Shakespeare

The Forms of Renaissance Thought

This book addresses works of the European Renaissance as they relate both to the world of their origins and to a modern culture that turns to the early moderns for methodological provocation and renewal. It charts the most important developments in the field since the turn towards cultural and ideological features of the Renaissance imagination.
"Bearded ladies in Shakespeare " by A.R. Braunmuller, UCLA Distinguished Professor

The Law in Shakespeare

Leading scholars in the field analyze Shakespeare's plays to show how their dramatic content shapes issues debated in conflicts arising from the creation and application of law. Individual essays focus on such topics such as slander, revenge, and royal prerogative; these studies reveal the problems confronting early modern English men and women.

Imaginary Betrayals

Referring to the extensive early modern literature on the subject of treason, Imaginary Betrayals reveals how and to what extent ideas of proof and grounds for conviction were subject to prosecutorial construction during the Tudor period. Karen Cunningham looks at contemporary records of three prominent cases in order to demonstrate the degree to which the imagination was used to prove treason: the 1542 attainder of Katherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, charged with having had sexual relations with two men before her marriage.

Knowing Shakespeare

A collection of essays on the ways the senses 'speak' on Shakespeare's stage. Drawing on historical phenomenology, science studies, gender studies and natural philosophy, the essays provide critical tools for understanding Shakespeare's investment in staging the senses.

Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto: a facsimile edition of copies primarily from the Henry E. Huntington Library

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Last Plays

Which plays are included under the heading 'Shakespeare's last plays', and when does Shakespeare's 'last' period begin? What is meant by a 'late play', and what are the benefits in defining plays in this way? Reflecting the recent growth of interest in late studies, and recognising the gaps in accessible scholarship on this area, in this book leading international Shakespeare scholars address these and many other questions. en.

Shakespeare and Race

This volume draws together thirteen important essays on the concept of race in Shakespeare's drama. The authors, who themselves reflect racial and geographical diversity, explore issues of ethnography, politics, religion, identity, nationalism, and the distribution of power in Shakespeare's plays. They write from a variety of perspectives, drawing on Elizabethan and Jacobean historical studies and recent critical theory, attending to performances of the plays, as well as to the text. An introductory essay sets the context for the ensuing chapters, most of which are reprinted from volumes of Shakespeare Survey.

Shakespeare Jungle Fever

This book takes Shakespeare's plays as a site for studying the specter of interracial sex - or a 'jungle fever' - in early modern England's envisionings of itself. The author argues that early modern England's national-imperial aesthetic, notably its evocation of classicism, relies significantly on a textual and cultural manipulation of race. Nowhere is this more apparent and popularly accessible than in the period's drama and in sacrificial rape stories, narratives in which a raped white woman kills herself not only to reclaim her lost virginity but also to claim or reclaim her racial whiteness. 

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare's Poetry

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare's Poetry contains thirty-eight original essays written by leading Shakespeareans around the world. Collectively, these essays seek to return readers to a revivified understanding of Shakespeare's verbal artistry in both the poems and the drama. The volumeunderstands poetry to be not just a formal category designating a particular literary genre but to be inclusive of the dramatic verse as well, and of Shakespeare's influence as a poet on later generations of writers in English and beyond.

Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems

Not for nothing is William Shakespeare considered possibly the most famous writer in history; his works have had a lasting effect on culture, vocabularies, and art. His plays contain some of our most well-known lines (how often have you heard the phrase "To be or not to be"?), yet whilst hispoems may often feel less familiar than his plays they have also seeped into our cultural history (who has not heard of ''Shall I compare thee to a summer's day"?).In this Very Short Introduction Jonathan Post introduces all of Shakespeare's poetry: the Sonnets; the two great narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; A Lover's Complaint; and The Phoenix and Turtle. 

Shakespeare and the Hazards of Ambition

This compelling interpretation of eight major plays reveals a Shakespeare who understands ambition as a doomed but necessary struggle against the limitations of the inherited self.

The Rest Is Silence death as annihilation in the English Renaissance

How did the fear of death coexist with the promise of Christian afterlife in the culture and literature of the English Renaissance? Robert Watson exposes a sharp edge of blasphemous protest against mortality that runs through revenge plays such as The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet, and through plays of procreation such as Measure for Measure and Macbeth. Tactics of denial appear in the vengefulness that John Donne directs toward female bodies for failing to bestow immortality, and in the promise of renewal that George Herbert sets against the threat of closure. 

The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama

This new edition of the Companion provides updated information about the principal theaters, playwrights and plays of the most important period of English drama, from 1580-1642. Revised essays are included in chapters on theaters, dramaturgy, political plays, heroic plays, burlesque, comedy, tragedy, and drama produced during the reign of Charles I.