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Examines representations of Anne Hathaway from the eighteenth century to contemporary portrayals in theatre, biographies and novels.
In the late nineteenth century hundreds of clubs formed across the United States devoted to the reading of Shakespeare. From Pasadena, California, to the seaside town of Camden, Maine; from the isolated farm town of Ottumwa, Iowa, to Mobile, Alabama, on the Gulf coast, Americans were reading Shakespeare in astonishing numbers and in surprising places. Composed mainly of women, these clubs offered the opportunity for members not only to read and study Shakespeare but also to participate in public and civic activities outside the home. In She Hath Been Reading, Katherine West Scheil uncovers this hidden layer of intellectual activity that flourished in American society well into the twentieth ...
This book is a comprehensive study of the reception history of Shakespeare's comedies within the context of Restoration and early eighteenth-century theater, from 1660 until the Licensing Act of 1737. In the absence of an overarching methodology or ideology about how to adapt Shaekspeare, eighteenth-century playwright were motivated by popular taste and shaped Shakespeare accordingly. Shakespeare's comedies provided ideal raw material to adjust to current theatrical and cultural trends such as the popularity of music and dance, changing forms of comedy, political controversies, the fluidity of acting companies, the development of dramatic forms, and the influence of print culture. A recently edited play, a popular comic actor, a new musical composer, or a novel of constructing a dramatic piece affected the ways Shakespeare's comedies were reshaped according to local theatrical condtitions.
The relationship between modern drama and Shakespeare remains intense and fruitful, as Shakespearian themes continue to permeate contemporary plays, films, and other art-forms. Shakespeare/Adaptation/Modern Drama is the first book-length international study to examine the critical and theatrical connections among these fields, including the motivations, methods, and limits of adaptation in modern performance media. Top scholars including Peter Holland, Alexander Leggatt, Brian Parker, and Stanley Wells examine such topics as the relationship between Shakespeare and modern drama in the context of current literary theories and historical accounts of adaptive and appropriative practices. Among the diverse and intriguing examples studied are the authorial self-adaptations of Tom Stoppard and Tennessee Williams, and the generic and political appropriations of Shakespeare's texts in television, musical theatre, and memoir. This illuminating and theoretically astute tribute to Renaissance and modern drama scholar Jill Levenson will stimulate further research on the evolving adaptive and intertextual relationships between influential literary works and periods.
In The Taste of the Town: Shakespearian Comedy and the Early Eighteenth-Century Theater, Katherine West Scheil considers the reception history of Shakespeare's comedies within the context of the Restoration and early eighteenth-century theater, from 1660 until the Licensing Act of 1737. In the absence of an overarching methodology about how to stage and interpret Shakespeare, playwrights of the period were motivated by popular taste, and adapted and appropriated Shakespearian comedy according to current theatrical and cultural trends. Scheil discusses how the popularity of music and dance, poiltical controversies, the fluidity of acting companies, the influence of print culture, a recently edited play, a popular comic actor, a new musical composer, or a novel way of constructing a scene affected the rendition of Shakespeare's comedies to appeal to the taste of town. Thoroughly researched and carefully argued, The Taste of the Town, is a valuable and timely contribution to the understanding of the culture and practice of the Restoration and early eighteenth-century theater; as well as to the history of Shakespeare's early reputation.
"Dugas credits the reemergence of Shakespeare's plays and his rise to fame in the 1700s to economic factors surrounding the theater business including the acquisition and adaptation of Shakespeare's plays by the Tonson publishing firm, which marketed collector's editions of his work, spurring a price war and rousing public interest"--Provided by publisher.
Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Since 1948 Survey has published the best international scholarship in English and many of its essays have become classics of Shakespeare criticism. Each volume is devoted to a theme, or play, or group of plays; each also contains a section of reviews of the previous year's textual and critical studies and of major British performances. The books are illustrated with a variety of Shakespearean images and production photographs. The current editor of Survey is Peter Holland. The first eighteen volumes were edited by Allardyce Nicoll, numbers 19-33 by Kenneth Muir and numbers 34-52 by Stanley Wells. The virtues of accessible scholarship and a keen interest in performance, from Shakespeare's time to our own, have characterised the journal from the start. Now backnumbers are gradually being reissued in paperback.
Feeling British argues that the discourse of sympathy both encourages and problematizes a sense of shared national identity in eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature and culture. Although the 1707 Act of Union officially joined England and Scotland, government policy alone could not overcome centuries of feuding and ill will between these nations. Accordingly, the literary public sphere became a vital arena for the development and promotion of a new national identity, Britishness. Feeling British starts by examining the political implications of the Scottish Enlightenment's theorizations of sympathy the mechanism by which emotions are shared between people. From these philosophical beginnings, this study tracks how sympathetic discourse is deployed by a variety of authors - including Defoe, Smollett, Johnson, Wordsworth, and Scott - invested in constructing, but also in questioning, an inclusive sense of what it means to be British.
Lactilla Tends her Fav'rite Cow benefits from the foundations set by earlier studies of laboring-class writers even as it extends their conclusions through the use of an explicitly ecocritical perspective."--BOOK JACKET.
Shakespeare is both the world's most quoted author and a frequent quoter himself. This volume unites these creative practices.