Shakespearean Power and Punishment


Book Description

The essays in this volume demonstrate how effectively different -- indeed seemingly contradictory -- theoretical paradigms can work with Shakespeare's plays to excavate issues of power and punishment.




The Law in Shakespeare


Book Description

Leading scholars in the field analyze Shakespeare's plays to show how their dramatic content shapes issues debated in conflicts arising from the creation and application of law. Individual essays focus on such topics such as slander, revenge, and royal prerogative; these studies reveal the problems confronting early modern English men and women.




Shakespeare’s Politic Histories


Book Description

This book argues that Shakespeare's first tetralogy is informed by the Italian ‘politic histories’ of the early modern period, those works of history, inspired by the Roman historian Tacitus, that sought to explore the machinations of power politics in governance and in the shaping of historical events; that a close reading of these Italian ‘politic histories’ will greatly aid our understanding of the ‘politic’ qualities dramatized in Shakespeare’s early English History plays; that the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli in particular will likewise aid to such understanding; that these ‘politic histories’ were available (in a variety of forms) to many English early modern writers, Shakespeare included, and are thus helpful as grounds for political and strategic analogy and for informing our reading of Shakespeare's politic histories. While a reading of the Italian ‘politic’ historians can aid in our understanding of Shakespeare’s achievement, we should regard the English History plays as ‘politic histories’ in their own right, i.e. as dramatized versions of precisely the same kinds of ‘politic’ historical writing, with its emphasis on ragion di Stato or raison d’état. This emphasis on what the Elizabethans called ‘stratagems’ suggests new ways to read the plays and to interpret the motivation and action of its characters, ways that challenge some of our more established reading of the plays’ ‘Machiavellian’ characters (particularly Richard III) and suggest far greater strategic acumen on the part of previously overlooked characters (particularly Buckingham and Stanley), providing new ways to read the Shakespeare's politic histories and to better appreciate their Italian connection.




Shakespeare / Sex


Book Description

Shakespeare / Sex interrogates the relationship between Shakespeare and sex by challenging readers to consider Shakespeare's texts in light of the most recent theoretical approaches to gender and sexuality studies. It takes as its premise that gender and sexuality studies are key to any interpretation of Shakespeare, be it his texts and their historical contexts, contemporary stage and cinematic productions, or adaptations from the Restoration to the present day. Approaching 'sex' from four main perspectives – heterosexuality, third-wave intersectional feminism, queer studies and trans studies – this book tackles a range of key topics, such as medical science, rape culture, the environment, disability, religion, childhood sexuality, race, homoeroticism and trans bodies. The 12 essays range across Shakespeare's poems and plays, including the Sonnets and The Rape of Lucrece, Coriolanus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Measure for Measure, Richard III and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Encouraged to push the envelope, contributors to this essay collection open new avenues of inquiry for the study of gender and sexuality in Shakespeare.




Shakespearean Performance


Book Description

Shakespearean Performance: New Studies contains ten essays in Shakespearean performance scholarship, plus an introduction by the editor. They are papers presented at Drew University by some of the best Shakespearean scholars in the field: Andrew Gurr, Jean Howard, Arthur Kinney, Harry Keyishian, Russell Jackson, Corey Abate, Cary Mazer, Milla Riggio, Ralph Berry, and James Bulman. The essays cover such areas as the new Globe playhouse, the staging of certain plays, the film versions of several plays, cross-dressing, and the play-within-the-play, as well as other areas of interest to students of Shakespearean performance.




Shakespeare and Historical Formalism


Book Description

Located at the intersection of new historicism and the 'new formalism', historical formalism is one of the most rapidly growing and important movements in early modern studies: taking seriously the theoretical issues raised by both history and form, it challenges the anti-formalist orthodoxies of new historicism and expands the scope of historicist criticism. Shakespeare and Historical Formalism is the first volume devoted exclusively to collecting and assessing work of this kind. With essays on a broad range of Shakespeare's works and engaging topics from performance theory to the emergence of 'the literary' and from historiography to pedagogy, the volume demonstrates the value of historical formalism for Shakespeare studies and for literary criticism as a whole. Shakespeare and Historical Formalism begins with an introduction that describes the nature and potential of historical formalism and traces its roots in early modern literary theory and its troubled relationship with new historicism. The volume is then divided into two sections corresponding to the two chief objectives of historical formalism: a historically informed and politically astute formalism, and a historicist criticism revitalized by attention to issues of form. The first section, 'Historicizing Form', explores from a variety of perspectives the historical and political sources, meanings and functions of Shakespeare's dramatic forms. The second section, 'Re-Forming History', uses questions of form to rethink our understanding of historicism and of history itself, and in doing so challenges some of our fundamental literary-critical, pedagogical and epistemological assumptions. Concluding with suggestions for further reading on historical formalism and related work, Shakespeare and Historical Formalism invites scholars to rethink the familiar categories and principles of formal and historical criticism.




The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus


Book Description

"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.




The Staging of Romance in Late Shakespeare


Book Description

This book examines Shakespeare's response in his late plays to the challenge of making romance stories believable through theatrical representation and the kind of experience the late plays in performance seek to create for their spectators. Taking The Winter's Tale as a case study, the book's central chapters demonstrate how Shakespeare tests and transforms the techniques to create the sweeping, restorative transformations of individuals and communities that are central to both earlier dramatic romances and Shakespeare's own romance experiments. The book's three other chapters address the methodologies for study of spectator's experience through a dramatic text, the history of dramatic romance to 1610, and Shakespeare's further experiments with the staging of romance after The Winter's Tale.-







A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare


Book Description

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.