Description
Who Was William Shakespeare?
An Introduction to the Life and Works
Author: Callaghan Dympna
Language: English
Keywords
Shakespeare, Renaissance, Elizabethan, Anonymous, drama, Histories, Comedies, Tragedies, biography
Publication date: 01-2013
320 p. · 15.5x23.1 cm · Paperback
Publication date: 01-2013
320 p. · 16.3x23.9 cm · Hardback
Description
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/li>Biography
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A new study of Shakespeare?s life and times, which illuminates our understanding and appreciation of his works.
- Combines an accessible fully historicised treatment of both the life and the plays, suited to both undergraduate and popular audiences
- Looks at 24 of the most significant plays and the sonnets through the lens of various aspects of Shakespeare?s life and historical environment
- Addresses four of the most significant issues that shaped Shakespeare?s career: education, religion, social status, and theatre
- Examines theatre as an institution and the literary environment of early modern London
- Explains and dispatches conspiracy theories about authorship
Note on the Text ix
Acknowledgments xi
Part I The Life 1
1 Who was William Shakespeare? 3
2 Writing 23
3 Religion 47
4 Status 61
5 Theatre 79
Part II The Plays 97
6 Comedies: Shakespeare’s Social Life 99
The Comedy of Errors 99
The Taming of the Shrew 108
Love’s Labour’s Lost 119
A Midsummer Night’s Dream 125
The Merchant of Venice 132
Much Ado About Nothing 138
As You Like It 146
Twelfth Night, Or What You Will 153
Measure for Measure 159
7 English and Roman Histories: Shakespeare’s Politics 177
Richard II 177
1 Henry IV 182
Henry V 192
Richard III 198
Julius Caesar 204
Coriolanus 210
8 Tragedies: Shakespeare in Love and Loss 223
Romeo and Juliet 223
Hamlet 232
Othello 241
King Lear 252
Macbeth 260
Antony and Cleopatra 266
9 Romances: Shakespeare and Theatrical Magic 277
The Winter’s Tale 277
The Tempest 284
Index 295
DYMPNA CALLAGHAN is William L. Sa???re Professor of Modern Letters at Syracuse University and President of the Shakespeare Association of America, 201213. She is the editor of the Arden Shakespeare Language and Writing Series and coeditor, with Michael Dobson, of the Palgrave Shakespeare Studies series. Her publications include Shakespeare Without Women (2000), The Taming of the Shrew: A Norton Critical Edition (2009), Shakespeare's Sonnets (2007), The Impact of Feminism in English Renaissance Culture (2006), and Romeo and Juliet: Texts and Contexts (2003).
