"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.

'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.

Witchcraft: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to the scholarly study of witchcraft, exploring the phenomenon of witchcraft from its earliest definitions in the Middle Ages through to its resonances in the modern world. Through the use of two case studies, this book delves into the emergence of the witch as a harmful figure within western thought and traces the representation of witchcraft throughout history, analysing the roles of culture, religion, politics, gender and more in the evolution and enduring role of witchcraft. Key topics discussed within the book include: The role of language in creating and shaping the concept of witchcraft The laws and treatises written against witchcraft The representation of witchcraft in early modern literature The representation of witchcraft in recent literature, TV and film Scholarly approaches to witchcraft through time The relationship between witchcraft and paganism With an extensive further reading list, summaries and questions to consider at the end of each chapter, Witchcraft: The Basics is an ideal introduction for anyone wishing to learn more about this controversial issue in human culture, which is still very much alive today.

"The Tempest "is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both in the classroom and in the theatre, and this revision brings the Arden Third series edition right up-to-date. A completely new section of the introduction discusses new thinking about Shakespeare's sources for the play and examines his treatment of colonial themes, as well as covering key productions since this edition was first published in 1999. Most importantly it looks at Julie Taymor's ground-breaking 2010 film starring Helen Mirren as "Prospera"

Alden and Virginia Vaughan's edition of "The Tempest "is highly valued for its authority and originality and this revision brings it up-to-date, making it even more relevant and useful to studetns and theatre practitioners.

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.

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of Macbeth provides a thorough reconsideration of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. In his introduction, A. R. Braunmuller explores Macbeth's immediate theatrical and political contexts, particularly the Gunpowder Plot, and addresses such celebrated questions as: do the Witches compel Macbeth to murder; is Lady Macbeth herself in some sense a witch; is Macduff morally culpable? A new and well-illustrated account of the play in performance examines several cinematic versions, such as those by Kurosawa and Roman Polanski, as well as other dramatic adaptations. Several possible new sources are suggested and the presence of Thomas Middleton's writing in the play is also proposed.

"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.

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.

This eye-opening study draws attention to the largely neglected form of the early modern prologue. Reading the prologue in performed as well as printed contexts, Douglas Bruster and Robert Weimann take us beyond concepts of stability and autonomy in dramatic beginnings to reveal the crucial cultural functions performed by the prologue in Elizabethan England. While its most basic task is to seize the attention of a noisy audience, the prologue's more significant threshold position is used to usher spectators and actors through a rite of passage. Engaging competing claims, expectations and offerings, the prologue introduces, authorizes and, critically, straddles the worlds of the actual theatrical event and the 'counterfeit' world on stage. In this way, prologues occupy a unique and powerful position between two orders of cultural practice and perception. Close readings of prologues by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, including Marlowe, Peele and Lyly, demonstrate the prologue's role in representing both the world in the play and playing in the world. Through their detailed examination of this remarkable form and its functions, the authors provide a fascinating perspective on early modern drama, a perspective that enriches our knowledge of the plays' socio-cultural context and their mode of theatrical address and action.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen provides a lively guide to film and television productions adapted from Shakespeare's plays. Offering an essential resource for students of Shakespeare, the companion considers topics such as the early history of Shakespeare films, the development of 'live' broadcasts from theatre to cinema, the influence of promotion and marketing, and the range of versions available in 'world cinema'. Chapters on the contexts, genres and critical issues of Shakespeare on screen offer a diverse range of close analyses, from 'Classical Hollywood' films to the BBC's Hollow Crown series. The companion also features sections on the work of individual directors Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branagh, and Vishal Bhardwaj, and is supplemented by a guide to further reading and a filmography.

Written by an international group of highly regarded scholars and rooted in the field of intermedial approaches to literary studies, this volume explores the complex aesthetic process of "picturing" in early modern English literature. The essays in this volume offer a comprehensive and varied picture of the relationship between visual and verbal in the early modern period, while also contributing to the understanding of the literary context in which Shakespeare wrote. Using different methodological approaches and taking into account a great variety of texts, including Elizabethan sonnet sequences, metaphysical poetry, famous as well as anonymous plays, and court masques, the book opens new perspectives on the literary modes of "picturing" and on the relationship between this creative act and the tense artistic, religious and political background of early modern Europe. The first section explores different modes of looking at works of art and their relation with technological innovations and religious controversies, while the chapters in the second part highlight the multifaceted connections between European visual arts and English literary production. The third section explores the functions performed by portraits on the page and the stage, delving into the complex question of the relationship between visual and verbal representation. Finally, the chapters in the fourth section re-appraise early modern reflections on the relationship between word and image and on their respective power in light of early-seventeenth-century visual culture, with particular reference to the masque genre.

