Shakespeare And The Staging Of English History

Author : Janette Dillon
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-05
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9780199593163

Get Book

Shakespeare and the Staging of English History by Janette Dillon Pdf

OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. This new study of Shakespeare's English history plays looks at the plays through the lens of early modern staging, focusing on the recurrence of particular stage pictures and 'units of action', and seeking to show how these units function in particular and characteristic ways within the history plays. Through close analysis of stage practice and stage picture, the book builds a profile of the kinds of writing and staging that characterise a Shakespearean history play and that differentiate one history play from another. The first part of the book concentrates primarily on the stage, looking at the 'single' picture or tableau; the use of presenters or choric figures; and the creation of horizontally and vertically divided stage pictures. Later chapters focus more on the body: on how bodies move, gesture, occupy space, and handle objects in particular kinds of scenes. The book concludes by analysing the highly developed use of one crucial stage property, the chair of state, in Shakespeare's last history play, Henry VIII. Students of Shakespeare often express anxiety about how to read a play as a performance text rather than a non-dramatic literary text. This book aims to dispel that anxiety. It offers readers a way of making sense of plays by looking closely at what happens on stage and breaks down scenes into shorter units so that the building blocks of Shakespeare's historical dramaturgy become visible. By studying the unit of action, how it looks and how that look resembles or differs from the look of other units of action, readers will become familiar with a way of reading that may be applied to other plays, both Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean.

Author : Hailey Bachrach
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 207 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2023-11-16
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781009356152

Get Book

Staging Female Characters in Shakespeare's English History Plays by Hailey Bachrach Pdf

Hailey Bachrach reveals how Shakespeare used female characters in deliberate and consistent ways across his history plays. Illuminating these patterns, she helps us understand these characters not as incidental or marginal presences, but as a key lens through which to understand Shakespeare's process for transforming history into drama. Shakespeare uses female characters to draw deliberate attention to the blurry line between history and fiction onstage, bringing to life the constrained but complex position of women not only in the past itself, but as characters in depictions of said past. In Shakespeare's historical landscape, female characters represent the impossibility of fully recovering voices the record has excluded, and the empowering potential of standing outside history that Shakespeare can only envision by drawing upon the theatre's material conditions. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Author : Irving Ribner
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : English drama
ISBN : 0415353149

Get Book

The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare by Irving Ribner Pdf

Recognized as one of the leading books in its field, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare presents the most comprehensive account available of the English historical drama from its beginning to the closing of the theatres in 1642.

Author : Phyllis Rackin
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2018-08-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781501724725

Get Book

Stages of History by Phyllis Rackin Pdf

Phyllis Rackin offers a fresh approach to Shakespeare's English history plays, rereading them in the context of a world where rapid cultural change transformed historical consciousness and gave the study of history a new urgency. Rackin situates Shakespeare's English chronicles among multiple discourses, particularly the controversies surrounding the functions of poetry, theater, and history. She focuses on areas of contention in Renaissance historiography that are also areas of concern in recent criticism-historical authority and causation, the problems of anachronism and nostalgia, and the historical construction of class and gender. She analyzes the ways in which the perfoace of history in Shakespeare's theater participated—and its representation in subsequent criticism still participates—in the contests between opposed theories of history and between the different ideological interests and historiographic practices they authorize. Celebrating the heroic struggles of the past and recording the patriarchal genealogies of kings and nobles, Tudor historians provided an implicit rationale for the hierarchical order of their own time; but the new public theater where socially heterogeneous audiences came together to watch common players enact the roles of their social superiors was widely perceived as subverting that order. Examining such sociohistorical factors as the roles of women and common men and the conditions of theatrical performance, Rackin explores what happened when elite historical discourse was trans porteto the public commercial theater. She argues that Shakespeare's chronicles transformed univocal historical writing into polyphonic theatrical scripts that expressed the contradictions of Elizabethan culture.

Author : Ralf Hertel
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-01
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781317050797

Get Book

Staging England in the Elizabethan History Play by Ralf Hertel Pdf

Applying current political theory on nationhood as well as methods established by recent performance studies, this study sheds new light on the role the public theatre played in the rise of English national identity around 1600. It situates selected history plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe in the context of non-fictional texts (such as historiographies, chorographies, political treatises, or dictionary entries) and cultural artefacts (such as maps or portraits), and thus highlights the circulation, and mutation, of national thought in late sixteenth-century culture. At the same time, it goes beyond a New Historicist approach by foregrounding the performative surplus of the theatre event that is so essential for the shaping of collective identity. How, this study crucially asks, does the performative art of theatre contribute to the dynamics of the formation of national identity? Although theories about the nature of nationalism vary, a majority of theorists agree that notions of a shared territory and history, as well as questions of religion, class and gender play crucial roles in the shaping of national identity. These factors inform the structure of this book, and each is examined individually. In contrast to existing publications, this inquiry does not take for granted a pre-existing national identity that simply manifested itself in the literary works of the period; nor does it proceed from preconceived notions of the playwrights’ political views. Instead, it understands the early modern stage as an essentially contested space in which conflicting political positions are played off against each other, and it inquires into how the imaginative work of negotiating these stances eventually contributed to a rising national self-awareness in the spectators.

