This lively, lucid book undertakes a detailed study of Shakespeare’s fascination with clowns, fools, and fooling. From the knockabout clowns of the early comedies, through the wise fools of the mature plays, to disturbing tragic figures who play the fool, Shakespeare dramatizes the pleasures and perils of fooling and folly, and evokes the mysterious possibilities of "foolosophy." Esteemed scholar Robert H. Bell highlights the fun, wit, insight, and mystery of some of Shakespeare’s most vibrant and sometimes vexing figures.
Shakespeare's Hybrid Faith: History, Religion and the Stage
Shakespeare's Hybrid Faith offers a complete review of current scholarship on Shakespeare and religion and a fresh perspective on the vexed question of the dramatist's religious orientation. It throws new light on the issue by dismissing sectarian and one-sided theories, tackling the problem from the angle of the variegated Elizabethan context recently uncovered by modern historians and theatre scholars. The book argues in particular that faith was more of a quest than a quiet certainty for the playwright
Each volume of Poetry for Students provides analysis of approximately 20 poems that teachers and librarians have identified as the most frequently studied in literature courses. Some of the poems covered in this volume include:
"Accounting" by Claribel Alegria
"Answers to Letters" by Tomas Transtromer
"Maternity" by Anna Swir
"Ten Years After Your Deliberate Drowning" by Robin Behn
This volume is designed to present biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on O. Henry’s best-known or most important short stories. Following Harold Bloom’s editor’s note and introduction is a detailed biography of O. Henry, discussing major life events and important literary accomplishments. A plot summary of each short story follows, tracing significant themes, patterns, and motifs in the work, and an annotated list of characters supplies brief information on the main characters in each story. Among other short stories, this text reviews "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Furnished Room."
This book began as a series of intercollegiate lectures given at Bikbeck College, University of London, in 1963, and, although little of the original material remains unchanged, some of the book's general characteristics derive from its origin. The lecture audience consisted for the most part of interested readers rather than specialist; the book is primarily addressed to a similar audience and views and interpretations of interest to the specialist.
