The majority of Shakespeare's plays have at least one clown figure making an appearance. These characters range from rogues who say only a line or two, to important figures like Touchstone and Falstaff. Videbaek examines even the smallest clown roles, showing how the clown's freedom of speech allows him to become a mediator between the audience and the action of the play, helping audience interpretation. This illuminating celebration of the stage clown's contribution to the understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare's plays will be a valuable resource for both students and scholars alike.

This book challenges traditional Shakespeare studies through a study of its textual imperatives in the late eighteenth century. Only with Malone's 1790 edition did concepts now basic to literary studies become dominant.

This volume offers a practical, accessible and thought-provoking guide to this Roman tragedy, surveying its major themes and critical reception. It also provides a detailed and up-to-date history of the play's performance, beginning with its earliest known staging in 1599, including an analysis of the 2013 film Caesar Must Die starring Italian inmates, and an assessment of why the play is now coming back into vogue on stage. Moving through to four new critical essays, it opens up cutting-edge perspectives on the work, and finishes with a guide to pedagogical approaches by the experienced teacher and leading academic Jeremy Lopez. Detailing web-based and production-related resources, and including an annotated bibliography of critical works, the guide will equip teachers and facilitate students' understanding of this challenging play.

Hamlet remains the most-studied of all Shakespeare's great tragedies. This collection of newly-commissioned essays gives readers an overview of past critical views of the play as well as new writing about the play from today's leading scholars. The range of perspectives offered makes the book an invaluable companion to anyone studying the play at an advanced level. The final chapter on learning and teaching resources is particularly useful as a guide for further study.

Though better known for his literary merits, Shakespeare made money, wrote about money and enabled money-making by countless others in his name. With chapters by leading scholars on the economic, financial and commercial ramifications of his work, this multifaceted volume connects the Bard to both early modern and contemporary economic conditions, revealing Shakespeare to have been a serious economist in his own right.

Exploring the interactions between Shakespeare and popular music, this book links these seeming polar opposites, showing how musicians have woven the Bard into their sounds. How have Shakespearean characters, words, texts and iconography been represented and reworked through popular music? Do all types of popular music represent Shakespeare in the same ways? And how do the links between Shakespeare and popular music challenge what we think we know about both Shakespeare and popular music? One of the enduring myths about how Shakespeare and popular music relate is that they don't - after all the antagonism between high culture and pop music could be considered mutual. In the first book of its kind, Adam Hansen shows what happens to Shakespeare when he exists in and becomes popular music, in all its diverse and glorious forms. Exploring these interactions reveals as much about the functions of the diverse genres of popular music as it does about Shakespeare as a global cultural form. Discussing a wide range of examples in a critically-informed but lively and accessible style, this book brings something new to Shakespeare and popular music, capturing the excitement and energy of both for its readers.

The work of an acclaimed critic and director, this book breaks new ground by describing how the rehearsal process highlights the principal theatrical issues of Shakespeare's late plays: Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. Drawing on his extensive experience with the rehearsal and performance at Stratford, Ontario in 1986, and at the National Theatre in 1988, Warren demonstrates how rehearsal creates extreme contrasts of mood and action, places intense personal crises in a wider political framework, and inspires spiritual journeys in the actors. Addressing many aspects of production--acting, direction, design, lighting, music, and audience response--this work will be important to all those involved with Shakespearean drama and its performance.

The four plays of Shakespeare's Henriad and the slightly later Hamlet brilliantly explore interconnections between political power and interior subjectivity as productions of the newly emerging constellation we call modernity. Hugh Grady argues that for Shakespeare subjectivity was a critical, negative mode of resistance to power - not, as many recent critics have asserted, its abettor.

Making an important new contribution to rapidly expanding fields of study surrounding the adaptation and appropriation of Shakespeare, Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation is the first book to address the intersection of ethics, aesthetics, authority, and authenticity.

This collection of essays approaches the works of Shakespeare from the topical perspective of the History of Emotions. Contributions come from established and emergent scholars from a range of disciplines, including performance history, musicology and literary history.

