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A knowledge of the history and evolution of the tales on which Shakespeare drew in the composition of his plays is essential for the understanding of his work. In re-telling a particular story, a Renaissance writer was not simply reshaping the structure of the narrative but participating in a species of debate with earlier writers and the meanings their tales had accrued. The stories upon which Shakespeare's plays are constructed did not descend to him as innocent collections of incidents, but brought with them considerable cultural baggage, substantially lost to the modern spectator but an essential component, for a contemporary audience, of the meaning of the work. Shakespeare's Alternative Tales explores this literary dialogue, focusing on those plays in which the expectations generated by an inherited story are in some way overthrown, setting up a tension for a Renaissance spectator between 'received' and 'alternative' readings of the text. Each chapter opens with a familiar story, supplying a context for the subsequent discussion, and exhibits the way in which the dramatist's reworking of a traditional motif interrogates the assumptions implicit in his source. While offering the twentieth-century reader a fresh perspective from which to view the plays, the approach also supplies an introduction to contemporary readings of the Shakespearean canon. The tales Leah Scragg considers may be seen as 'alternative' in more than one sense: they radically rework conventional situations, while lending themselves to analysis in terms of new critical methodologies. The text will be of interest to both students of Shakespeare and the general reader. In conjunction with the author's companion volume, Shakespeare's Mouldy Tales, it provides an ideal introduction to contemporary developments in source studies.
Like the companion volume for men, Alternative Shakespeare Auditions for Women brings together fifty speeches from plays frequently ignored such as Coriolanus, Pericles, and Love's Labours Lost. It also features good, but over-looked speeches from more popular plays such as Diana from All's Well That Ends Well, Perdita from The Winter's Tale and Hero from Much Ado About Nothing. Each speech is accompanied by a character description, brief explanation of the context, and notes on obscure words, phrases and references--all written from the viewpoint of the auditioning actor. It is the perfect resource for your best audition ever.
Dunmore brings together fifty speeches for men from plays frequently ignored such as Titus Andronicus, Pericles, and Love's Labours Lost. It also includes good, but over-looked speeches from the more popular plays such as Octavius Caesar from Antony and Cleopatra, Leontes from The Winter's Tale and Buckingham from Richard III. With character descriptions, brief explanations of the context, and notes on obscure words, phrases and references, it is the perfect source for a unique audition.
Shakespeare's Books contains nearly 200 entries covering the full range of literature Shakespeare was acquainted with, including classical, historical, religious and contemporary works. The dictionary covers works whose importance to Shakespeare has emerged more clearly in recent years due to new research, as well as explaining current thinking on long-recognized sources such as Plutarch, Ovid, Holinshed, Ariosto and Montaigne. Entries for all major sources include surveys of the writer's place in Shakespeare's time, detailed discussion of their relation to his work, and full bibliography. These are enhanced by sample passages from early modern England writers, together with reproductions of pages from the original texts. Now available in paperback with a new preface bringing the book up to date, this is an invaluable reference tool.
Shakespeare’s Folktale Sources examines how Shakespeare adapted folktales for one or more plots in seven of his plays. When we acknowledge that Shakespeare constructed his plays from traditional stories with wide written and oral circulation, we can see how he used his folktale sources to engage his audience on common ground.
By skillfully weaving his own prose with Shakespeare's language, Leon Garfield has refashioned twelve of the Elizabethan playwright's most memorable dramas into stories, capturing all the richness of the characters, plot, mood, and setting. This format will delight both those who know the great dramatist's works and those who are new to them. Michael Foreman's dramatic color illustrations and varied black-and-white line drawings are the perfect complement to this celebration of Shakespeare's genius.
Twelve of the Bard's most famous plays, delightfully adapted for young readers: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, As You Like It, and eight others.
This book assesses William Shakespeare in the context of political and religious crisis, paying particular attention to his Catholic connections, which have heretofore been underplayed by much Protestant interpretation. Bourgeois Richmond's most important contribution is to study the genre of romance in its guise as a 'cover' for recusant Catholicism, drawing on a long tradition of medieval-religious plays devoted to the propagation of Catholic religious faith.
This compact, engaging book puts Shakespeare's originality in historical context and looks at how he worked with his sources: the plays, poems, chronicles and romances on which his own plays are based.
This New Casebook offers a wide-ranging selection of contemporary critical readings of Shakespeare's three 'problem plays': All's Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Trolius and Cressida. Together, they reflect the diversity of late twentieth-century theory and the controversy that continues to be generated by the plays, and discuss a variety of key issues. These include the meaning of the term 'problem play', the historical context and political and cultural significance of the plays, as well as issues of staging and theatre history. The volume also provides a helpful introduction which guides the reader through the critical approaches, terms and debates, as well as explanatory notes for each essay and a useful section on further reading.