The Merry Wives of Windsor has recently experienced a resurgence of critical interest. At times considered one of Shakespeare's weaker plays, it is often dismissed or marginalized; however, developments in feminist, ecocritical and new historicist criticism have opened up new perspectives and this collection of 18 essays by top Shakespeare scholars sheds fresh light on the play. The detailed introduction by Phyllis Rackin and Evelyn Gajowski provides a historical survey of the play and ties into an evolving critical and cultural context. The book's sections look in turn at female community/female agency; theatrical alternatives; social and theatrical contexts; desire/sexuality; nature and performance to provide a contemporary critical analysis of the play.

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

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a much neglected comedy by Shakespeare. Initially popular, it was subsequently dismissed and marginalised as one of his weakest plays. However, recent developments in feminist, ecocritical and new historicist criticism have led to a revival of interest, and this collection of 17 essays by top Shakespeare scholars sheds new light on the play. The detailed introduction by Evelyn Gajowski and Phyllis Rackin provides a historical survey of the play s reception and ties into an evolving critical and cultural context. The book s sections look in turn at Female Community/ Female Agency, Theatrical Alternatives, Social and Theatrical Contexts, Desire/Sexuality, Nature, and Performance to provide contemporary critical analysis of the play."

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.

Phyllis Rackin offers a fresh approach to Shakespeare's English history plays, rereading them in the context of a world where rapid cultural change transformed historical consciousness and gave the study of history a new urgency. Rackin situates Shakespeare's English chronicles among multiple discourses, particularly the controversies surrounding the functions of poetry, theater, and history. She focuses on areas of contention in Renaissance historiography that are also areas of concern in recent criticism-historical authority and causation, the problems of anachronism and nostalgia, and the historical construction of class and gender. She analyzes the ways in which the perfoace of history in Shakespeare's theater participated-and its representation in subsequent criticism still participates-in the contests between opposed theories of history and between the different ideological interests and historiographic practices they authorize. Celebrating the heroic struggles of the past and recording the patriarchal genealogies of kings and nobles, Tudor historians provided an implicit rationale for the hierarchical order of their own time; but the new public theater where socially heterogeneous audiences came together to watch common players enact the roles of their social superiors was widely perceived as subverting that order. Examining such sociohistorical factors as the roles of women and common men and the conditions of theatrical performance, Rackin explores what happened when elite historical discourse was trans porteto the public commercial theater. She argues that Shakespeare's chronicles transformed univocal historical writing into polyphonic theatrical scripts that expressed the contradictions of Elizabethan culture.