERS: Lesson plans for this play are available at_www.folger.edu. To receive a curriculum guide for this play, email your request to [email protected]. Please specify PDF or print version.
Essay by Michael Neill
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.