Shakespeare’s Classical Mythology: A Dictionary

Shakespeare’s Classical Mythology: A Dictionary PDF Author: Janice Valls-Russell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135012589X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
Why does Bassanio compare himself to Jason? What is Hecuba to Hamlet? Is the mechanicals' staging of the Pyramus and Thisbe story funny or sad? This dictionary elucidates Shakespeare's use of mythological references in an early modern context, while bringing them to life for today's audiences and readers, at a time of renewed critical interest in the reception of the classics and fascination with classical mythology in popular culture. It is also a precious tool for practitioners who may not always know quite what to make of mythological references. Mythological figures, creatures, places and stories crowd Shakespeare's plays and poems, featuring as allusions, poetic analogies, inset shows, scene settings and characters or plots in their own right. Most of these references were familiar to Shakespeare's spectators and readers, who knew them from the writings of Ovid, Virgil and other classical authors, or indirectly through translations, commentaries, ballads and iconography. This dictionary illustrates how, far from being isolated, a mythological reference may resonate with the poetics of the text and its structure, cast light on characters and contexts, and may therefore be worth exploring onstage in a variety of ways. The 200 headings correspond to words and names actually used by Shakespeare: individual figures (Dido, Venus, Hercules), categories (Amazons, Centaurs, nymphs, satyrs), places (Colchos, Troy). Medium and longer entries also cover early modern usage and critical analysis in a cross-disciplinary approach that includes reception, textual, performance, gender and political studies.

Shakespeare’s Classical Mythology: A Dictionary

Shakespeare’s Classical Mythology: A Dictionary PDF Author: Janice Valls-Russell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135012589X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why does Bassanio compare himself to Jason? What is Hecuba to Hamlet? Is the mechanicals' staging of the Pyramus and Thisbe story funny or sad? This dictionary elucidates Shakespeare's use of mythological references in an early modern context, while bringing them to life for today's audiences and readers, at a time of renewed critical interest in the reception of the classics and fascination with classical mythology in popular culture. It is also a precious tool for practitioners who may not always know quite what to make of mythological references. Mythological figures, creatures, places and stories crowd Shakespeare's plays and poems, featuring as allusions, poetic analogies, inset shows, scene settings and characters or plots in their own right. Most of these references were familiar to Shakespeare's spectators and readers, who knew them from the writings of Ovid, Virgil and other classical authors, or indirectly through translations, commentaries, ballads and iconography. This dictionary illustrates how, far from being isolated, a mythological reference may resonate with the poetics of the text and its structure, cast light on characters and contexts, and may therefore be worth exploring onstage in a variety of ways. The 200 headings correspond to words and names actually used by Shakespeare: individual figures (Dido, Venus, Hercules), categories (Amazons, Centaurs, nymphs, satyrs), places (Colchos, Troy). Medium and longer entries also cover early modern usage and critical analysis in a cross-disciplinary approach that includes reception, textual, performance, gender and political studies.

Shakespeare's Words

Shakespeare's Words PDF Author: Ben Crystal
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141941529
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1347

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Book Description
A vital resource for scholars, students and actors, this book contains glosses and quotes for over 14,000 words that could be misunderstood by or are unknown to a modern audience. Displayed panels look at such areas of Shakespeare's language as greetings, swear-words and terms of address. Plot summaries are included for all Shakespeare's plays and on the facing page is a unique diagramatic representation of the relationships within each play.

