Essential Shakespeare: The Arden Guide to Text and Interpretation (Arden Shakespeare)

An introductory critical study for first year undergraduates which bridges the gap between A Level and university study. The book offers an accessible overview of key critical perspectives, early modern contexts, and methods of close reading, as well as screen and stage performances spanning several decades. Organised around the discussion of fourteen major plays, it introduces readers to the diverse theoretical approaches typical of today's English studies. This is a go-to resource that can be consulted thematically or by individual play or genre.

This book is about two very different kinds of company. On the one hand it concerns Shakespeare's poet-playwright contemporaries, such as Marlowe, Jonson, and Fletcher. On the other, it examines the contribution of his fellow actors, including Burbage, Armin, and Kemp. Traditionally, criticism has treated these two influences in separation, so that Shakespeare is considered either in relation to educated Renaissance culture, or as a man of the theatre

Was Shakespeare really the original genius he has appeared to be since the eighteenth century, a poet whose words came from nature itself?
The contributors to this volume propose that Shakespeare was not the poet of nature, but rather that he is a genius of rewriting and re-creation, someone able to generate a new language and new ways of seeing the world by orchestrating existing social and literary vocabularies. Each chapter in the volume begins with a key word or phrase from Shakespeare and builds toward a broader consideration of the social, poetic, and theatrical dimensions of his language.

An interpretation of Shakespeare through the spiritual crisis of his chief characters.

Cinematic Shakespeare investigates how Shakespeare films constitute an exciting and ever-changing film genre. The challenges of adopting Shakespeare to cinema are like few other film genres. Anderegg looks closely at films by Laurence Olivier (Richard III), Orson Welles (Macbeth), and Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet) as well as topics like 'Postmodern Shakespeares' (Julie Taymor's Titus and Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books) and multiple adaptations over the years of Romeo and Juliet. A chapter on television looks closely at American broadcasting in the 1950s (the Hallmark Hall of Fame Shakespeare adaptations) and the BBC/Time-Life Shakespeare Plays from the late 70s and early 80s.