Macbeth: A Critical Reader A Critical Reader

by Drakakis, John; Townshend, Dale

• ISBN13: 9780567640796
• ISBN10: 0567640795
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-09-12
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare

Summary

ARDEN RENAISSANCE DRAMA GUIDES offer students and academics practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performance contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Essays from leading international scholars provide invaluable insights into the text by presenting a range of critical perspectives, making the books ideal companions for study and research.

Key features include:

Essays on the play's critical and performance history

A keynote essay on current research and thinking about the play

A selection of new essays by leading scholars

A survey of resources to direct students' further reading about the play in print and online

Regularly performed and studied, Macbeth is not only one of Shakespeare's most popular plays but also provides us with one of the literary canon's most compellingly conflicted tragic figures. This guide offers fresh new ways into the play.

Author Biography

John Drakakis is Professor of English Studies at the University of Stirling, UK. He is editor of Alternative Shakespeares, Shakespearean Tragedy, the Arden 3 edition of The Merchant of Venice, General Editor of Routledge's New Critical Idiom series, and joint editor and contributor to Gothic Shakespeares.

Dale Townshend is Lecturer in English Studies at the University of Stirling, UK. He is author of The Orders of the Gothic and co-editor of Gothic Shakespeares.

Table of Contents

Series Introduction, Andrew Hiscock and Lisa Hopkins
Macbeth Timeline
Introduction, John Drakakis and Dale Townshend
1. The Critical Backstory, Sandra Clarke
2. Performance History, Bernice Kliman
3. The State of the Art, Julie Sanders
4. New Directions
i. Macbeth in the Present, Terence Hawkes
ii. Unsexing Macbeth, Dale Townshend
iii. Macbeth, Religion and Nationalism, Adrian Streete
iv. Macbeth and Sovereignty
5. Resources, Christy Desmet
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index