Shakespeare

by Egan, Gabriel

• ISBN13: 9780748623723
• ISBN10: 0748623728
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-21
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

This guide helps readers make sense of the most commonly taught writer in the world. One approach to Shakespeare is as a dramatist while another approach is to think of him as essentially a poetic writer. The tension between these two views is a theme in this book because it helps us to reflect upon changing literary and critical trends. This is primarily a book for readers of Shakespeare who most commonly experience Shakespeare-on-stage through imagined performances in their own heads.The book starts with a brief explanation of how Shakespeare's writings have come down to us as a series of scripts for actors in the early modern theatre industry of London. The first half of the book then interrogates Shakespearean genres, while the second half examines different critical approaches to his plays via the four key issues of authorship, performance, identity and materialism. The book returns repeatedly to such questions as: 'what has changed since Shakespeare's time?', 'to what uses has Shakespeare been put?', and 'what value is in Shakespeare?' - questions that go to the heart of why we study Shakespeare.Key Features*A chronology of Shakespeare's career as an actor/dramatist that locates him within the theatre industry of his time.*New readings of twelve plays that form a core of the Shakespeare canon: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard 2, Henry 5, Hamlet, Othello, All's Well that Ends Well, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and Timon of Athens.*Critical analyses organized by genre (comedies, histories, tragedies, and romance) and by four key critical approaches: authorship, performance, identities, and materialism.*An extensive resources section, including a glossary of the important critical terms that are often used in debates about Shakespeare.

Table of Contents

Series Preface	p. viii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
Chronology	p. x
Introduction: How Shakespeare's works come down to us	p. 9
Dramatic Genres
Comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado about Nothing	p. 19
Transformation, Translation, and Plays to Pass the Time	p. 21
Benign and Malign Deceptions	p. 28
Soldiers Turned Lovers	p. 31
Determining Genre	p. 34
Dirty Jokes and Sexual Mores	p. 36
Histories: Richard 2 and Henry 5	p. 46
This England	p. 47
Providence	p. 53
Serialised History and the Tudor Myth	p. 57
The Order of Composition	p. 65
What Kind of King is Henry 5?	p. 68
Tragedies: Hamlet and Othello	p. 81
Large and Small Affairs in Hamlet	p. 82
Sex, Suicide, and Scepticism	p. 90
Testing the Supernatural	p. 99
The Character of Othello in Isolation	p. 104
The Character of Othello in the World	p. 111
Racial Difference - Cultural Difference - Multiculturalism	p. 113
Problem Plays and Romances: All's Well that Ends Well and The Winter's Tale	p. 121
Not Hamlet in a Dress, nor Helen in Breeches	p. 122
Choosing Among the Men	p. 125
Helen's Quest	p. 128
Unsuitable Husbands	p. 131
Do Hermione and Polixenes Paddle Palms?	p. 135
The Winter's Tale as Proto-novel	p. 139
Summer/Winter - Man/Woman - Land/Class	p. 144
Critical Approaches
Authority and Authorship: Measure for Measure	p. 159
History: Then	p. 160
Proposing to Isabella	p. 164
Being a Nun	p. 166
Meaning: Now	p. 167
Recovering Shakespeare's Version	p. 172
Performance: Macbeth	p. 180
The Witches	p. 182
The Timing of Exits and Entrances	p. 187
The Bipolar Stage	p. 192
The Apparitions	p. 195
Indeterminacy	p. 199
Identities: The Tempest	p. 203
The Identity of Caliban	p. 204
Nature/Nurture	p. 208
The New World	p. 212
Colonialism in General	p. 215
Ariel as Subaltern	p. 218
Materialism: Timon of Athens	p. 225
Base and Superstructure	p. 226
Timon as Unaccommodated Man	p. 228
Money, Gold, and G(u)ilt: Shakespearian Alchemy	p. 231
The Second Law of Thermodynamics	p. 237
The New Materialism versus Gaia	p. 241
Conclusion	p. 248
Student Resources	p. 252
Electronic Resources and Reference Sources	p. 252
Glossary	p. 256
Guide to Further Reading	p. 263
Index	p. 274
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