Shakespeare and the Drama of His Time

Shakespeare and the Drama of His Time PDF Author: Martin Wiggins
Publisher: Oxford Shakespeare Topics
ISBN: 9780198711605
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
'Extremely informative... There are some nice touches here, and Wiggins is good on the effects of the cultural shifts that he describes, making telling comparisons such as: 'To the Elizabethans, Marlowe's plays must have had all the aural impact of a symphony orchestra taking over from a barrel-organ'.' -Modern Language Review'Oxford University Press offer a mix of engagingly written introductions to a variety of Topics intended largely for undergraduates. Each author has clearly been reading and listening to the most recent scholarship, but they wear their learning lightly.' -Ruth Morse, Times Literary Supplement'Provides a superb, concise, and approachable overview of Shakespeare's contextual place among the plays and playwrights of early modern London.' -Sixteenth Century JournalOxford Shakespeare Topics (General Editors Peter Holland and Stanley Wells) provide students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship, including some general anthologies relating to Shakespeare. This book examines the plays of Shakespeare in their context as part of English Renaissance drama as a whole. Separate chapters deal with the origins of that drama; tragedy; comedy; the artistic conventions of play-writing in the period; and tragicomedy. Throughout, Shakespeare's plays are shown to be intimately associated with those of his contemporaries, notably Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, John Marston, and John Fletcher.

Shakespeare and the Drama of His Time

Shakespeare and the Drama of His Time PDF Author: Martin Wiggins
Publisher: Oxford Shakespeare Topics
ISBN: 9780198711605
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Extremely informative... There are some nice touches here, and Wiggins is good on the effects of the cultural shifts that he describes, making telling comparisons such as: 'To the Elizabethans, Marlowe's plays must have had all the aural impact of a symphony orchestra taking over from a barrel-organ'.' -Modern Language Review'Oxford University Press offer a mix of engagingly written introductions to a variety of Topics intended largely for undergraduates. Each author has clearly been reading and listening to the most recent scholarship, but they wear their learning lightly.' -Ruth Morse, Times Literary Supplement'Provides a superb, concise, and approachable overview of Shakespeare's contextual place among the plays and playwrights of early modern London.' -Sixteenth Century JournalOxford Shakespeare Topics (General Editors Peter Holland and Stanley Wells) provide students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship, including some general anthologies relating to Shakespeare. This book examines the plays of Shakespeare in their context as part of English Renaissance drama as a whole. Separate chapters deal with the origins of that drama; tragedy; comedy; the artistic conventions of play-writing in the period; and tragicomedy. Throughout, Shakespeare's plays are shown to be intimately associated with those of his contemporaries, notably Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, John Marston, and John Fletcher.

Shakespeare, Theatre, and Time

Shakespeare, Theatre, and Time PDF Author: Matthew Wagner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136661638
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
That Shakespeare thematized time thoroughly, almost obsessively, in his plays is well established: time is, among other things, a 'devourer' (Love's Labour's Lost), one who can untie knots (Twelfth Night), or, perhaps most famously, simply ‘out of joint’ (Hamlet). Yet most critical commentary on time and Shakespeare tends to incorporate little focus on time as an essential - if elusive - element of stage praxis. This book aims to fill that gap; Wagner's focus is specifically performative, asking after time as a stage phenomenon rather than a literary theme or poetic metaphor. His primary approach is phenomenological, as the book aims to describe how time operates on Shakespearean stages. Through philosophical, historiographical, dramaturgical, and performative perspectives, Wagner examines the ways in which theatrical activity generates a manifest presence of time, and he demonstrates Shakespeare’s acute awareness and manipulation of this phenomenon. Underpinning these investigations is the argument that theatrical time, and especially Shakespearean time, is rooted in temporal conflict and ‘thickness’ (the heightened sense of the present moment bearing the weight of both the past and the future). Throughout the book, Wagner traces the ways in which time transcends thematic and metaphorical functions, and forms an essential part of Shakespearean stage praxis.

