Ford wrote darkly about sexual and political passion, despair, thwarted ambition, and incest. This selection also shows his ability to portray the poignancy of love as well as write entertaining comedy and create convincing roles for women. His Annabella, Hippolita, Penthea, Calantha, and Katherine Gordon rank among the most dramatically powerful female characters on the post-Shakespearean stage. Setting Ford's earliest surviving independently-written play, The Lover's Melancholy, alongside his three best known works, this edition includes an introduction with sections on each play addressing gender issues, modern relevance, and staging possibilities. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation, supplemented by detailed annotation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Essays employing close scrutiny of texts to clarify gender issues in feminist literary criticism. One of the major problems in feminist literary criticism is the tendency to generalise when exploring language and gender. This volume clarifies the issues involved and tests generalisations by specific analysis, and in the process defines a "feminist stylistics" - a fresh, practical approach which will serve as a model for future work in this area. The seven essays in the collection analyse widely varying literary texts, using the framework of linguistic theory to address feminist issues. The texts range from Shakespeare's As You Like It to present-day pop songs, and also cover poetry and contemporary fiction. The feminist critics whose approach is under examination include Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva, Showalter, Woolf and a number of British feminists; and the linguistic models employed cover discourse analysis, politeness theory, lexicalisation and transitivity. Contributors: Clara Calvo, Lesley Jeffries, Marion Lomax, Sara Mills, Louise Sylvester, Anne Varty, Shan Wareing