For most of the twentieth century the exuberantfluency of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's art was not regarded as worthy ofserious attention. Even the evidence for the swiftness of her wit, thought andcomposition remains more impressionistic and anecdotal than firmly proven.Through close attention to original manuscript material, Josie Billingtonargues that Barrett Browning's fast, fine and excitedly vigorous and agileimaginative intelligence is Shakespearean, both in its power, and in thecreative drive and dynamic to which it gives rise. Billington contends that for Barrett Browning, asfor Shakespeare, writing was demonstrably a creative event not a second-orderrecord of experience, and that Barrett Browning's characteristic habits ofcomposition, and her creative procedure, resemble in significant ways those ofthe poet she valued most highly. A fascinating study of both writers' analogouscreative dispositions, minds and modes.>

Shakespeare's Villains--and Calumniators and Tyrants is a close reading of Shakespeare's plays to investiage the nature of evil. Charney closely considers the way that dramatic characters are developed in terms of language, imagery, and nonverbal stage effects. With chapters on Iago, Tarquin, Aaron, Richard Duke of Glaucester, Shylock, Claudius, Polonius, Macbeth, Edmund, Goneril, Regan, Angelo, Tybalt, Don John, Iachimo, Lucio, Julius Caesar, Leontes, and Duke Frederick, this book is the first comprehensive study of the villains in Shakespeare.

By connecting Shakespeare's language to the stunning artwork that depicted the end of the world, this study provides not only provides a new reading of Shakespeare but illustrates how apocalyptic art continues to influence popular culture today. Drawing on extant examples of medieval imagery, Roger Christofides uses poststructuralist and psychoanalytic accounts of how language works to shed new light on our understanding of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. He then links Shakespeare's dependence on his audience to appreciate the allusions made to the religious paintings to the present day. For instance, popular television series like Battlestar Galactica, seminal horror movies such as An American Werewolf in London and Carrie and recent novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road. All draw on imagery that can be traced directly back to the depictions of the Doom, an indication of the cultural power these vivid imaginings of the end of the world have in Shakespeare's day and now.

This innovative volume testifies to the current revived interest in Shakespeare's language and style and opens up new and captivating vistas of investigation. Transcending old boundaries between literary and linguistic studies, this engaging collaborative book comes up with an original array of theoretical approaches and new findings. The chapters in the collection capture a rich diversity of points of view and cover such fields as lexicography, versification, dramaturgy, rhetorical analyses, cognitive and computational corpus-based stylistic studies, offering a holistic vision of Shakespeare's uses of language. The perspective is deliberately broad, confronting ideas and visions at the intersection of various techniques of textual investigation. Such novel explorations of Shakespeare's multifarious artistry and amazing inventiveness in his use of language will cater for a broad range of readers, from undergraduates, postgraduates, scholars and researchers, to poetry and theatre lovers alike.

This is a detailed historical analysis of Shakespeare and food that provides fascinating insights into early modern attitudes to the body and domestic life. This dictionary is the first to analyze Shakespeare's language of food. It provides an historically accurate account of the role of food in early modern culture and the way this intersected with Shakespeare's writings and introduces contemporary ideas that informed the representations of food and feeding in his plays and poems. Drawing on early modern dietaries as well as other sources including religious sermons and tracts, legal documents, recipe books and conduct manuals, it provides the historical and cultural context to Shakespeare's depictions of food and feeding. This comprehensive analysis of Shakespeare and food also offers fascinating insights into early modern attitudes to food, drink, the body and domestic life. "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.

Music pervades Shakespeare's work. In addition to vocal songs and numerous instrumental cues there are thousands of references to music throughout the plays and many of the poems. This book discusses Shakespeare's musical imagery according to categories defined by occurrence in the plays and poems. In turn, these categories depend on their early modern usage and significance. Thus, instruments such as lute and viol deserve special attention just as Renaissance ideas relating to musical philosophy and pedagogical theory need contextual explanation. The objective is to locate Shakespeare's musical imagery, reference and metaphor in its immediate context in a play or poem and explain its meaning. Discussion and explanation of the musical imagery suggests a range of possible dramatic and poetic purposes these musical references serve.

York Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

Shakespeare, Court Dramatist centres around the contention that the courts of both Elizabeth I and James I loomed much larger in Shakespeare's creative life than is usually appreciated. Richard Dutton argues that many, perhaps most, of Shakespeare's plays have survived in versions adapted for court presentation, where length was no object (and indeed encouraged) and rhetorical virtuosity was appreciated. The first half of the study examines the court's patronage of the theatre during Shakespeare's lifetime and the crucial role of its Masters of the Revels, who supervised all performances there (as well as censoring plays for public performance). Dutton examines the emergence of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men, to whom Shakespeare was attached as their 'ordinary poet', and reviews what is known about the revision of plays in the early modern period. The second half of the study focuses in detail on six of Shakespeare's plays which exist in shorter, less polished texts as well as longer, more familiar ones: Henry VI Part II and III, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare, Court Dramatist argues that they are not cut down from those familiar versions, but poorly-reported originals which Shakespeare revised for court performance into what we know best today. More localised revisions in such plays as Titus Andronicus, Richard II, and Henry IV Part II can also best be explained in this context. The court, Richard Dutton argues, is what made Shakespeare Shakespeare.

The collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital shaming. Violence against women. Sexual bullying. Racial slurs and injustice. These are just some of the problems faced by today’s young adults. Liberating Shakespeare explores how adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays can be used to empower young audiences by addressing issues of oppression, trauma and resistance. Showcasing a wide variety of approaches to understanding, adapting and teaching Shakespeare, this collection examines the significant number of Shakespeare adaptations targeting adolescent audiences in the past 25 years. It examines a wide variety of creative works made for and by young people that harness the power of Shakespeare to address some of the most pressing questions in contemporary culture – exploring themes of violence, race relations and intersectionality. The contributors to this volume consider whether the representations of characters and situations in YA Shakespeare can function as empowering models for students and how these works might be employed within educational settings. This collection argues that YA Shakespeare represents the diverse concerns of today’s youth and should be taken seriously as art that speaks to the complexities of a broken world, offering moments of hope for an uncertain future.

Siblings Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) and John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) were the most famous British actors of the late-18th and early-19th centuries. Through their powerful acting and meticulous conceptualisation of Shakespeare's characters and their worlds, they created iconic interpretations of Shakespeare's major roles that live on in our theatrical and cultural memory. This book examines the actors' long careers on the London stage, from Siddons's debut in 1782 to Kemble's retirement in 1817, encompassing Kemble's time as theatre manager, when he sought to foreground their strengths as Shakespearean performers in his productions. Over the course of more than thirty years, Siddons and Kemble appeared opposite one another in many Shakespeare plays, including King John, Henry VIII, Coriolanus and Macbeth. The actors had to negotiate two major Shakespeare scandals: the staging of Vortigern - a fake Shakespearean play - in 1796 and the Old Price Riots of 1809, during which the audience challenged Siddons's and Kemble's perceived attempts to control Shakespeare. Fiona Ritchie examines the siblings' careers, focusing on their collaborations, as well as placing Siddons's and Kemble's Shakespeare performances in the context of contemporary 18th- and 19th-century drama. The volume not only offers a detailed consideration of London theatre, but also explores the importance of provincial performance to the actors, notably in the case of Hamlet - a role in which both appeared across Britain and in Ireland.

This is our best-selling York Notes Advanced title. This book will be packed with features to help the students improve their grade. Talking extensively to teachers, examiners and students there seems to be a need for more information outside what the students already know. Features like check the book, check the film and check the net will now offer students more opportunity to develop their researching skills and provide that extra information. More importantly there will be features that address the specific needs of students studying for the new AS and A2 exams. There will now be text boxes in the margin labelled 'Context' which will describe the literary, historical, cultural, religious, or philisophical context of specific references in the text (contextualisation is the new buzz word in the exam syllabuses). There will be at least 20 of these boxes in every book. The glossaries are now integrated in the text so that students don't need to turn the page to find out the meaning of a word. There will also be regular exam questions integrated in the text which will help students revise. Summaries will be cut down and bulleted where appropriate to make way for extra features (meaning extent remains the same) so that the books are now not only appropriate for students who buy the book to cram, they are also important for higher-level students who need more information to get themselves the top grade.

Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: Shakespeare is a fascinating collection of surprising revelations, quirky characters and other fascinating pieces of trivia from the world of the great English bard. From the stories behind his well-known plays and poems, through the actors and theatres that have entertained his works, to his legacy in popular culture and beyond, an intriguing and unusual history of his life and times is revealed. Drawing back the curtains on this iconic English character, there is something here for every enthusiast to relish. This authoritative and absorbing book is published to coincide with the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's death on 23rd April 2016.

