Author: William R. Elton
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813133621
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Author: Jeffrey Kahan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135973652
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Is King Lear an autonomous text, or a rewrite of the earlier and anonymous play King Leir? Should we refer to Shakespeare’s original quarto when discussing the play, the revised folio text, or the popular composite version, stitched together by Alexander Pope in 1725? What of its stage variations? When turning from page to stage, the critical view on King Lear is skewed by the fact that for almost half of the four hundred years the play has been performed, audiences preferred Naham Tate's optimistic adaptation, in which Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after. When discussing King Lear, the question of what comprises ‘the play’ is both complex and fragmentary. These issues of identity and authenticity across time and across mediums are outlined, debated, and considered critically by the contributors to this volume. Using a variety of approaches, from postcolonialism and New Historicism to psychoanalysis and gender studies, the leading international contributors to King Lear: New Critical Essays offer major new interpretations on the conception and writing, editing, and cultural productions of King Lear. This book is an up-to-date and comprehensive anthology of textual scholarship, performance research, and critical writing on one of Shakespeare's most important and perplexing tragedies. Contributors Include: R.A. Foakes, Richard Knowles, Tom Clayton, Cynthia Clegg, Edward L. Rocklin, Christy Desmet, Paul Cantor, Robert V. Young, Stanley Stewart and Jean R. Brink

Author: Calum Carmichael
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108422950
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Examines the varied, enormously sophisticated contents of the Bible and sees how certain Western authors were inspired by them.

Author: Joseph Sterrett
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004230068
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Repeatedly Shakespeare dramatizes one who prays when no one is listening, interested, or even there. This study reads the scenario parallel to early modern anxieties surrounding prayer itself, suggesting a vision of religious syncretism Shakespeare imagines for his world.

Author: Lise Lunge-Larsen
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547152299
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Book Description
Discusses words that come from ancient stories of the Greeks.

Author: Ken Jackson
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 026808355X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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In Shakespeare and Abraham, Ken Jackson illuminates William Shakespeare’s dramatic fascination with the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22. Themes of child killing fill Shakespeare’s early plays: Genesis 22 informed Clifford’s attack on young Rutland in 3 Henry 6, Hubert’s providentially thwarted murder of Arthur in King John, and Aaron the Moor’s surprising decision to spare his son amidst the filial slaughters of Titus Andronicus, among others. However, the playwright’s full engagement with the biblical narrative does not manifest itself exclusively in scenes involving the sacrifice of children or in verbal borrowings from the famously sparse story of Abraham. Jackson argues that the most important influence of Genesis 22 and its interpretive tradition is to be found in the conceptual framework that Shakespeare develops to explore relationships among ideas of religion, sovereignty, law, and justice. Jackson probes the Shakespearean texts from the vantage of modern theology and critical theory, while also orienting them toward the traditions concerning Abraham in Jewish, Pauline, patristic, medieval, and Reformation sources and early English drama. Consequently, the playwright’s “Abrahamic explorations” become strikingly apparent in unexpected places such as the “trial” of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and the bifurcated structure of Timon of Athens. By situating Shakespeare in a complex genealogy that extends from ancient religion to postmodern philosophy, Jackson inserts Shakespeare into the larger contemporary conversation about religion in the modern world.

Author: J. R. Thorpe
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643138243
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear, this breathtaking debut novel tells the story of the most famous woman ever written out of literary history. "I am the queen of two crowns, banished fifteen years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three small animals, now gone. I am fifty-five years old. I am Lear's wife. I am here." Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear's queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story. Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice - one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests. Giving unforgettable voice to a woman whose absence has been a tantalising mystery, Learwife is a breathtaking novel of loss, renewal and how history bleeds into the present.

Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Author: Phillip Zarrilli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134651104
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Kathakali Dance-Drama provides a comprehensive introduction to the distinctive and colourful dance-drama of Kerala in South-West India for the first time. This landmark volume: * explores Kathakali's reception as it reaches new audiences both in India and the west * includes two cases of controversial of Kathakali experiments * explores the implications for Kathakali of Keralan politics During these performances heroes, heroines, gods and demons tell their stories of traditional Indian epics. The four Kathakali plays included in this anthology, translated from actual performances into English are: * The Flower of Good Fortune * The Killing of Kirmmira * The Progeny of Krishna * King Rugmamgada's Law Each play has an introduction and detailed commentary and is illustrated by stunning photographs taken during performances. An introduction to Kathakali stage conventions, make-up, music, acting, and training is also provided, making this an ideal volume for both the specialist and non-specialist reader.

Author: Marvin Rosenberg
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874134827
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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"LEAR: Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus? / Who is it that can tell me who I am?" "Centuries of critics and actors have tried to tell, but Lear's identity, and the meaning of his action in the play, are still touched with enigma." "This book seeks Shakespeare's intentions in King Lear in new ways. It explores major interpretations of distinguished actors and directors as well as of critics from England, the United States, France, Belgium, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland. Is the play unsuited for the stage, as Charles Lamb - and others - have declared? How, in fact, has it been staged, and how visualized by critics? Is Lear designed to be a frail and aging old man? A powerful image of authority? Mad, or senile, to begin with? A kindly old father? Everyman? All of these? None? Does the play end with redemption? Unmitigated despair? Is it Christian? Pagan? Mr. Rosenberg confronts these and other questions from the base of his study and personal experience of the play." "To deepen the theatrical side of that experience, he began, as he did in his The Masks of Othello, with an involvement in the staged play: he directed and acted in Othello, and he followed a production of King Lear through two months of rehearsal and performance. One by-product of this intense participation was a discovery of some special qualities in the language of the play." "To achieve a better understanding of these qualities, Mr. Rosenberg put Lear's vocabulary through a computer, and established a concordance of every word both for the play as a whole and for each character. Interesting structural elements in Shakespeare's language become apparent." "Recognizing the difficulty, for a critic, of responding afresh to Shakespeare's craftsmanship in characterization and in arousing expectation, Mr. Rosenberg also arranged to expose the play to spectators who had never seen or read it. The response of this naive audience, after attending performances, was curious and illuminating. The author believes that any critical approach must be used that will increase our understanding of Shakespeare's work."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved