Shakespeare And The Problem Of Meaning

Author : Norman Rabkin
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 1981-10
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 9780226701783

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Shakespeare and the Problem of Meaning by Norman Rabkin Pdf

"Rabkin selects The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Richard III, Macbeth, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest as the plays on which to build his argument, and he teaches us a great deal about these plays. . . . To convince the unbelievingthat that the plays do mean, but that the meaning is coterminous with the experience of the plays themselves, Rabkin finds a strategy more subtle than thesis and rational argument, a strategy designed to make us see for ourselves why thematic descriptions are inadequate, see for ourselves tath the plays mean more than and statement about them can ever suggest." –Barbara A. Mowat, Auburn University "Norman Rabkin's new book is a very different kind of good book. Elegantly spare, sharp, undogmatic. . . . The relationship between the perception of unity and the perception of artistic achievement is a basic conundrum, and it is one that Mr. Rabkin has courageously placed at the center of his discussion." –G. K. Hunter, Sewanee Review "Rabkin's book is brilliant, taut, concise, beautifully argued, and sensitively responsive to the individuality of particular Shakespeare plays." –Anne Barton, New York Review of Books

Author : William B. Toole
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2015-07-24
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783111392226

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Shakespeare's problem plays by William B. Toole Pdf

Author : Margaret Jane Kidnie
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2008-11-19
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781134393640

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Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation by Margaret Jane Kidnie Pdf

'Kidnie's study presents original, sophisticated, and profoundly intelligent answers to important questions.' - Lukas Erne, University of Geneva 'This is a fine and productive book, one that will surely draw significant attention and commentary well beyond the precincts of Shakespeare studies.' - W.B. Worthen, Columbia University Shakespeare’s plays continue to be circulated on a massive scale in a variety of guises – as editions, performances, and adaptations – and it is by means of such mediation that we come to know his drama. Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation addresses fundamental questions about this process of mediation, making use of the fraught category of adaptation to explore how we currently understand the Shakespearean work. To adapt implies there exists something to alter, but what constitutes the category of the ‘play’, and how does it relate to adaptation? How do ‘play’ and ‘adaptation’ relate to drama’s twin media, text and performance? What impact might answers to these questions have on current editorial, performance, and adaptation studies? Margaret Jane Kidnie argues that ‘play’ and ‘adaptation’ are provisional categories - mutually dependent processes that evolve over time in accordance with the needs of users. This theoretical argument about the identity of works and the nature of text and performance is pursued in relation to diverse examples, including theatrical productions by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told, the Reduced Shakespeare Company, and recent print editions of the complete works. These new readings build up a persuasive picture of the cultural and intellectual processes that determine how the authentically Shakespearean is distinguished from the fraudulent and adaptive. Adaptation thus emerges as the conceptually necessary but culturally problematic category that results from partial or occasional failures to recognize a shifting work in its textual-theatrical instance.

Author : Simon Barker
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2005-04-25
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137208903

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Shakespeare's Problem Plays by Simon Barker Pdf

This New Casebook offers a wide-ranging selection of contemporary critical readings of Shakespeare's three 'problem plays': All's Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Trolius and Cressida. Together, they reflect the diversity of late twentieth-century theory and the controversy that continues to be generated by the plays, and discuss a variety of key issues. These include the meaning of the term 'problem play', the historical context and political and cultural significance of the plays, as well as issues of staging and theatre history. The volume also provides a helpful introduction which guides the reader through the critical approaches, terms and debates, as well as explanatory notes for each essay and a useful section on further reading.

Author : Margaret Jane Kidnie
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780415308670

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Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation by Margaret Jane Kidnie Pdf

Kidnie brings current debates in performance criticism in contact with recent developments in textual studies to explore what it is that distinguishes Shakespearean work from its apparent other, the adaptation.

Author : Peter G. Platt
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2016-04-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317056522

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Shakespeare and the Culture of Paradox by Peter G. Platt Pdf

Exploring Shakespeare's intellectual interest in placing both characters and audiences in a state of uncertainty, mystery, and doubt, this book interrogates the use of paradox in Shakespeare's plays and in performance. By adopting this discourse-one in which opposites can co-exist and perspectives can be altered, and one that asks accepted opinions, beliefs, and truths to be reconsidered-Shakespeare used paradox to question love, gender, knowledge, and truth from multiple perspectives. Committed to situating literature within the larger culture, Peter Platt begins by examining the Renaissance culture of paradox in both the classical and Christian traditions. He then looks at selected plays in terms of paradox, including the geographical site of Venice in Othello and The Merchant of Venice, and equity law in The Comedy of Errors, Merchant, and Measure for Measure. Platt also considers the paradoxes of theater and live performance that were central to Shakespearean drama, such as the duality of the player, the boy-actor and gender, and the play/audience relationship in the Henriad, Hamlet, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. In showing that Shakespeare's plays create and are created by a culture of paradox, Platt offers an exciting and innovative investigation of Shakespeare's cognitive and affective power over his audience.

