First published in 1987. The essays in Shakespeare Reproduced offer a political critique of Shakespeare's writings and the uses to which those writings are put Some of the essays focus on Shakespeare in his own time and consider how his plays can be seen to reproduce or subvert the cultural orthodoxies and the power relations of the late Renaissance. Others examine the forces which have produced an overtly political criticism of Shakespeare and of his use in culture. Contributors include: Jean E Howard and Marion O'Connor, Walter Cohen, Don E Wayne, Thomas Cartelli, Peter Erickson, Karen Newman, Thomas Moisan, Michael D Bristol, Thomas Sorge, Jonathan Goldberg, Robert Weimann, Margaret Ferguson.

First published in 1987.
The essays in Shakespeare Reproduced offer a political critique of Shakespeare's writings and the uses to which those writings are put
Some of the essays focus on Shakespeare in his own time and consider how his plays can be seen to reproduce or subvert the cultural orthodoxies and the power relations of the late Renaissance. Others examine the forces which have produced an overtly political criticism of Shakespeare and of his use in culture.
Contributors include: Jean E Howard and Marion O'Connor, Walter Cohen, Don E Wayne, Thomas Cartelli, Peter Erickson, Karen Newman, Thomas Moisan, Michael D Bristol, Thomas Sorge, Jonathan Goldberg, Robert Weimann, Margaret Ferguson.

Arden Student Skills: Language and Writing volumes offer a new type of study aid that combines lively critical insight with practical guidance on the writing skills you need to develop in order to engage fully with Shakespeare’s texts. The books’ core focus is on language: both understanding and enjoying Shakespeare’s complex dramatic language and expanding your own critical vocabulary as you respond to his plays. Each guide in the series will empower you to read and write about Shakespeare with increased confidence and enthusiasm. King Lear: Language and Writing reveals how the play’s elemental power springs from its language, which is at once simple, relentless and resonant, as well as from its full-blown double plot that multiplies unbearably both the follies and the pain of its protagonists. Chapters explore the play’s status as a tragedy, its stagecraft, primary source material and both its textual and theatre history. The ‘Writing Matters’ section at the end of each chapter provides suggestions for activities that can further enhance your understanding of the play. This is an indispensable guide to Shakespeare's rich and complex dramatic language and will improve and develop your critical writing skills.

"Marxist Shakespeares" uses the rich analytic resources of the Marxist tradition to look at Shakespeare's plays afresh. The essays collected here reveal the continuing power of Marxist thought to address many issues including:
* the relationship of texts to social class
* the historical construction of the aesthetic
* the utopian dimensions of literary production.
This book offers new insights into the historical conditions within which Shakespeare's representations of class and gender emerged, and into Shakespeare's role in the global culture industry stretching from Hollywood to the Globe Theatre.
"Marxist Shakespeares" will be a vital resource for students of Shakespeare as it examines Marx's own readings of Shakespeare, Derrida's engagement with Marx, and the importance of Bourdieu, Bataille, Negri, and Alice Clark with a continuing tradition of Marxist thought.

Engendering a Nation adopts a sophisticated feminist analysis to examine the place of gender in contesting representations of nationhood in early modern England. Plays featured include:
* King John
* Henry VI, Part I
* Henry VI, Part II
* Henry, Part III
* Richard III
* Richard II
* Henry V
Engendering a Nation
It will be a must for students and scholars interested in the cultural and social implications of Shakespeare today.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203205103

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"Discourses of the Theatre" examines the conflict over the stage in Renaissance England and over what was perceived as the proliferation of theatrical practices. After the first commercial theatre was established in London in 1576, repeated attacks on the stage and on actors, writers and audiences, made available a language through which to condemn any practice deemed theatrical, deceitful or disruptive of the social order. Drawing upon materialist and feminist theory, Howard explores the ideological function of this anti-theatrical discourse as well as the cultural function of the stage. She challenges the view that the theatre was primarily the servant of monarchical and aristocratic interest and illustrates how new historicism has produced an incomplete picture of early modern theatre.

Discourses of the Theatre examines the conflict over the stage and over what was perceived as the proliferation of theatrical practises in Renaissance England. After the first commercial theatre was established in London in 1576, virulent attacks on the stage and on the actors, writers and audiences associated with it, made available a language through which to condemn any practise deemed theatrical, deceitful or disruptive of the social order. Drawing upon materialist and feminist theory, Howard explores the ideological function of anti-theatrical discourse in the period and the gap between the evils of which the stage was accused and its actual cultural function. She challenges the view that the theatre was primarily the servant of monarchical and aristocratic interest and illustrates how new historicism has produced an incomplete picture of early modern theatre.

eBook available with sample pages: 020335981X

These individual volumes extracted from The Norton Shakespeare bring to readers a meticulously edited new text that reflects current textual-editing scholarship and introduces innovative teaching features. The print and digital bundles offer students a great reading experience in two ways-printed volumes for their lifetime library and digital editions ideal for in-class use. Every introduction, note, gloss and bibliography has been reconsidered in light of reviewers' suggestions, and new textual introductions and performance notes reflect the extensive new scholarship in these fields. The ebooks are accessed with The Norton Shakespeare Digital Edition registration code included in the print volumes.

Engendering a Nation adopts a sophisticated feminist analysis to examine the place of gender in contesting representations of nationhood in early modern England. Plays featured include:
* King John
* Henry VI, Part I
* Henry VI, Part II
* Henry, Part III
* Richard III
* Richard II
* Henry V
Engendering a Nation
It will be a must for students and scholars interested in the cultural and social implications of Shakespeare today.

The attractive print and digital bundle offers students a great reading experience at an affordable price in two ways-a hardcover volume for their dorm shelf and lifetime library, and a digital edition ideal for in-class use. Students can access the ebook from their computer, tablet, or smartphone via the registration code included in the print volume at no additional charge. As one instructor summed it up, "It's a long overdue step forward in the way Shakespeare is taught."

Arguing that the commercial stage depended on the unprecedented demographic growth and commercial vibrancy of London to fuel its own development, Jean E. Howard posits a particular synergy between the early modern stage and the city in which it flourished.In London comedy, place functions as the material arena in which social relations are regulated, urban problems negotiated, and city space rendered socially intelligible. Rather than simply describing London, the stage participated in interpreting it and giving it social meaning. Each chapter of this book focuses on a particular place within the city--the Royal Exchange, the Counters, London's whorehouses, and its academies of manners--and examines the theater's role in creating distinctive narratives about each. In these stories, specific locations are transformed into venues defined by particular kinds of interactions, whether between citizen and alien, debtor and creditor, prostitute and client, or dancing master and country gentleman. Collectively, they suggest how city space could be used and by whom, and they make place the arena for addressing pressing urban problems: demographic change and the influx of foreigners and strangers into the city; new ways of making money and losing it; changing gender roles within the metropolis; and the rise of a distinctive "town culture" in the West End.Drawing on a wide range of familiar and little-studied plays from four decades of a defining era of theater history, "Theater of a City" shows how the stage imaginatively shaped and responded to the changing face of early modern London.

Arden Student Skills: Language and Writing volumes offer a new type of study aid that combines lively critical insight with practical guidance on the writing skills you need to develop in order to engage fully with Shakespeare's texts. The books' core focus is on language: both understanding and enjoying Shakespeare's complex dramatic language and expanding your own critical vocabulary as you respond to his plays. Each guide in the series will empower you to read and write about Shakespeare with increased confidence and enthusiasm. King Lear: Language and Writing reveals how the play's elemental power springs from its language, which is at once simple, relentless and resonant, as well as from its full-blown double plot that multiplies unbearably both the follies and the pain of its protagonists. Chapters explore the play's status as a tragedy, its stagecraft, primary source material and both its textual and theatre history. The 'Writing Matters' section at the end of each chapter provides suggestions for activities that can further enhance your understanding of the play. This is an indispensable guide to Shakespeare's rich and complex dramatic language and will improve and develop your critical writing skills.

Marxist Shakespeares uses the rich analytic resources of the Marxist tradition to look at Shakespeare's plays afresh. The book offers new insights into the historical conditions within which Shakespeare's representations of class and gender emerged, and into Shakespeare's role in the global culture industry stretching from Hollywood to the Globe Theatre. A vital resource for students of Shakespeare which includes Marx's own readings of Shakespeare, Derrida on Marx, and also Bourdieu, Bataillle, Negri and Alice Clark.

This volume looks at Marx and Freud, who, though not 'Shakespeareans' in the usual academic or theatrical sense, were both deeply informed by Shakespeare's writings, and have both had enormous influence on the understanding and reception of Shakespeare. The first section of this volume consists of a discussion of Marx's use of Shakespeare by Crystal Bartolovich followed by an essay on Shakespeareans' recent uses of Marx by Jean E. Howard. The volume's second half, written by David Hillman, juxtaposes a discussion of Freud's use of Shakespeare with a meditation on Shakespeare's 'use' of Freud. Each part can be read fruitfully independently of the others, but the sum is greater than the parts, offering an engagement with two of the most influential thinkers in Western modernity and their interchanges with, arguably, the most influential figure of early modernity: Shakespeare.