After theory and the new historicism, what might a self-conscious turn to formal analysis in Renaissance literary studies look like today? The essays address this question from a variety of critical perspectives, embodying a renewed engagement with questions of form.

In the nineteenth century, Shakespeare achieved the status of international pre-eminence that we recognize today. He and his major characters were depicted in statues, paintings and illustrations, and in Stratford-upon-Avon the house where he was born was purchased for the nation and the first Memorial Theatre was built. His words were read, quoted and declaimed in domestic drawing rooms and theatres all around the world, as well as in the works of the leading writers of the day, in intimate love letters and in the pages of radical newspapers. As these new essays show, his was a voice that resonated tellingly throughout the century's cultural, political and literary arenas. The unique reference guide also shows just how popular he was in a number of London theatres and how integral a part he played in the publishing industry of the day and in the burgeoning field of literary criticism.

Recurrent principles and "interests" in the sonnets are isolated in close studies of individual sonnets to show Shakespeare's pattern of mind. The study suggests various groupings by which the nature of Shakespeare's response to a number of stimuli can be gauged.

This book is an analysis of the sonnet in the English Renaissance. It especially traces the relations between Shakespeare's sonnets and the ways in which other writers use the form. It looks at how the poetry fits into the historical situation at the time, with regard to images of the family and of women. Its explorationi of these issues is informed by much recent work in critical theory, which it tries to make as accessible as possible.

This title offers a comprehensive critical analysis of the most important Shakespearean critics, editors, actors and directors. This volume focuses on Shakespeare's reception by figures in Victorian theatre. "Great Shakespeareans" offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of William Charles Macready, Edwin Booth, Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry to the afterlife and reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution assesses the double impact of Shakespeare on the figure covered and of the figure on the understanding, interpretation and appreciation of Shakespeare, provide a sketch of their subject's intellectual and professional biography and an account of the wider cultural context, including comparison with other figures or works within the same field.

Geoffrey Bullough's The Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1957-75) established a vocabulary and a method for linking Shakespeare's plays with a series of texts on which they were thought to be based. Shakespeare's Resources revisits and interrogates the methodology that has prevailed since then and proposes a number of radical departures from Bullough's model. The tacitly accepted linear model of 'source' and 'influence' that critics and scholars have wrestled with is here reconceptualised as a dynamic process in which texts interact and generate meanings that domesticated versions of intertextuality do not adequately account for. The investigation uncovers questions of exactly how Shakespeare 'read', what he read, the practical conditions in which narratives were encountered, and how he re-deployed earlier versions that he had used in his later work. -- .

Shakespeare's plays are stuffed with letters - 111 appear on stage in all but five of his dramas. But for modern actors, directors, and critics they are frequently an awkward embarrassment. Alan Stewart shows how and why Shakespeare put letters on stage in virtually all of his plays. By reconstructing the very different uses to which letters were put in Shakespeare's time, and recapturing what it meant to write, send, receive, read, and archive a letter, it throws new light on some of his most familiar dramas. Early modern letters were not private missives sent through an anonymous postal system, but a vital - sometimes the only - means of maintaining contact and sending news between distant locations. Penning a letter was a serious business in a period when writers made their own pen and ink; letter-writing protocols were strict; letters were dispatched by personal messengers or carriers, often received and read in public - and Shakespeare exploited all these features to dramatic effect. Surveying the vast range of letters in Shakespeare's oeuvre, the book also features sustained new readings of Hamlet, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice and Henry IV Part One.

Piece together the world of Shakespeare in this art jigsaw puzzle depicting the London of his day. Spot a huge cast of contemporary extras as a Midsummer Night’s dream is rehearsed at the globe and fellow actors wander the streets, along with local characters who may well have provided the Bard with inspiration. From lovers ascending ladders and bears being baited to tavern brawls and summer fetes, there is something to delight in every detail.

In his plays, Shakespeare produced a new and unprecedented way of thinking about life, death, power, and their affects. "Philosophical Readings of Shakespeare" offers close readings of "King Lear," "Hamlet," "Macbeth," and "Timon of Athens" to provide insight into the ontological discourse of poverty and money. Following Marxian thought, Margherita Pascucci shows how Shakespeare was the first to depict money as a conceptual persona. Ultimately, the book's analysis of the themes of creation, subjectivity, and value opens new reflections on central questions of our time.

This book introduces a new method for determining the authorship of Renaissance plays. Based on the rapid rate of change in English grammar in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, socio-historical linguistic evidence allows us to distinguish the hands of Renaissance playwrights within play texts. The present study focuses on Shakespeare: his collaborations with Fletcher and Middleton; and the apocryphal plays. Among the plays examined are Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Macbeth, Pericles, and Sir Thomas More. The findings of the book allow us to be more confident about the divisions of collaborative plays, and confirm the status of Edward III as a strong candidate for inclusion in the canon. Using graphs to present statistical data in a readily comprehensible form, the book also contains a wealth of information about the history of the English language during a period of far-reaching change. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Shakespeare studies, English literature, the history of the language and linguistics.

When actors perform Shakespeare, what do they do with their bodies? How do they display to the spectator what is hidden in the imagination? This is a history of Shakespearean performance as seen through the actor's body. Tunstall draws upon social, cognitive and moral psychology to reveal how performers from Sarah Siddons to Ian McKellen have used the language of gesture to reflect the minds of their characters and shape the reactions of their audiences. This book is rich in examples, including detailed analysis of recent performances and interviews with key figures from the worlds of both acting and gesture studies. Truly interdisciplinary, this provocative and original contribution will appeal to anyone interested in Shakespeare, theatre history, psychology or body language.

