Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

by Woods, Gillian

• ISBN13: 9780230222069
• ISBN10: 0230222064
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-01-22
• Publisher: Red Globe Pr

Summary

Romeo and Julietis one of Shakespeare's most popular tragedies and has provoked a rich diversity of interpretations. Definitively passionate, it is much more than the archetypal love story: the play tests the limits of tragedy and comedy, challenges gender roles and explores the nature of language. In this Reader's Guide, Gillian Woods: surveys key critical responses to Romeo and Juliet, from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century plots a clear route through the vast array of debates, identifying chronological and thematic connections and explaining contexts investigates major issues and approaches such as deconstruction, psychoanalytical criticism, feminism and queer theory discusses film adaptations, including Baz Luhrmann's 1996 box-office hitWilliam Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. Authoritative and accessible, this invaluable Guide provides students, teachers and researchers with a panorama of the play's critical history in all its dynamic variety.

Author Biography

GILLIAN WOODS is a lecturer in Renaissance Theatre and Drama at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Note on the Text
Introduction
Patient Ears: Early Texts and Responses
Well-Seeming Forms: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Righteous Kisses and Dateless Bargains: Romantics and Victorians
Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy?: Genre Criticism
What's in a Word?: Language and Deconstruction
Kissing by the Book: Reading Petrarchism
Death-Marked Love: Psychoanalytical Criticism
Juliet and her Romeo: Feminism, Gender Studies and Queer Theory
From Fair Verona to Verona Beach: Shakespeare on Film
Conclusion
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index