In this book, renowned Renaissance drama critic Arthur F. Kinney argues that Shakespeare's method of composing plays through networks of meanings can be seen as a harbinger of today's information technology. Drawing upon hypertext and cognitive theory--areas that have for some time promised to take on more importance in the sphere of Shakespeare Studies--as well as the central metaphor of the Routledge collection The Renaissance Computer, Kinney looks in detail at four objects/images in Shakespeare's plays--mirrors, maps, clocks, and books--and explores the ways in which they make up networks of meaning within single plays and across the dramatist's body of work that anticipate in some ways the networks of meaning or "information" now possible in the computer age.

Read Shakespeare's plays in all their brilliance--and understand what every word means! Don't be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard's plays accessible and enjoyable. Each No Fear guide contains: The complete text of the original play A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday language A complete list of characters with descriptions Plenty of helpful commentary

Merely Players? marks a groundbreaking departure in Shakespeare studies by giving direct voice to the Shakespearean performer. It draws on three centuries worth of actors' written reflections on playing Shakespeare and brings together the dual worlds of performance and academia, providing a unique resource for the student and theatre-lover alike.

Bringing Shakespeare to the Sunshine State, this book gathers together a talented group of teachers, choreographers, directors, set designers, musicians, costumers, actors, and artists to discuss how they have adapted the bard's monologues in Miami, assassinated Julius Caesar on the steps of Tallahassee's Capitol, trained students to duel in Florida's Panhandle, placed Shylock on trial in Orlando, and transformed Gainesville into Puck's magical forest. This guide for teachers and lovers of literature and theater is an original collection of essays exploring the idea that Shakespeare's plays are best approached playfully through performance. Based on their wide-ranging experience as theater professionals and teachers in Florida, New York, London, and Stratford, the authors celebrate Shakespeare's continuing appeal to our complex, diverse culture. The essays include reflections on acting by the Royal Shakespeare Company's longest-serving member. And there's practical advice on acting; directing; staging fights; designing costumes; and integrating music, dance, masks, and puppets into performances from teachers and others who have refined their methods by performing Shakespeare in the classroom.

First published in 1982, this volume responds to the attribution of numerous plays to Shakespeare which were not his own and selects four plays which have been ascribed in whole or in part to Shakespeare by responsible, talented scholars: The Reign of King Edward III, Sir Thomas More, The History of Cardenio and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Included in the bibliography are all the books, chapters and appendices of books, articles, review articles, reviews and notices of stage productions and a limited number of the more substantial discussions dealing with the four plays and published since 1930. The bibliography is organized by play with an initial section listing items dealing with two or more plays.

Published in 1979: This is a play based on the reign of King John with notes.

This Norton Critical Edition of Richard III is based on the First Quarto (1597) edition of the play with interpolations from the First Folio (1623). The play is accompanied by a preface, explanatory annotations, A Note on the Text, a list of Textual Variants, and eighteen illustrations of seminal scenes from major dramatic productions and film versions of the play.

Contexts provides readers with the sources and analogues that informed Shakespeare s composition of Richard III. These include excerpts from Robert Fabyan s New Chronicles of England and France, Thomas More s The History of King Richard III, Edward Hall s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York, A Mirror for Magistrates, and The True Tragedy of Richard III. A selection from Colley Cibber s eighteenth-century adaptation records the compromised form in which Richard III held the stage for approximately two hundred years before twentieth-century editors brought it back into recognizable shape. A representative selection of commentary on stage and film reproductions of Richard III is also provided, ranging from reviews of nineteenth-century productions by William Hazlitt and George Bernard Shaw, a survey of stage performances by Scott Colley, and in-depth analyses of twentieth-century film adaptations by Saskia Kossak, Barbara Hodgdon, and Peter S. Donaldson.

Criticism collects eight major pieces of scholarship, including early accounts of the play s major themes by William Richardson and Edward Dowden, modern critical assessments by Wilbur Sanders, Elihu Pearlman, Linda Charnes, Katherine Maus, and Ian Moulton, and an essay by Harry Berger Jr. especially commissioned for this volume.

A Selected Bibliography is also included."