Much Ado About Nothing: A Critical Reader
Much Ado About Nothing: A Critical Reader

Author: Deborah Cartmell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1474284396

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This volume offers an accessible and thought-provoking guide to this major Shakespearean comedy, surveying its key themes and evolving critical preoccupations. It also provides a detailed and up-to-date history of the play's rich stage and screen performance, looking closely at major contemporary performances, including Josie Rourke's film starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones at the Old Vic, and the RSC's recent rebranding of it as a sequel. Moving through to four new critical essays, the guide opens up fresh perspectives, including contemporary directors' deployment of older actors within the lead roles, the play's relationship to Love's Labour's Lost, its presence on Youtube and the ways in which tales and ruses in the play belong to a wider concern with varieties of crime. The volume finishes with a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further research.

Arden of Faversham: A Critical Reader
Arden of Faversham: A Critical Reader

Author: Peter Kirwan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-06-29

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1350270199

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One of the earliest domestic tragedies, Arden of Faversham is a powerful Elizabethan drama based on the real-life murder of Thomas Arden. This Critical Reader presents the first collection of essays specifically focused upon Arden of Faversham. It highlights the way in which this important play from the early 1590s stands at several different critical intersections. Focused research chapters propose new directions for exploring the play in the light of ecocriticism, genre studies, critical race studies and narratives of dispossession. It also looks forward to Arden of Faversham's role and status in a less author-centred critical climate. Chapters explore how this anonymous and canonically marginal play has been approached in the past by scholars and theatre-makers and the frameworks that have offered productive insight into its unique features. The volume includes chapters covering a wide range of critical discourses and resources available for its study, as well as offering practical approaches to the play in the classroom.

Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0743482751

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Folger Shakespeare Library The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies Each edition includes: ? Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play ? Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play ? Scene-by-scene plot summaries ? A key to famous lines and phrases ? An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language ? An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play ? Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books Essay by Gail Kern Paster The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs.

Shakespeare and Costume in Practice
Shakespeare and Costume in Practice

Author: Bridget Escolme

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-12-23

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 3030571491

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What is the role of costume in Shakespeare production? Shakespeare and Costume in Practice argues that costume design choices are central not only to the creation of period setting and the actor’s work on character, but to the cultural, political, and psychological meanings that the theatre makes of Shakespeare. The book explores questions about what the first Hamlet looked like in his mourning cloak; how costumes for a Shakespeare comedy can reflect or critique the collective nostalgias a culture has for its past; how costume and casting work together to ask new questions about Shakespeare and race. Using production case studies of Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest, the book demonstrates that costume design can be a site of experimentation, playfulness, and transgression in the theatre – and that it can provoke audiences to think again about what power, race, and gender look like on the Shakespearean stage.

Critical Essays on Much Ado about Nothing
Critical Essays on Much Ado about Nothing

Author: Linda Cookson

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13:

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This is a collection of specially-commisioned essays designed to meet the specific needs of A level students. It introduces students to a wide variety of critical opinion, and shows by example how to construct a good critical essay. This book considers Much Ado About Nothing.

The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama
The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama

Author: Michelle M. Dowd

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-12-15

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1350161861

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How does our understanding of early modern performance, culture and identity change when we decentre Shakespeare? And how might a more inclusive approach to early modern drama help enable students to discuss a range of issues, including race and gender, in more productive ways? Underpinned by these questions, this collection offers a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on drama in Shakespeare's England, mapping the variety of approaches to the context and work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. By paying attention to repertory, performance in and beyond playhouses, modes of performance, and lost and less-studied plays, the handbook reshapes our critical narratives about early modern drama. Chapters explore early modern drama through a range of cultural contexts and approaches, from material culture and emotion studies to early modern race work and new directions in disability and trans studies, as well as contemporary performance. Running through the collection is a shared focus on contemporary concerns, with contributors exploring how race, religion, environment, gender and sexuality animate 16th- and 17th-century drama and, crucially, the questions we bring to our study, teaching and research of it. The volume includes a ground-breaking assessment of the chronology of early modern drama, a survey of resources and an annotated bibliography to assist researchers as they pursue their own avenues of inquiry. Combining original research with an account of the current state of play, The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama will be an invaluable resource both for experienced scholars and for those beginning work in the field.

Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing

Author: Alison Findlay

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 0230343961

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This Handbook provides an introductory guide to Much Ado About Nothing offering a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, contextual documents, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of key productions, a survey of film and TV adaptation, a wide sampling of critical opinion and further reading.

Twelfth Night: A Critical Reader
Twelfth Night: A Critical Reader

Author:

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-12-16

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1472503317

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Twelfth Night is the most mature and fully developed of Shakespeare's comedies and, as well as being one of his most popular plays, represents a crucial moment in the development of his art. Assembled by leading scholars, this guide provides a comprehensive survey of major issues in the contemporary study of the play. Throughout the book chapters explore such issues as the play's critical reception from John Manningham's account of one of its first performances to major current comentators like Stephen Greenblatt; the performance history of the play, from Shakespeare's day to the present and key themes in current scholarship, from issues of gender and sexuality to the study of comedy and song. Twelfth Night: A Critical Guide also includes a complete guide to resources available on the play - including critical editions, online resources and an annotated bibliography - and how they might be used to aid both the teaching and study of Shakespeare's enduring comedy.

Shakespeare and the Comedy of Enchantment
Shakespeare and the Comedy of Enchantment

Author: Kent Cartwright

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-02-03

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0198868898

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Introduction -- Clowns, fools, and folly -- Structural doubleness and repetition -- Place, being, and agency -- The manifestation of desire -- The return from the dead -- Ending and wondering.