Posthumanist Shakespeares is a critical investigation of the relationship between early modern culture and contemporary political and technological changes concerning the idea of the 'human.' The volume covers the tragedies King Lear and Hamlet in particular, but also provides posthumanist readings of The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, Timon of Athens and Pericles. The value of the collection lies in extending a posthumanist paradigm to interpretations of Shakespeare, and in demonstrating how posthumanism can be in turn read back by Shakespeare's work. What emerges from Posthumanist Shakespeares is that the encounter between posthumanism and Shakespeare studies, far from being unlikely, is productive for both fields and can lead to a critical rethinking of both, recasting questions concerning time, life, death, science, technology, and the nature of the human.

"Othello "has long been, and remains, one of Shakespeare's most popular works. It is a favourite work of scholars, students, and general readers alike. Perhaps more than any other of Shakespeare's tragedies, this one seems to speak most clearly to contemporary readers and audiences, partly because it deals with such pressing modern issues as race, gender, multiculturalism, and the ways love, jealousy, and misunderstanding can affect relations between romantic partners. The play also features Iago, one of Shakespeare's most mesmerizing and puzzling villains. This guide offers students and scholars an introduction to the play's critical and performance history, including notable stage productions and film versions. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further research.

Shakespeare is one of the world's most widely taught and most demanding authors. Fortunately, many of his plays have been adapted for film and television, and these productions are a valuable aid for helping students understand and respond to his works. This reference shows teachers and students how to master the techniques of discussing productions of his plays on film and television. It distinguishes the advantages and limitations of film and television as media for representing Shakespeare's dramas. The book then examines strategies for incorporating film and television productions in the classroom and provides many specific examples of how to write about these adaptations of the plays. The volume describes numerous educational resources, both in print and on cassette. This reference will prove invaluable to teachers and students of Shakespeare at all levels, particularly at a time when Shakespeare films are being produced at an unprecedented pace. Although Shakespeare is one of the world's most widely taught authors, he is also one of the world's most demanding. Because of the popularity and sophistication of his works, numerous film and television adaptations of his plays have been made-some decades ago and others very recently. Shakespeare films are coming out at an unprecedented rate, as audiences continue to respond to the richness of his works. These productions are a valuable means of introducing students to Shakespeare's plays, for the film and television versions reflect different interpretations of his works. Although some productions are generally considered better than others, and all have various faults and virtues, each of them teaches us something about the play and the medium. This reference book is a convenient guide for helping teachers and students master the techniques of discussing productions of the plays on film and television. It makes important distinctions between the two media, particularly about the conceptual and physical space available in each and the choices that space, or lack of it, impose on production. Central to the book is the concept of script, the words from which productions are generated. Because even weak productions are nonetheless interpretations of Shakespeare's scripts, they can be used effectively to explore the complex issues in his plays. The volume includes many suggestions about how to help students write well by comparing in very specific terms small segments from different productions. It lists the resources available in this rapidly growing field, both on cassette and in print, and gives many examples of critical commentary, looking at genre, editing, allusion, setting, and the script in historical context. Productions discussed include the Edzard As You Like It, the Branagh A Midwinter's Tale, the Parker Othello, the Loncraine Richard III, and seventy years of Hamlet. Students and teachers of Shakespeare at all levels will find this book to be an invaluable guide to his plays.

Shakespeare's late plays are a 'mixed bag' with a common theme: from the fiendishly jealous Leontes to the saintly Pericles; from the ineffectual Cymbeline to the omnipotent Propspero; from the 'sprites and goblins' of The Tempest to the famous bear of The Winter's Tale, the characters have excited wonder and contempt while the range of incident is almost irresponsibly extravagant. Was Shakespeare losing his grip, or his interest, or both? Was he striking out in some bold new theatrical direction? This Guide provides a critical survey of the major debates and issues surrounding the late plays, from the earliest published accounts to the present day. Nicholas Potter offers a clear guiding narrative and an exploration of literary history, focusing on how criticism of these remarkable works, and attempts to make sense of them, have developed over the years.

