The Shakespeare Revolution

The Shakespeare Revolution
Author: J. L. Styan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1983-04-29
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780521273282

This is a succinct and finest history of Shakespeare studies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare
Author: Stanley Wells
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 692
Release: 1997
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393316674

An indespensable companion to The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition, this is the most comprehensive reference work on Shakespearean textual problems ever compiled in a single volume. William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion provides a wealth of information about the problems presented by texts and the processes by which editorial decisions are reached. The General Introduction discusses the critical and theoretical issues raised by different kinds of editions, the nature of early manuscripts, printed texts, and the evidence for the canon and chronology of Shakespeare's works. It also offers a concise history of the editing of Shakespeare and sets forth the editorial principles of the Oxford Edition. Included for each work, are an introduction, textual notes, press variants, discussions of emendations and problems of modernization, plausible alternative readings, and a letter-by-letter reprint of the stage directions in the control text, among other materials. --

A Selective Bibliography of Shakespeare

A Selective Bibliography of Shakespeare
Author: James G. McManaway
Publisher: Associated University Presses
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1978-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780918016034

This bibliography provides easy access to the most important Shakespeare studies in the past four decades. Brief annotations, a detailed table of contents, cross-references, and a complete index make this bibliography especially useful.

Determining the Shakespeare Canon

Determining the Shakespeare Canon
Author: MacDonald Pairman Jackson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2014
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0198704410

Editors of Shakespeare's Complete Works must decide what to include. Although not in the First Folio collection of 1623, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward III have now entered the canon as plays co-authored by Shakespeare. Determining the Shakespeare Canon makes the case for lifting Arden of Faversham, first published in 1592, over the same threshold. A wealth of evidence indicates that Shakespeare was wholly or largely responsible for several of its central scenes (constituting Act III in editions divided into acts), and that the domestic tragedy can thus be added to the mounting list of his dramatic collaborations. Shakespeare's beginnings as a playwright are due for reconsideration. The second half of this volume provides solid grounds for accepting that publisher Thomas Thorpe's inclusion of A Lover's Complaint within the 1609 quarto of Shakespeare Sonnets was justified. While A Lover's Complaint has long been part of the Shakespeare canon, according to most editors, the poem's authenticity has been vigorously challenged in recent years. Its status is crucial to how critics assess the authority of the quarto's ordering of sonnets and interpret the structure of the sequence as a whole. These two problems of attribution are each addressed in five separate chapters that describe the converging results of different approaches and rebut counter-arguments. Stylometric techniques, using the resources of computers and electronic databases, are applied and the research methodologies of other scholars explained and evaluated. Quantitative tests are supplemented with traditional literary-critical analysis.

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 and the Outer Mystery

Shakespeare and the Outer Mystery
Author: Robert H. West
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0813183596

Shakespeare has been viewed by critics both as a secular writer who affirmed the dual nature of man and as a Christian allegorist whose work has a submerged but positive and elaborate pattern of Christian meaning. In Shakespeare and the Outer Mystery, Robert H. West explores the philosophical and supernatural elements of five Shakespearean dramas—Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest. Through his analysis, West discovers Shakespeare's respect for the mysteries of existence but no clear definition of the philosophical and moral context of his play worlds. An artistic motivation leads Shakespeare to use these elements ambiguously to create a dramatic effect rather than to teach a moral or ideological lesson.

The Oxford Shakespeare: The History of King Lear

The Oxford Shakespeare: The History of King Lear
Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2001-01-04
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 019158424X

The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers - a new, modern-spelling text, based on the Quarto text of 1608 - on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, allusions and much else - detailed introduction considers composition, sources, performances and changing critical attitudes to the play - illustrated with production photographs and related art - includes 'The Ballad of King Lear' and related offshoots - full index to introduction and commentary - durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.' Times Literary Supplement ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.