Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books

This is the first full-length study of Shelley's plays in performance. It offers a rich, meticulously researched history of Shelley's role as a playwright and dramatist and a reassessment of his "closet dramas" as performable pieces of theatre. With...

This work is concerned with the evaluation of rhetoric as an essential aspect of Renaissance sensibility. It is an analysis of the Renaissance world viewed in terms of literary style and aesthetic. Eight plays are analysed in some detail: four by George...

From West Side Story in 1957 to Road Show in 2008, the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and his collaborators have challenged the conventions of American musical theater and expanded the possibilities of what musical plays can do, how they work, and what...

This project explores the rhetorical deployment of tombs and monuments on the early modern stage, demonstrating their historiographic power and mythmaking potential.

Decentered Playwriting investigates new and alternative strategies for dramatic writing that incorporate non-Western, Indigenous, and marginalized storytelling techniques and traditions while deepening a creative practice that decenters dominant dramatic...

Gain deeper insight into two of Shakespeare's most iconic plays with Samuel Johnson's 'Annotations upon Hamlet and Titus Andronicus.' This comprehensive guide provides detailed analysis and historical context for each work, shedding new light on some of...

Cette analyse fouillée d'un monologue dramatique indien est le fruit de années de recherche et d'érudition. Le lecteur est plongé dans l'univers complexe et riche de la littérature indienne traditionnelle.This work has been selected by scholars as being...

Did you know that Shakespeare referenced over 200 plant species in his works? This paper explores the botanical references in Shakespeare's plays and provides insight into the Elizabethan era's understanding of plants and their uses.This work has been...

This book is a detailed historical analysis of the first quarto edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which was published in 1603. Charles Harold Herford and William Henry Widgery provide literary and historical context for the play, offering insightful...

This insightful analysis of Shakespeare's classic play explores the themes of jealousy, race, and power that lie at its heart. Through a close reading of the text, Rentala Venkata Subbarau offers a fresh perspective on one of the greatest works of...

What makes Shakespeare's plays so enduringly powerful and affecting? In this provocative study, John Lawlor argues that it is Shakespeare's ability to convey a profound sense of tragedy that sets him apart. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from...

An illuminating and scholarly investigation of the religious views and attitudes reflected in the plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare, based on the research of the noted historian Richard Simpson and presented in a clear and accessible style by...

This critical study offers a fresh perspective on the life and works of William Shakespeare, analyzing his impact on English literature and culture as a whole.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the...

This book is an in-depth analysis of the relationship between William Shakespeare and the explorer and writer Sir Walter Ralegh. The author, Henry Pemberton, also includes several previously published essays on Shakespearean topics, making this book a...

Dieses Buch untersucht die Hamburger Dramatiker zur Zeit Gottscheds und deren Beziehungen zu ihm. Franz Ferdinand Heitmueller beleuchtet dabei die Geschichte des Theaters und des Dramas im 18. Jahrhundert sowie die gesellschaftlichen und politischen...

Dieses Buch beschreibt die Herausforderungen, die sich aus der Übersetzung und Interpretation von Shakespeares Werken im XVIII Jahrhundert und im Zeitalter der Romantik ergaben. Der Autor gibt Einblick in die Schwierigkeiten der damaligen Zeit und bietet...

J. Mort's insightful analysis of Shakespeare's sonnets and other poems sheds new light on the Bard's inner life and creative process. From the enigmatic 'Dark Lady' to the intricate web of poetic allusions, Mort uncovers the many layers of meaning in...

Dieses Buch beinhaltet eine Sammlung von Vorlesungen, die Robert Zimmermann 1855 in Prag zum Thema Tragödie gehalten hat. Der Autor analysiert die griechischen Tragödien und ihre Bedeutung im Kontext der damaligen Gesellschaft. Er untersucht die...

Ernest Bernbaum offers a comprehensive overview of the development and significance of English sentimental comedy and domestic tragedy during the period 1696-1780. He analyzes the literary, social, and political influences that shaped these genres,...

This collection of essays by James Russell Lowell offers a fresh perspective on the works of some of the most notable playwrights of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Lowell examines the historical and cultural context of the works of John Webster, Cyril...

This book explores the life of William Shakespeare and his contribution to the dramatic arts. It includes historical context and an analysis of his characters. A must-read for theatre enthusiasts and Shakespeare fans alike.This work has been selected by...