Shakespeare's Classical Mythology

Shakespeare's Classical Mythology PDF Author: Janice Valls-Russell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781350513525
Category : Mythology, Classical, in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Mythological figures, creatures, places and stories crowd Shakespeare's plays and poems, featuring as allusions, poetic analogies, inset shows, scene settings, and characters or plots in their own right. This dictionary illuminates these, bringing them to life for today's audiences, readers and theatre practitioners. The 200 headings correspond to words and names actually used by Shakespeare: individual figures (Dido, Venus, Hercules), categories (Amazons, Centaurs, nymphs, satyrs), places (Colchos, Troy). Medium and longer entries also cover early modern usage and critical analysis in a cross-disciplinary approach that includes reception, textual, performance, gender and political studies"--

Interweaving myths in Shakespeare and his contemporaries

Interweaving myths in Shakespeare and his contemporaries PDF Author: Janice Valls-Russell
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526117711
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
This volume proposes new insights into the uses of classical mythology by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, focusing on interweaving processes in early modern appropriations of myth. Its 11 essays show how early modern writing intertwines diverse myths and plays with variant versions of individual myths that derive from multiple classical sources, as well as medieval, Tudor and early modern retellings and translations. Works discussed include poems and plays by William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and others. Essays concentrate on specific plays including The Merchant of Venice and Dido Queen of Carthage, tracing interactions between myths, chronicles, the Bible and contemporary genres. Mythological figures are considered to demonstrate how the weaving together of sources deconstructs gendered representations. New meanings emerge from these readings, which open up methodological perspectives on multi-textuality, artistic appropriation and cultural hybridity.

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance PDF Author: H. David Brumble
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136797386
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
While numerous classical dictionaries identify the figures and tales of Greek and Roman mythology, this reference book explains the allegorical significance attached to the myths by Medieval and Renaissance authors. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries for the gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and places of classical myth and legend. Each entry includes a brief account of the myth, with reference to the Greek and Latin sources. The entry then discusses how Medieval and Renaissance commentators interpreted the myth, and how poets, dramatists, and artists employed the allegory in their art. Each entry includes a bibliography and the volume concludes with appendices and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

Mythologiae

Mythologiae PDF Author: Natale Conti
Publisher: Garland Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : la
Pages : 744

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Book Description


How the Classics Made Shakespeare

How the Classics Made Shakespeare PDF Author: Jonathan Bate
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691210144
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
"This book grew from the inaugural E. H. Gombrich Lectures in the Classical Tradition that I delivered in the autumn of 2013 at the Warburg Institute of the University of London, under the title, "Ancient Strength: Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition"--Preface, page ix.

Shakespeare's Erotic Mythology and Ovidian Renaissance Culture

Shakespeare's Erotic Mythology and Ovidian Renaissance Culture PDF Author: Ms Agnès Lafont
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1472406672
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Taking cross-disciplinary and comparative approaches to the volume’s subject, this exciting collection of essays offers a reassessment of Shakespeare’s erotic and Ovidian mythology within classical and continental aesthetic contexts. Through extensive examination of mythological visual and textual material, scholars explore the transmission and reinvention of Ovidian eroticism in Shakespeare’s plays to show how early modern artists and audiences collectively engaged in redefining ways of thinking pleasure. Within the collection’s broad-ranging investigation of erotic mythology in Renaissance culture, each chapter analyses specific instances of textual and pictorial transmission, reception, and adaptation. Through various critical strategies, contributors trace Shakespeare’s use of erotic material to map out the politics and aesthetics of pleasure, unravelling the ways in which mythology informs artistic creation. Received acceptions of neo-platonic love and the Petrarchan tensions of unattainable love are revisited, with a focus on parodic and darker strains of erotic desire, such as Priapic and Dionysian energies, lustful fantasy and violent eros. The dynamics of interacting tales is explored through their structural ability to adapt to the stage. Myth in Renaissance culture ultimately emerges not merely as near-inexhaustible source material for the Elizabethan and Jacobean arts, but as a creative process in and of itself.

Classical Mythology in Shakespeare's Plays

Classical Mythology in Shakespeare's Plays PDF Author: Josephine Burgard Massey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description


The Early Modern Medea

The Early Modern Medea PDF Author: K. Heavey
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137466243
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This is the first book-length study of early modern English approaches to Medea, the classical witch and infanticide who exercised a powerful sway over literary and cultural imagination in the period 1558-1688. It encompasses poetry, prose and drama, and translation, tragedy, comedy and political writing.