Author : Terence Hawkes
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 179 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Reader-response criticism
ISBN : OCLC:1078692976

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Meaning by Shakespeare by Terence Hawkes Pdf

Author : Colin McGinn
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2009-03-17
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 9780061751653

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Shakespeare's Philosophy by Colin McGinn Pdf

Shakespeare’s plays are usually studied by literary scholars and historians and the books about him from those perspectives are legion. It is most unusual for a trained philosopher to give us his insight, as Colin McGinn does here, into six of Shakespeare’s greatest plays–A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest. In his brilliant commentary, McGinn explores Shakespeare’s philosophy of life and illustrates how he was influenced, for example, by the essays of Montaigne that were translated into English while Shakespeare was writing. In addition to chapters on the great plays, there are also essays on Shakespeare and gender and his plays from the aspects of psychology, ethics, and tragedy. As McGinn says about Shakespeare, “There is not a sentimental bone in his body. He has the curiosity of a scientist, the judgment of a philosopher, and the soul of a poet.” McGinn relates the ideas in the plays to the later philosophers such as David Hume and the modern commentaries of critics such as Harold Bloom. The book is an exhilarating reading experience, especially for students who are discovering the greatest writer in English.

Author : Graham Watts
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2015-01-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781476618722

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Shakespeareäó»s Authentic Performance Texts by Graham Watts Pdf

When we pick up a copy of a Shakespeare play, we assume that we hold in our hands an original record of his writing. We don’t. Present-day printings are an editor’s often subjective version of the script. Around 25 percent of any Shakespeare play will have been altered, and this creates an enormous amount of confusion. The only authentic edition of Shakespeare’s works is the First Folio, published by his friends and colleagues in 1623. This volume makes the case for printing and staging the plays as set in the First Folio, which preserved actor cues that helped players understand and perform their roles. The practices of modern editors are critiqued. Also included are sections on analyzing and acting the text, how a complex character can be created using the First Folio, and a director’s approach to rehearsing Shakespeare with various exercises for both professional and student actors. In conclusion, all of the findings are applied to Measure for Measure.

Author : Lachlan Mackinnon
Publisher : Springer
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 1988-02-23
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781349092253

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Shakespeare the Aesthete by Lachlan Mackinnon Pdf

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Wilder Publications
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2013-09
Category : Drama
ISBN : 1627554629

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Shakespeare's Problem Plays by William Shakespeare Pdf

Comedy and Tragedy-- Collected here in one binding are All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and The History of Troilus and Cressida. Collectively they are known as Shakespeare's Problem Plays. While the first two are usually placed with the comedies and the later with the tragedies none of them fit neatly into either classification. Their structure, subject matter, and resolutions create problems for those who want simple classifications. The term was coined by critic F. S. Boas who believed that these plays each explored a moral dilemma and social problem through their main characters, giving the term a layered meaning. O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; But it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 154 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 1965
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:249881054

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Shakespeare's Problem Plays by Anonim Pdf

Author : Ernest Schanzer
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2013-11-05
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781136564963

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The Problem Plays of Shakespeare by Ernest Schanzer Pdf

The opening chapter traces the history of the term 'problem plays' as applied to Shakespeare and defines it more clearly and precisely than has been done in the past. Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure, Antony and Cleopatra are then discussed in separate chapters, not only as problem plays but from various points of view: such matters as themes, structural pattern, character-problems, the play's relation to its sources as well as to other plays in the canon, are all touched upon.

Author : Kenneth Muir,Stanley Wells
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1982-02-18
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0521239591

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Aspects of Shakespeare's 'Problem Plays' by Kenneth Muir,Stanley Wells Pdf

These articles, reprinted from various volumes of Shakespeare Survey, concern three plays which have gradually become appreciated by critics and in the theatre. Since the early years of this century they have been seen as an interrelated group, with a peculiarly twentieth-century appeal. Measure for Measure, concerned as it is with adolescents' first encounters with sex, love and death, has a special appeal for young people; Troilus and Cressida, set in the Trojan War, has been found deeply relevant to our own war-troubled times; and All's Well That Ends Well, sharing these preoccupations, is a necessary companion piece. John Barton, who has directed all three plays, is interviewed in one of the articles, which together illustrate the often heated controversy about the plays. Reviews and photographs of post-war productions at Stratford are also included. The book as a whole is designed as a stimulating introduction to these plays and to conflicting interpretations of them.

Author : David F. McCandless
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 1997-12-22
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0253113342

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Gender and Performance in Shakespeare's Problem Comedies by David F. McCandless Pdf

"This is exactly the kind of work, with its synthesis of theory, close reading, and deconstructive performance criticism that many of us in the profession have been looking for." -- Joel B. Altman, University of California, Berkeley "McCandless's book represents an inventive and illuminating account that not only produces a theoretically activated text but also explores a range of options for staging it, turning theoretical into theatrical meanings." -- Barbara Hodgdon, Drake University "The writing is clear, snappy, wonderfully informed with a vivid and experienced theatrical imagination... a book that taught me a good deal about the problem comedies, especially from the vantage point of performance, though the insights into performance are fully and incisively integrated with, and they richly illuminate, formal, thematic, and psychological vantage points on the play." -- Richard P. Wheeler, University of Illinois Composed at a critical moment in English history, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida -- Shakespeare's problem plays -- dramatize a crisis in the sex-gender system. They register a male dread of emasculation and engulfment, a fear of female authority and sexuality. In these plays males identify desire for a female as dangerous and unmanly, females contend and confound traditional femininity. David McCandless's book is a unique and invigorating example of performance criticism that illuminates these difficult, sometimes-overlooked tragicomedies. It is an original and timely contribution to Shakespearean theater scholarship.