ShakespeareEdinburgh University Press, 2007 - 282 pages Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature Series Editors: Martin Halliwell and Andy Mousley This series provides accessible yet provocative introductions to a wide range of literatures. The volumes will initiate and deepen the reader's understanding of key literary movements, periods and genres, and consider debates that inform the past, present and future of literary study. Resources such as glossaries of key terms and details of archives and internet sites are also provided, making each volume a comprehensive critical guide. Shakespeare (Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature Series) Gabriel Egan This book helps the reader make sense of the most commonly studied writer in the world. It starts with a brief explanation of how Shakespeare's writings have come down to us as a series of scripts for actors in the early modern theatre industry of London. The main chapters of the book approach the texts through a series of questions: 'what's changed since Shakespeare's time?', 'to what uses has Shakespeare been put?', and 'what value is there in Shakespeare?' These questions go to the heart of why we study Shakespeare at all, which question the book encourages the readers to answer for themselves in relation to their own critical writing. Key Features * A chronology of Shakespeare's career as an actor/dramatist that locates him within the theatre industry of his time * New readings of twelve plays that form a core of the Shakespeare canon: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard 2, Henry 5, Hamlet, Othello, All's Well that Ends Well, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and Timon of Athens * Critical analyses organized by genre (comedies, histories, tragedies, and romance) and by four key critical approaches: authorship, performance, identities, and materialism * An extensive resources section, including a glossary of the i |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
A Midsummer Nights Dream | 19 |
Richard 2 and Henry 5 | 46 |
Copyright | |
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actors All's Andrew Gurr Angelo apparitions argued Ariel audience Banquo behaviour Bertram Bohemia Caliban called Cambridge Camillo Chapter characters Claudio Claudius's colonial comedy concerned context critics cultural Desdemona door drama duke E. M. W. Tillyard earth Elizabethan English Essays father Florizel genre ghost gold Hamlet Helen Henry Hermione history plays human Ibid ideas Isabella John Jonathan Dollimore kind king Leontes London look lord Mariana marriage Marx Marxist material matter means Measure for Measure Midsummer Night's Dream Miranda modern nature no-one Ophelia Othello Oxford Perdita performance play's political Polixenes problem Prospero readers reading Richard scene Scott Cutler seems sense sexual Shakespeare Survey Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's plays Sicilia Sinfield social society speak speech stage story supposed Tempest theatre theatrical thee things thou Tillyard Timon of Athens tion tragedy Tudor Myth University Press weird sisters wider Winter's Tale witches