Illyria in Shakespeare’s England studies the eastern Adriatic region known as “Illyria” in five plays by Shakespeare and other early modern English writing. It examines the origins and features of past discourses on the area, expanding our knowledge of the ways in which England and other polities negotiated their position in the early modern world.
Illyria in Shakespeare's England studies the eastern Adriatic region known as "Illyria" in five plays by Shakespeare and other early modern English writing. It examines the origins and features of past discourses on the area, expanding our knowledge of the ways in which Englan...
This is the first collection to systematically combine the study of memory and affect in early modern culture. Essays by leading and emergent scholars in the field of Shakespeare studies offer an innovative research agenda, inviting new, exploratory approaches to Shakespeare's work that embrace interdisciplinary cross-fertilization. Drawing on the contexts of Renaissance literature across genres and on various discourses including rhetoric, medicine, religion, morality, historiography, colonialism, and politics, the chapters bring together a broad range of texts, concerns, and methodologies central to the study of early modern culture. Stimulating for postgraduate students, lecturers, and researchers with an interest in the broader fields of memory studies and the history of the emotions – two vibrant and growing areas of research – it will also prove invaluable to teachers of Shakespeare, dramaturges, and directors of stage productions, provoking discussions of how convergences of memory and affect influence stagecraft, dramaturgy, rhetoric, and poetic language.
Combining the resources of new historicism, feminism, and postmodern textual analysis, Eric Mallin reveals how contemporary pressures left their marks on three Shakespeare plays written at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Close attention to the language of Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night reveals the ways the plays echo the events and anxieties that accompanied the beginning of the seventeenth century. Troilus reflects the rebellion of the Earl of Essex and the failure of the courtly, chivalric style. Hamlet resonates with the danger of the bubonic plague and the difficult succession history of James I. Twelfth Night is imbued with nostalgia for an earlier period of Elizabeth's rule, when her control over religious and erotic affairs seemed more secure. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.
The essays in this book analyze a range of genres and considers geographical areas beyond the Ottoman Empire to deepen our post-Saidian understanding of the complexity of real and imagined "traffic" between England and the "Islamic worlds" it encountered and constructed.
"The book argues that rediscovered ancient Greek plays exerted a powerful and uncharted influence on sixteenth-century England's dramatic landscape, not only in academic and aristocratic settings, but also at the heart of the developing commercial theaters."--Introduction, p. 2.
Twelfth Night is the only one of Shakespeare’s plays to have a double title – the other title being What You Will. This play is a comedy with an intricate plot and dozens of jokes to keep an audience entertained. It was written circa 1601 and the setting is Illyria, a fictional country. Shakespeare’s inspiration for the story came from Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession, written in 1581 by Englishman Barnabe Riche. The Duke of Illyria is one Orsino. Illyria appears to be a place where very little is happening and the inhabitants are somewhat bored. When the play begins, Orsino is courting Countess Olivia. Olivia, however, is in no mood for courting, as she has just lost her brother and is mourning her loss. Even so, her uncle Sir Toby Belch is matchmaking. He thinks she would make a suitable mate for the dubious buffoon Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Sir Andrew and Sir Toby spend much of their time drinking with a clown named Feste. This annotated edition includes a biography and critical essay.
How has Europe shaped British literature and culture – and vice versa – since the Middle Ages? This volume offers nuanced answers to this question. From the High Renaissance to haute cuisine, from the Republic of Letters to the European Union, from the Black Death to Brexit -- the reader gains insights into the main geographical zones of influence, shared intellectual movements, indicative modes of cultural transfer and more recent conflicts that have left their mark on the British-European relationship. The story that emerges from this long history of cultural interactions is much more complex than its most recent political episode might suggest. This volume offers indispensable contexts to the manifold and longstanding connections between British and European literature and culture. This book suggests that, however the political landscape develops, we will do well to bear this exceptionally rich history in mind.