Author : A. J. Hoenselaars
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2004-09-23
Category : Drama
ISBN : 052182902X

Get Book

Shakespeare's History Plays by A. J. Hoenselaars Pdf

This volume, with a foreword by Dennis Kennedy, addresses a range of attitudes to Shakespeare's English history plays in Britain and abroad from the early seventeenth century to the present day. It concentrates on the play texts as well as productions, translations and adaptations of them. The essays explore the multiple points of intersection between the English history they recount and the experience of British and other national cultures, establishing the plays as genres not only relevant to the political and cultural history of Britain but also to the history of nearly every nation worldwide. The plays have had a rich international reception tradition but critics and theatre historians abroad, those practising 'foreign' Shakespeare, have tended to ignore these plays in favour of the comedies and tragedies. By presenting the British and foreign Shakespeare traditions side by side, this volume seeks to promote a more finely integrated world Shakespeare.

Author : Rory Loughnane,Edel Semple
Publisher : Springer
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2018-12-11
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783030008925

Get Book

Staged Normality in Shakespeare's England by Rory Loughnane,Edel Semple Pdf

This book looks at the staging and performance of normality in early modern drama. Analysing conventions and rules, habitual practices, common things and objects, and mundane sights and experiences, this volume foregrounds a staged normality that has been heretofore unseen, ignored, or taken for granted. It draws together leading and emerging scholars of early modern theatre and culture to debate the meaning of normality in an early modern context and to discuss how it might transfer to the stage. In doing so, these original critical essays unsettle and challenge scholarly assumptions about how normality is represented in the performance space. The volume, which responds to studies of the everyday and the material turn in cultural history, as well as to broader philosophical engagements with the idea of normality and its opposites, brings to light the essential role that normality plays in the composition and performance of early modern drama.

Author : Jonathan Bate
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0192802135

Get Book

The Oxford Illustrated History of Shakespeare on Stage by Jonathan Bate Pdf

This is the only modern stage-history of its kind, and a book for every Shakespeare-lover. It tells the story of the plays on the English stage - four hundred years of dramatic history, from the vital, competitive theatre of Shakespeare's own lifetime to the wealth of interpretations, classical to experimental, of the present day. It is a story of constant rediscovery, as the fashions, intuitions, and politics of each age reinterpreted the plays' meanings - and often even their plots. Actresses stepped into the female roles written originally for boy-actors; and the theatre evolved, from open-air Elizabethan stages like the Rose and Globe to the proscenium theatre, grand spectacle, and the whole panoply of modern lighting and staging equipment. Written by a team of experts, this book illuminates both the plays and the men and women who staged, adapted, and performed them: Burbage, who was Shakespeare's Richard III, Henry V, and Hamlet; Mary Betterton, in 1664 the first woman to play Lady Macbeth; Garrick, whose lifelong championing of Shakespeare is largely responsible for his elevation to the status of National Poet; and the famous actor-managers who produced the plays on an increasingly grand scale throughout the nineteenth century - Kemble, Kean, Macready, Irving. Generous space is given to the great figures of twentieth-century theatre - Donald Wolfit, Lilian Baylis, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Ralph Richardson, Tyrone Guthrie, Peter Brook - and to the companies and actor - directors of today, from Cheek by Jowl and the Royal Shakespeare Company to Michael Bogdanov and Kenneth Branagh. A special chapter by Dame Judi Dench provides a unique actor's perspective; and the book comes right up to date with accounts of contemporary directors' theatre, including productions by Michael Bogdanov, Deborah Warner, and Sam Mendes. Over a hundred illustrations, and a large cast of actors, audiences, andreviewers, bring to life the key productions and developments described in each chapter, in a dramatic story which is at once history, tragedy, and comedy!