Joseph O'Neill's novel, Netherland, has won many prestigious awards and recognitions, including the PEN/Faulker Award and The New York Times Book Review's "Best Book of the Year." This book, written and published in the first decade of the 21st century, accurately captures the zeitgeist of the American people and American people's perception about American politics, War against Terror, and American capitalism. Dr. Heerak Christian Kim, who has identified the literary device of "The Key Signifier," analyzes Joseph's O'Neill's book, Netherland, with the view to understanding the current irregularities in US domestic politics as well as the general zeitgeist of the American people. There is no question that the first decade of the 21st century has been the most "odd" decade of American history in terms of politics. The anti-Washington sentiment that is sweeping the nation from the agricultural heartland of America and the labor-centric cities of America, such as Boston, is creating unprecedented questioning of what makes America what it is and the values that motivate the American people. Professor Kim's important historical-literary criticism book on Joseph O'Neill's novel, Netherland, provides valuable insights into understanding the current trends in American society. This book is a valuable resource for not only literary critics and English teachers, but also for the educated public interested in understanding current trends in American society and politics. Dr. Heerak Christian Kim is the author of the scholarly monograph, Key Signifier as Literary Device: Its Definition and Function in Literature and Media.

ARDEN RENAISSANCE DRAMA GUIDES offer students and academics practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performance contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Essays from leading international scholars provide invaluable insights into the text by presenting a range of critical perspectives, making the books ideal companions for study and research. Key features include: Essays on the play's critical and performance history A keynote essay on current research and thinking about the play A selection of new essays by leading scholars A survey of resources to direct students' further reading about the play in print and online Regularly performed and studied, Macbeth is not only one of Shakespeare's most popular plays but also provides us with one of the literary canon's most compellingly conflicted tragic figures. This guide offers fresh new ways into the play.

York Notes Advanced have been written by acknowledged literature experts for the specific needs of advanced level and undergraduate students. They offer a fresh and accessible approach to the study of English literature. Building on the successful formula of York Notes, this Advanced serles introduces students to more sophisticated analysis and wider critical perspectives. This enables students to appreciate contrasting interpretations of the text and to develop their own critical thinking. York Notes Advanced help to make the study of literature more fulfilling and lead to exam success. They will also be of interest to the general reader as they cover the widest range of popular literature titles.

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. Shakespearean thinking is always dynamic: thinking that happens in the living moment of its performance, in quickly passing process. This book offers a model of human mentality that can be shown through the dense immediacy of dramatic thinking, as embodied above all in Shakespeare's working method. "Shakespeare Thinking" discusses the positioning of Shakespeare as the paradigm of fully human mental creativity from the Romantics to the latest neurological experiments which show that Shakespeare can reveal new understandings of the hard-wiring of the human brain, and the sheer sudden electricity of its synaptic development.

This is an A-Z reference guide to political and economic terms, concepts and references in Shakespeare. Shakespeare's plays are pervaded by political and economic words and concepts, not only in the histories and tragedies but also in the comedies and romances. The lexicon of political and economic language in Shakespeare does not consist merely of arcane terms whose shifting meanings require exposition, but includes an enormous number of relatively simple words which possess a structural significance in the configuration of meanings. Often operating by such means as puns, they open up a surprising number of possibilities.The purpose of this Dictionary is to reveal the conceptual nucleus of each term and explore the contexts in which it is embedded. The dictionary covers the whole spectrum from jokes to political invective. The overlap between the political and economic dimensions of a word in Shakespeare's drama is particularly exciting as he is highly attuned to the interactions of these two spheres of human activity and their centrality in human affairs." 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.

"Twelfth Night "is the most mature and fully developed of Shakespeare's comedies and, as well as being one of his most popular plays, represents a crucial moment in the development of his art. Assembled by leading scholars, this guide provides a comprehensive survey of major issues in the contemporary study of the play.Throughout the book chapters explore such issues as the play's critical reception from John Manningham's account of one of its first performances to major current comentators like Stephen Greenblatt; the performance history of the play, from Shakespeare's day to the present and key themes in current scholarship, from issues of gender and sexuality to the study of comedy and song."Twelfth Night: A Critical Guide" also includes a complete guide to resources available on the play - including critical editions, online resources and an annotated bibliography - and how they might be used to aid both the teaching and study of Shakespeare's enduring comedy.