Uniquely, this guide analyses the play's critical and performance history and recent criticism, as well as including five essays offering radically new paths for contemporary interpretation. The subject matter of these essays is rich and diverse, ranging across the play's philosophical identification of sexual love with self-realization, the hermeneutic implications of an editor's textual choices, the minor characters of the play in relation to Renaissance performance traditions, Romeo and Juliet in opera and ballet, and the play's Italian sources and afterlives. The guide also contains a chapter on the key resources available, including scholarly editions and easily available DVDs, and discusses the ways in which they can be used in the classroom to aid understanding and provoke further debate. Edited by leading scholar Julia Reinhard Lupton, this is an essential guide for both students and scholars of Shakespeare.

The Afterlife of Ophelia presents Ophelia in a broader and more comprehensive range of contexts than previous scholarship and forges connections among fields that are typically pursued as separate lines of inquiry within Shakespeare studies, including: film and new media studies; theatre and performance studie; historicist and contextual perspectives; and studies of popular culture--

This is the first scholarly study devoted to Shakespeare's girl characters and conceptions of girlhood. It charts the development of Shakespeare's treatment of the girl as a dramatic and literary figure, and explores the impact of Shakespeare's girl characters on the history of early modern girls as performers, patrons, and authors.

One of Shakespeare's four major tragedies, "Othello" has captivated audiences for centuries. In its treatment of jealousy and racial tension, it offers an enduring study of universal themes. Part of the Greenwood Guides to Shakespeare, this reference book provides students with a comprehensive overview of the play. The early chapters discuss significant differences between Quarto and Folio texts of "Othello" and explore the play's sources and historical contexts--in particular, how "Othello" contributes to early seventeenth century discourses on racial otherness and the role of women. The book then analyzes the dramatic structure of the play, including its settings, action, and patterns of language.

The play hinges on Shakespeare's characters, and the volume discusses his complex presentation of Desdemona, Iago, and Othello. It then examines the tragedy's significant themes: the outsider in society, the gap between empirical evidence and intuitive faith, and the monsters and demons of sexual jealousy and the human imagination. This discussion is followed by a review of the critical response to "Othello" from the early seventeenth century to the present. A final chapter covers the play in performance, with special attention to versions available on film and videotape. Included are photographs from several major productions. The volume concludes with a bibliographical essay.

This Handbook provides an introductory guide to Richard II offering a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, contextual documents, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of three or four key performances and productions, a survey of film and TV adaptations, a wide sampling of critical opinion and further reading.

"Metaphor and Shakespearean Drama" explores the fruitful and potentially unruly nature of metaphorical utterances in Shakespearean drama, with analyses of "Othello," "Titus Andronicus," "King Henry IV Part 1," "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "The Tempest."

In "Antony and Cleopatra, " Shakespeare dramatizes the classical love story of the Roman general and the Egyptian queen, their fatal romance, and the power struggle that leads to the triumph of Octavius Caesar. While the play has much to offer, it is also one of Shakespeare's least accessible tragedies. It can baffle readers with its difuseness and multiple perspectives, or intimidate directors eager to do justice to its huge canvass without overwhelming the audience. This reference provides a thorough overview of the play, its background, and its critical and dramatic legacy.

The early chapters examine the original text of "Antony and Cleopatra" and the play's contexts and sources. In particular, the book considers how Shakespeare's dramatic presentation of a powerful female ruler might reflect political attitudes in Renaissance England, and how he drew from North's Plutarch. The volume then analyzes the dramatic structure of the play--its settings, patterns of language, genre, and characters. Later chapters explore the tragedy's major themes and critical reception and discuss its performance history. A bibliographical essay then reviews the most important general works for further reading.

This study on New World-utopian politics in The Tempest traces paradigm shifts in literary criticism over the past six decades that have all but re-inscribed the text into a political document. This book challenges the view that the play has a dominant New World dimension and demonstrates through close textual readings how an unstable setting at the same time enables and effaces discursively over-invested New World interpretations. Almost no critical attention has been paid to the play's vacuum of power, and this work interprets pastoral, utopian, and 'American' tensions in light of the play's forever-ambiguous setting. Through a 'presentist' post-1989 lens, an oft-neglected historical and political paradigm shift in Shakespeare criticism comes to light.