Shakespeare and Social Theory

Shakespeare and Social Theory PDF Author: BRADD. SHORE
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032017174
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This book provides a bridge between Shakespeare Studies and classical social theory, opening up readings of Shakespeare to a new audience outside of literary studies and the humanities. Shakespeare has long been known as a 'great thinker' and this book reads his plays through the lens of an anthropologist, revealing new connections between Shakespeare's plays and the lives we now lead. Close readings of a selection of frequently studied plays - Hamlet, The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar and King Lear - engage with the plays in detail while connecting them with some of the biggest questions we all ask ourselves, about love, friendship, ritual, language, human interactions and the world around us. The plays are examined through various social theories including performance theory, cognitive theory, semiotics, exchange theory and structuralism. The book concludes with a consideration of how "the new astronomy" of his day and developments in optics changed the very idea of "perspective," and shaped Shakespeare's approach to embedding social theory in his dramatic texts. This accessible and engaging book will appeal to those approaching Shakespeare from outside literary studies, but will also be valuable to literature students approaching Shakespeare for the first time, or looking for a new angle on the plays.

English Drama Before Shakespeare

English Drama Before Shakespeare PDF Author: Peter Happe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131787112X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
English Drama before Shakespeare surveys the range of dramatic activity in English up to 1590. The book challenges the traditional divisions between Medieval and Renaissance literature by showing that there was much continuity throughout this period, in spite of many innovations. The range of dramatic activity includes well-known features such as mystery cycles and the interludes, as well as comedy and tragedy. Para-dramatic activity such as the liturgical drama, royal entries and localised or parish drama is also covered. Many of the plays considered are anonymous, but a coherent, biographical view can be taken of the work of known dramatists such as John Heywood, John Bale, and Christopher Marlowe. Peter Happé's study is based upon close reading of selected plays, especially from the mystery cycles and such Elizabethan works as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. It takes account of contemporary research into dramatic form, performance (including some important recent revivals), dramatic sites and early theatre buildings, and the nature of early dramatic texts. Recent changes in outlook generated by the publication of the written records of early drama form part of the book's focus. There is an extensive bibliography covering social and political background, the lives and works of individual authors, and the development of theatrical ideas through the period. The book is aimed at undergraduates, as well as offering an overview for more advanced students and researchers in drama and in related fields of literature and cultural studies.

Shakespeare's Secret

Shakespeare's Secret PDF Author: Elise Broach
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312371326
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
A missing diamond, a mysterious neighbor, a link to Shakespeare—can Hero uncover the connections?

Shakespeare and Lost Plays

Shakespeare and Lost Plays PDF Author: David McInnis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108843263
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Explores Shakespeare's plays in their most immediate context: the hundreds of plays known to original audiences, but lost to us.

Shakespeare and the Book

Shakespeare and the Book PDF Author: David Scott Kastan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521786515
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
An account of Shakespeare's plays as they were transformed from scripts into books.

Shakespeare's Dramatic Genres

Shakespeare's Dramatic Genres PDF Author: Lawrence Danson
Publisher: Oxford Shakespeare Topics
ISBN: 9780198711728
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Oxford Shakespeare Topics provides students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. Notes and a critical guide to further reading equip the interested reader with the means to broaden research. The history of the genres, or kinds, of drama is one of contradictory traditions and complex cultural assumptions. The divisions established by the original edition of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (the First Folio, 1623) give shape to whole curricula; but, as Lawrence Danson reminds us in this lively book, there is nothing inevitable, and much unsatisfying, about that tripartite scheme. Yet students of Shakespeare cannot avoid thinking about questions of genre; often they are the unspoken reason why classrooms full of smart people fail to agree on basic interpretative issues. Danson's guide to the kinds of Shakespearian drama provides an accessible account of genre-theory in Shakespeare's day, an overview of the genres on the Elizabethan stage, and a provocative look at the full range of Shakespeare's comedies, histories, and tragedies.

Shakespeare

Shakespeare PDF Author: Peter Ackroyd
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307490823
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Drawing on an exceptional combination of skills as literary biographer, novelist, and chronicler of London history, Peter Ackroyd surely re-creates the world that shaped Shakespeare--and brings the playwright himself into unusually vivid focus. With characteristic narrative panache, Ackroyd immerses us in sixteenth-century Stratford and the rural landscape–the industry, the animals, even the flowers–that would appear in Shakespeare’s plays. He takes us through Shakespeare’s London neighborhood and the fertile, competitive theater world where he worked as actor and writer. He shows us Shakespeare as a businessman, and as a constant reviser of his writing. In joining these intimate details with profound intuitions about the playwright and his work, Ackroyd has produced an altogether engaging masterpiece.

Shakespeare's R & J

Shakespeare's R & J PDF Author: Joe Calarco
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 9780822216797
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
THE STORY: Four young prep school students, tired of going through the usual drill of conjugating Latin and other tedious school routines, decide to vary their very governed lives. After school, one breaks out a copy of William Shakespeare's Rom