Shakespeare in London offers a lively and engaging new reading of some of Shakespeare's major work, informed by close attention to the language of his drama. The focus of the book is on Shakespeare's London, how it influenced his drama and how he represents it on stage. Taking readers on an imaginative journey through the city, the book moves both chronologically, from beginning to end of Shakespeare's dramatic career, and also geographically, traversing London from west to east. Each chapter focuses on one play and one key location, drawing out the thematic connections between that place and the drama it underwrites. Plays discussed in detail include Hamlet, Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet. Close textual readings accompany the wealth of contextual material, providing a fresh and exciting way into Shakespeare's work.

This is a fascinating study revealing Shakespeare's career-long engagement with the sea and his frequent use of maritime imagery. We need a poetic history of the ocean, and Shakespeare can help us find one. There's more real salt in the plays than we first expect. Shakespeare's dramatic ocean spans the God-sea of the ancient world and the immense blue vistas that early modern mariners navigated. Throughout his career, from the opening shipwrecks of "The Comedy of Errors" through "The Tempest", Shakespeare's plays figure the ocean as shocking physical reality and mind-twisting symbol of change and instability. To fathom Shakespeare's ocean - to go down to its bottom - this book's chapters focus on different things that humans do with and in and near the sea: fathoming, keeping watch, swimming, beachcombing, fishing, and drowning. Mentz also sets Shakespeare's sea-poetry against modern literary seascapes, including the vast Pacific of "Moby-Dick", the rocky coast of Charles Olson's "Maximus Poems", and the lyrical waters of the postcolonial "Caribbean". Uncovering the depths of Shakespeare's maritime world, this book draws out the centrality of the sea in our literary culture. "Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays. It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.

While over the past four hundred years numerous opinions have been voiced as to Shakespeare's identity, these eleven essays widen the scope of the investigation by regarding Shakespeare, his world, and his works in their interaction with one another. Instead of restricting the search for bits and pieces of evidence from his works that seem to match what he may have experienced, these essays focus on the contemporary milieu-political developments, social and theater history, and cultural and religious pressures-as well as the domestic conditions within Shakespeare's family that shaped his personality and are featured in his works. The authors of these essays, employing the tenets of critical theory and practice as well as intuitive and informed insight, endeavor to look behind the masks, thus challenging the reader to adjudicate among the possible, the probable, the likely, and the unlikely. With the exception of the editor's own piece on Hamlet, Shakespeare the Man: New Decipherings presents previously unpublished essays, inviting the reader to embark upon an intellectual adventure into the fascinating terrain of Shakespeare's mind and art.

This practical handbook is invaluable for anyone performing, teaching, studying or simply wanting a new way to enjoy Shakespeare. It provides an outline of Meisner's work and legacy, a discussion of that legacy in the light of the enduring global popularity of Shakespeare, and a wealth of practical exercises drawn from Meisner's techniques. Shakespeare writes about the truth in human relationships and human hearts. Sanford Meisner's work unlocks truthful acting. They would seem a perfect match. Yet, following Meisner's note to his actors that 'text is your greatest enemy', Shakespeare and Meisner are often considered 'strange bedfellows'. The rhetorical complexity of Shakespeare's text can often be perceived as rules an actor must learn in order to perform Shakespeare 'properly'. Meisner's main rule is that 'you can't say ouch until you've been pinched': in other words, an actor must genuinely feel something in order to react in a performance which is alive to the moment. This book explores how actors can use Meisner's tools of 'acting is reacting' to discover the infinite freedom within the apparent constraints of Shakespeare's text.

How do names attach themselves to particular objects and people and does this connection mean anything? This is a question which goes as far back as Plato and can still be seen in contemporary society with books of Names to Give Your Baby or Reader's Digest columns of apt names and professions. For the Renaissance the vexed question of naming was a subset of the larger but equally vexed subject of language: is language arbitrary and conventional (it is simply an agreed label for a pre-existing entity) or is it motivated (it creates the entity which it names)? Shakespeare's Names is a book for language-lovers. Laurie Maguire's witty and learned study examines names, their origins, cultural attitudes to them, and naming practices across centuries and continents, exploring what it means for Shakespeare's characters to bear the names they do. She approaches her subject through close analysis of the associations and use of names in a range of Shakespeare plays, and in a range of performances. The focus is Shakespeare, and in particular six key plays: Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well that Ends Well, and Troilus and Cressida. But the book also shows what Shakespeare inherited and where the topic developed after him. Thus the discussion includes myth, the Bible, Greek literature, psychological analysis, literary theory, social anthropology, etymology, baptismal trends, puns, different cultures' and periods' social practice as regards the bestowing and interpreting of names, and English literature in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; the reader will also find material from contemporary journalism, film, and cartoons.