The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For this second edition of The Comedy of Errors, Ros King has revised T. S. Dorsch's renowned text and commentary and written a completely new introduction to the work. She argues tha...

This Handbook provides an introductory guide to The Winter's Tale offering a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, contextual documents, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of key performances and productions, a survey of film and TV adaptation, a wide sampling of critical opinion and further reading.

Whether the fault of tedious teachers or hammy actors, Shakespeare is often seen as dry and impenetrable. In this fast-paced introduction, Ros King sets out to remind us of the sheer beauty and sophistication that can make Shakespeare's works a joy for any audience. Exploring his invention, wit, along with his uncanny characterisation, King argues archaic language should be no barrier to the modern reader. With summaries of The Bard's life and background, explanations of the plays' origins...

In Cymbeline: Constructions of Britain, Ros King argues that because of previous misunderstanding of the nature and history of tragi-comedy, critics have mistaken the tone of Shakespeare's play. Although it is often dismissed as a pedestrian 'romance', or at best a self-parodic reworking of previous Shakespearean themes, she proposes that Cymbeline's fantastical, black comedy and its facility for keeping multiple plots all in the air together are in fact a tour de force of dramaturgical co...

Selected contributions to the Ninth World Shakespeare Congress, which took place in July 2011 in Prague, represent the contemporary state of Shakespeare studies in thirty-eight countries worldwide. Apart from readings of Shakespeare’s plays and poems, more than forty chapters map Renaissance contexts of his art in politics, theater, law, or material culture and discuss numerous cases of the impact of his works in global culture from the Americas to the Far East, including stage productions...

Whether the fault of tedious teachers or hammy actors, Shakespeare is often seen as dry and impenetrable. In this fast-paced introduction, Ros King sets out to remind us of the sheer beauty and sophistication that can make Shakespeare’s works a joy for any audience. Exploring his invention and wit, along with his uncanny characterisation, King argues archaic language should be no barrier to the modern reader. This guide summarises the Bard’s life and background, detailing his plays and poe...

The Newly Revised Signet Classic Shakespeare Series The work of the world’s greatest dramatist edited by outstanding scholarsThe Winter’s TaleUnique Features of the Signet Classic Shakespeare•An extensive overview of Shakespeare’s life, world, and theater by the general editor of the Signet Classic Shakespeare series, Sylvan Barnet•Special introduction to the play by the editor, Frank Kermode, Fellow of the ...

Renaissance ideas of honour had a profound influence on the English people who formed Shakespeare’s audiences. In When Honour’s at the Stake, first published in 1973, Norman Council describes the increasing importance of these ideas to the themes and structure of a number of Shakespeare’s major plays.The validity of the most widely approved code of honour was being challenged on a variety of fronts, yet both personal standards of behaviour and public affairs were habituall...

The Signet Classics edition of William Shakespeare's incomparable tragic play."To be, or not to be: that is the question"There is arguably no work of fiction quoted as often as William Shakespeare's Hamlet. This haunting tragedy of a troubled Danish prince devoted to avenging his father's death has captivated audiences for centuries.This title in the Signet Classics Shakespeare series includes:• An overview of Shakespeare's...

A brilliant and companionable tour through all thirty-eight plays, Shakespeare After All is the perfect introduction to the bard by one of the country’s foremost authorities on his life and work.Drawing on her hugely popular lecture courses at Yale and Harvard over the past thirty years, Marjorie Garber offers passionate and revealing readings of the plays in chronological sequence, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Two Noble Kinsmen. Supremely read...

The bestselling, authoritative Folger Shakespeare Library edition of Hamlet — a tragedy of family, murder, ghosts, and revenge — featuring Shakespeare's complete original text, expert annotations, scene-by-scene summaries, and trusted scholarship for students, teachers, and general readers.The bestselling, authoritative Folger Shakespeare Library edition of Hamlet — a tragedy of family, murder, ghosts, and revenge — featuring Shakespeare's complet...

One of the greatest plays of all time, the compelling tragedy of the tormented young prince of Denmark continues to capture the imaginations of modern audiences worldwide. Confronted with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, and with his mother’s infidelity, Hamlet must find a means of reconciling his longing for oblivion with his duty as avenger. The ghost, Hamlet’s feigned madness, Ophelia’s death and burial, the play within a play, the “closet scene” in which Hamlet accuses his ...