Considered a classic of English literary history, J. Payne Collier's History of English Dramatic Poetry offers a comprehensive survey of the development of English theatre from its earliest beginnings to the Restoration era. With extracts from many of...

A critical edition of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, with extensive commentary and analysis. Furness's insightful notes shed light on the play's themes, characters, and cultural context, making it an invaluable resource for scholars and theater...

Published in 1884, this scholarly analysis explores the works of English playwrights who preceded William Shakespeare, including Christopher Marlowe, John Lyly, and George Peele. The author, a prominent literary historian and critic, situates...

This is a fascinating exploration of the potential Italian influences on Shakespeare's plays. The author presents compelling evidence for the existence of an Italian source for some of Shakespeare's most famous works, such as Romeo and Juliet and The...

In this acclaimed scholarly work, Allen provides a comprehensive analysis of English literature and culture during the period of Shakespeare's greatest artistic achievements. Drawing upon a vast array of primary sources, Allen situates Shakespeare and...

This fascinating study explores the role of William Shakespeare as a groom of the chamber, a position of some influence at the royal court. The book examines the duties, responsibilities, and privileges associated with this position, shedding new light...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as...

This fascinating collection traces the ways in which Shakespeare has been reassessed over the years and explores many issues concerning Shakespeare's modernity.

While many scholars in Shakespeare and Religious Studies assume a secularist viewpoint in their interpretation of Shakespeare's works, there are others that allow for a theologically coherent reading. Located within the turn to religion in Shakespeare...

Unhistorical Shakespeare argues that the way in which we study history has significant bearing on what desire we study, and how we study it. Menon argues that our embrace of difference as the template for relating past and present produces a hetero...

Using the work of W.Bion and D.Winnicott, this book offers a psychoanalytic study of Beckett's aesthetics of absence. Focusing on the first prose trilogy and Waiting for Godot, it offers a critical challenge to accepted viewpoints of Beckett's negative...

How do theatre and performance transmit and dispute ideologies of neoliberalism? The essays in this anthology examine the mechanisms and rhetorics of contemporary multinational and transnational organizations, artists, and communities that produce...

Shakespeare's plays are too often analysed as if they existed in a vacuum. This book looks at the Problem Plays as designed to produce a response in the audience, and offers a vision of them quite different from conventional judgements. Extending the...

A collection of essays on the ways the senses 'speak' on Shakespeare's stage. Drawing on historical phenomenology, science studies, gender studies and natural philosophy, the essays provide critical tools for understanding Shakespeare's investment in...

This exploration of the territory between theory and practice in contemporary theatre features essays by academics from theatre and translation studies, and delineates a new space for the discussion of translation in the theatre that is international,...

Drawing on original archival research, Racial Geometries... examines popular forms of performance -- from musical theatre and minstrelsy to non-theatrical forms like Chinatown tourism -- to expose how American racial formation between the two world wars...

This new edition of Anthony Roche's pioneering survey of twentieth-century Irish drama brings the story up to date with new material on the contemporary Irish theatre scene.

One of the most neglected areas of study in nineteenth-century theater is pantomime: this book provides a comprehensive overview of pantomime in the Victorian period, ranging from the ideological positions perpetrated by pantomime to discussions of...

This study expands on Reynolds' "transversal poetics" -- the theory, methodology, and aesthetics developed in response to the need for an approach that fosters agency, creativity and conscientious scholarship and pedagogy. It offers new readings of plays...

This is the first book-length analysis of Shakespeare's depiction of specula (mirrors) to reveal the literal and allegorical functions of mirrors in the playwright's art and thought. Adding a new dimension to the plays Troilus and Cressida, Julius...

This lively, lucid book undertakes a detailed study of Shakespeare's fascination with clowns, fools, and fooling. From the knockabout clowns of the early comedies, through the wise fools of the mature plays, to disturbing tragic figures who play the...

Surveying the complex field of Shakespeare studies today, this book argues that a return to original practices would revive the field. Pechter advances the idea that scholars can perform more effectively by relaxing some of the materialist principles...

The theatrical works of Millay, Cummings, and Dos Passos, which have largely been marginalized in discussions of theater history and literary scholarship, offer a hybrid theater that integrates the popular with the formal, the mainstream with the...