Author : Dominique Goy-Blanquet
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0198119879

Get Book

Shakespeare's Early History Plays by Dominique Goy-Blanquet Pdf

Like many of his fellow playwrights, Shakespeare turned to national history for inspiration. In this study, Dominique Goy-Blanquet provides a close comparison of the Henry VI plays and Richard III with their historical and theatrical sources, demonstrating how Shakespeare was able to meet not only the ideological but also the technical problems of turning history into drama, how by cutting, carving, shaping, casting his unwieldy material into performable plays, he matured into the most influential dramatist and historian of his time. Recent criticism of Shakespeare's history plays has often consisted of fierce arguments over their ideological import and Shakespeare's position on the spectrum of current political opinions. This book, however, stems from the belief that a more constructive starting point for research is the exploration of the technical problems raised by turning heavy narratives into performable plays, rather than the political motives that could inpire a playwright's representation of national history. Illuminating and instructive, Shakespeare's Early History Plays includes not only close investigation of the verbal, poetic, and political texture of the plays, but also provides a broad overview of the wider sixteenth-century historiographical contexts of the plays, and their significance to Shakespeare's oeuvre more generally.

Author : Kristin M.S. Bezio
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2016-03-09
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317050766

Get Book

Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart English History Plays by Kristin M.S. Bezio Pdf

Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart English History Plays examines the changing ideological conceptions of sovereignty and their on-stage representations in the public theaters during the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods (1580-1642). The study examines the way in which the early modern stage presented a critical dialogue concerning the nature of sovereignty through the lens of specifically English history, focusing in particular on the presentation and representation of monarchy. It presents the subgenre of the English history play as a specific reaction to the surrounding political context capable of engaging with and influencing popular and elite conceptions of monarchy and government. This project is the first of its kind to specifically situate the early modern debate on sovereignty within a 'popular culture' dramatic context; its purpose is not only to provide an historical timeline of English political theory pertaining to monarchy, but to situate the drama as a significant influence on the production and dissemination thereof during the Tudor and Stuart periods. Some of the plays considered here, notably those by Shakespeare and Marlowe, have been extensively and thoroughly studied. But others-such as Edmund Ironside, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and King John and Matilda-have not previously been the focus of much critical attention.

Author : Dr Kristin M. S. Bezio
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2015-11-28
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781472465139

Get Book

Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart English History Plays by Dr Kristin M. S. Bezio Pdf

Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart English History Plays examines the changing ideological conceptions of sovereignty and their on-stage representations in the public theaters during the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods (1580–1642). The study examines the way in which the early modern stage presented a critical dialogue concerning the nature of sovereignty through the lens of specifically English history, focusing in particular on the presentation and representation of monarchy. It presents the subgenre of the English history play as a specific reaction to the surrounding political context capable of engaging with and influencing popular and elite conceptions of monarchy and government. This project is the first of its kind to specifically situate the early modern debate on sovereignty within a 'popular culture' dramatic context; its purpose is not only to provide an historical timeline of English political theory pertaining to monarchy, but to situate the drama as a significant influence on the production and dissemination thereof during the Tudor and Stuart periods. Some of the plays considered here, notably those by Shakespeare and Marlowe, have been extensively and thoroughly studied. But others-such as Edmund Ironside, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and King John and Matilda-have not previously been the focus of much critical attention.

Author : Isabel Karremann
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2015-10-20
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781107117587

Get Book

The Drama of Memory in Shakespeare's History Plays by Isabel Karremann Pdf

This book sheds new light on the dramatic devices Shakespeare developed for turning history into theatre in his history plays.

Author : P. Pugliatti
Publisher : Springer
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1995-12-18
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780230373747

Get Book

Shakespeare the Historian by P. Pugliatti Pdf

In a major reassessment of Shakespeare's dominant dramatic genre, Paola Pugliatti explores the historiographical quality of Shakespeare's histories. Her main assumption is that Shakespeare's staging of English history helped to shape a new historiography. In particular, multi-perspectivism in the treatment of political issues produced a problem-oriented kind of historical perspective. This exploited the opportunities offered by the theatrical medium, and inaugurated a drama which portrayed history as a critical outlook on a world of problems and retrospective possibilities, rather than as unconditional belief in, or even worship of, a world of facts.

Author : Arthur Frederick Hopkinson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 1896
Category : Electronic
ISBN : UIUC:30112049986133

Get Book

The Troublesome Reign of King John by Arthur Frederick Hopkinson Pdf

Author : Hailey Bachrach
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Literature and history
ISBN : 100935616X

Get Book

Staging Female Characters in Shakespeare's English History Plays by Hailey Bachrach Pdf

"Hailey Bachrach reframes female characters' roles in the history plays, overhauling their critical reputations. Combining literary and theatrical analysis, she illuminates how Shakespeare imagined the past."--