Shakespeare's Folktale Sources

Shakespeare's Folktale Sources
Author: Charlotte Artese
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2015-06-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1644530449

Shakespeare’s Folktale Sources argues that seven plays—The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, All’s Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Cymbeline—derive one or more of their plots directly from folktales. In most cases, scholars have accepted one literary version of the folktale as a source. Recognizing that the same story has circulated orally and occurs in other medieval and early modern written versions allows for new readings of the plays. By acknowledging that a play’s source story circulated in multiple forms, we can see how the playwright was engaging his audience on common ground, retelling a story that may have been familiar to many of them, even the illiterate. We can also view the folktale play as a Shakespearean genre, defined by source as the chronicle histories are, that spans and traces the course of Shakespeare’s career. The fact that Shakespeare reworked folktales so frequently also changes the way we see the history of the literary folk- or fairy-tale, which is usually thought to bypass England and move from Italian novella collections to eighteenth-century French salons. Each chapter concludes with a bibliography listing versions of each folktale source as a resource for further research and teaching. Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Shakespeare's Ovid

Shakespeare's Ovid
Author: A. B. Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2006-11-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0521030315

A comprehensive examination of Shakespeare's use of Ovid's epic poem, Metamorphoses.

Shakespeare and the Rival Playwrights, 1600-1606

Shakespeare and the Rival Playwrights, 1600-1606
Author: David Farley-Hills
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2002-09-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1134953925

David Farley-Hills argues that Shakespeare did not work in splendid isolation, but responded as any other playwright to the commercial and artistic pressures of his time. In this book he offers an interpretation of seven of Shakespeare's plays in the light of pressures exerted by his major contemporary rivals. The plays discussed are Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, All's Well That Ends Well, Othello, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, and King Lear.

Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition

Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition
Author: John Lewis Walker
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 920
Release: 2002
Genre: Civilization, Classical, in literature
ISBN: 9780824066970

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Shakespeare

Shakespeare
Author: E. A. J. Honigmann
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 1998
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780719054259

Throws light on the problem of what Shakespeare was doing between leaving school and appearing as an actor and playwright in London.

The Shakespearean comic and tragicomic

The Shakespearean comic and tragicomic
Author: Richard Hillman
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2020-01-20
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1526144093

In exploring links between the early modern English theatre and France, Richard Hillman focuses on Shakespeare’s deployment of genres whose dominant Italian models and affinities might seem to leave little scope for French ones. The author draws on specific and unsuspected points of contact, whilst also pointing out a broad tendency by the dramatist, to draw on French material, both dramatic and non-dramatic, to inflect comic forms in potentially tragic directions. The resulting internal tensions are evident from the earliest comedies to the latest tragicomedies (or ‘romances’). While its many original readings will interest specialists and students of Shakespeare, this book will have broader appeal: it contributes significantly, from an unfamiliar angle, to the contemporary discourse concerned with early modern English culture within the European context. At the same time, it is accessible to a wide range of readers, with translations provided for all non-English citations.

Shakespeare and Immigration

Shakespeare and Immigration
Author: Ruben Espinosa
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317056620

Shakespeare and Immigration critically examines the vital role of immigrants and aliens in Shakespeare's drama and culture. On the one hand, the essays in this collection interrogate how the massive influx of immigrants during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I influenced perceptions of English identity and gave rise to anxieties about homeland security in early modern England. On the other, they shed light on how our current concerns surrounding immigration shape our perception of the role of the alien in Shakespeare's work and expand the texts in new and relevant directions for a contemporary audience. The essays consider the immigrant experience; strangers and strangeness; values of hospitality in relationship to the foreigner; the idea of a host society; religious refuge and refugees; legal views of inclusion and exclusion; structures of xenophobia; and early modern homeland security. In doing so, this volume offers a variety of perspectives on the immigrant experience in Shakespearean drama and how the influential nature of the foreigner affects perceptions of community and identity; and, collection questions what is at stake in staging the anxieties and opportunities associated with foreigners. Ultimately, Shakespeare and Immigration offers the first sustained study of the significance of the immigrant and alien experience to our understanding of Shakespeare's work. By presenting a compilation of views that address Shakespeare's attention to the role of the foreigner, the volume constitutes a timely and relevant addition to studies of race, ethics, and identity in Shakespeare.