Are you studying Shakespeare and looking for a handy summary of plots, characters and interpretations? Or are you a keen theatregoer wanting essential background on the Shakespeare plays you see on stage? Ideal for students and theatre enthusiasts alike, this lively and authoritative guide presents key information, clearly set out, on all Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic works, covering plots and people, sources, context, performance history and major themes. Ordered alphabetically for easy reference, each play entry features a 'key facts' box providing informative and revealing statistics, including a breakdown of each play's major roles. The guide is illustrated with striking performance photographs throughout, and also provides brief accounts of Shakespeare's life and language, Shakespeare in print and theatre in Shakespeare's time. This is an indispensable reference source for all students and theatregoers.

Focusing on All's Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, Nicholas Marsh uses close analysis of extracts from the plays to build the reader's confidence when approaching Shakespeare's Problem Plays, and exploring the unresolved competing discourses they dramatize. In the first part of the text, chapters on Openings, Young Men, Women, Politics, and Society, Fools and fools, and Drama highlight the multiple interpretations these plays provoke. In the second part, discussion of where the Problem Plays stand in relation to Shakespeare's life and works, a chapter about the historical and cultural context, and a comparison of five critical views, with suggestions for further reading, provide a bridge towards further study.

How do our ideas about Shakespeare inform our understanding of the limits of performance? This stimulating book asks how both text and performance are construed as vessels of authority. The author finds that our understanding of Shakespearean performance retains a surprising sense of the possibility of being 'faithful' to Shakespearean texts, and so to 'Shakespeare'. After an opening theoretical chapter, Worthen examines the relationship between text and performance in directing, acting, and scholarship. He considers how some prominent theatre directors articulate their role as regisseur under the sign of Shakespeare. Next he looks at how actors read Shakespeare's plays, and in the final chapter he inspects performance-oriented criticism of Shakespeare since the 1960s. This undogmatic and exploratory book contributes to the scholarly study of acting and directing, and to the wider discourse of performance studies.

Shakespeare and the Force of Modern Performance asks a central theoretical question in the study of drama: What is the relationship between the dramatic text and the meanings of performance? W.B. Worthen argues that the text cannot govern the force of its performance. Instead, the text becomes significant only as embodied in the changing conventions of its performance. Worthen explores this understanding of dramatic performativity by interrogating several contemporary sites of Shakespeare production. The book includes detailed discussions of recent films and stage productions, and sets Shakespeare performance alongside other works of contemporary drama and theatre.

Harold Bloom is one of the most influential—and controversial—of contemporary Shakespeare critics. These essays examine the sources and impact of his Shakespearean criticism. Through focused and sustained study of this writer as literary icon and his Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, the essays address a wide range of issues, from the cultural role of Shakespeare to the ethics of literary theory and criticism.

William Shakespeare's Hamlet (c.1600-1601) has achieved iconic status as one of the most exciting and enigmatic of plays. It has been in almost constant production in Britain and throughout the world since it was first performed, fascinating generations of audiences and critics alike.

Taking the form of a sourcebook, this guide to Shakespeare's remarkable play offers:

• extensive introductory comment on the contexts, critical history and performance of the text, from publication to the present
• annotated extracts from key contextual documents, reviews, critical works and the text itself
• cross-references between documents and sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
• suggestions for further reading.

FOLGER Shakespeare Library: the world's leading center for Shakespeare studies.

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

Taking a wide-ranging intertextual approach, Richard Hillman produces fresh readings of some familiar Early Modern English plays by setting them against political and cultural discourses concerning France, as the latter informed contemporary English consciousness. The English works explored go beyond those directly representing French affairs, on the premise that dramatic treatments of English historical topics, notably by Shakespeare and Marlowe, were inflected by events across the Channel.

In 1963 Martin Seymour-Smith produced his comprehensive edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Here, it is revised and corrected. It includes an introduction and a critical commentary on each sonnet.

A former Associate Director for London's National Theatre invites readers to behold the fuller meaning of Shakespearean text as played, inviting them to seek their insights in Shakespeare's natural habitat: the stage. Includes considerations of recent productions at the Hartford Stage, Theatre for a New Audience, and the New York Shakespeare Festival.

Today, in light of the markedly precarious state of the world's politics, ecology and economy, where does Shakespeare figure in our changing world? By the same token, how do economic, environmental and institutional pressures interpenetrate Shakespeare as a cultural enterprise - in performance, film, popular culture, global appropriation - and no less in academic criticism? Ever since Martin Luther King Jr. first evoked the 'fierce urgency of now' in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s, his trope has become ubiquitous. It continues to be a powerful slogan for civil rights. It's frequently intoned by global anti-poverty and social equality activists, and resounds strongly when evoked in the global environmental movement. Connecting with such concerns, these essays address the intersections between Shakespeare, history and the present using a variety of new and established methodological approaches, from phenomenology and ecocriticism to the new economics and aesthetics.

Marriage features to a greater or lesser extent in virtually every play Shakespeare wrote - as the festive end of comedy, as the link across the cycles of the history plays, as a marker of the difference between his own society and that depicted in the Roman plays, and, all too often, as the starting-point for the tragedies. Situating his representations of marriage firmly within the ideologies and practices of Renaissance culture, Lisa Hopkins argues that Shakespeare anatomises marriage much as he does kingship, and finds it similarly indispensable to the underpinning of society, however problematic it may be as a guarantor of personal happiness.

Shakespeare in mass media–particularly film, video, and television–is arguably the fastest growing research agenda in Shakespeare studies. Shakespeare after Mass Media provides both students and scholars with the most comprehensive resource available on the market for studying the extraordinary afterlife of Shakespeare’s plays in a wide range of media. From marketing to electronic Shakespeares, comics to romance novels, Star Trek to Kenneth Branagh, radio and popular music to Bartlett’s Quotations, the contributors explore the contemporary cultural significance of Shakespeare with theoretical sophistication and accessible writing.