English Renaissance Drama (Blackwell Guides to Literature)
Added by: dovesnake | Karma: 1384.51 | Fiction literature | 25 November 2008
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The book considers the London theatrical culture which took shape in the 1570s and came to an end in 1642. * Places emphasis on those plays that are readily available in modern editions and can sometimes to be seen in modern productions, including Shakespeare. * Provides students with the historical, literary and theatrical contexts they need to make sense of Renaissance drama. * Includes a series of short biographies of playwrights during this period. * Features close analyses of more than 20 plays, each of which draws attention to what makes a particular play interesting and identifies relevant critical questions. * Examines early modern drama in terms of its characteristic actions, such as cuckolding, flattering, swaggering, going mad, and rising from the dead.
Shakespeare has been misread for centuries as having modern ideas about sex and gender. This book shows how in the Restoration and Eighteenth century, Shakespeare’s plays and other Renaissance texts were adapted to make them conform to these modern ideas. Through readings of Shakespearean texts, the book reveals a sexual world before heterosexuality. Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature Before Heterosexuality shows how revisions and criticism of Renaissance drama contributed to the emergence of heterosexuality. It also shows how changing ideas about status, adultery, friendship, and race were factors in that emergence.
In this comprehensive Companion over fifty of the very best of modern scholars - including Patrick Collinson, Germaine Greer, Richard Harries, Arthur Kinney, Andrew Hadfield , Jean Howard, and Judith Anderson - come together to offer an original and far-reaching survey of English Renaissance literature and culture. The first part of the volume considers pertinent issues such as humanism, English reformations, the development of the language, court culture, and playhouses, in terms of the way in which these aspects of Renaissance culture influenced literary production. There are provocative essays on canonical genres such as love poetry and Jacobean tragedy , but also accounts of popular and occasional drama and verse, and on the visual arts.
This revised edition of Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (1987) has approximately 2,100 entries, 200 of which are new. Length ranges from a paragraph to two pages, with diverse entries such as Erasmus, Desiderius; Libraries; and Spanish Inquisition. The fact that the scope has been widened to encompass the Reformation means that many articles have been expanded. Other revisions reflect recent scholarship with enhanced coverage of, for example, literacy, families, and the role of women. Editors Speake, a prolific reference book editor, and Bergin, a Yale University professor now deceased, were also responsible for the first edition.
Grade 10 Up-Both volumes begin with an overview of the era, followed by alphabetical entries offering information on authors, works, places, events, and terminology. Most of the entries provide dates, additional names, and a bibliography; some also contain brief quotations from the works. Renaissance spans the years between 1500 and 1700 and covers works in many European and Asian languages as well as a few African languages. Individuals featured include Giovanni Boccaccio, John Bunyan, John Calvin, Nicolaus Copernicus, John Dryden, and Edmund Spenser. Medieval examines the period between Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance and provides information on Old English, Middle English, French, Provençal, Celtic, German, Old Norse, and Latin works under such headings as Beowulf, Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante Alighieri, Sir Thomas Malory, Peasant-™s Revolt of 1381, and troubadours. Both volumes discuss the importance of religion, language, history, the origins of the works, oral traditions, the beginnings of printing, and other influences. Time lines, lists of writers by language, and selected bibliographies are found in both volumes. While these books cover the works most studied in advanced high school courses, they also include a wealth of information about the lesser-known literature.
