"As an undergraduate, Melina Green had a rare opportunity to have one of her first plays judged by famous theater critic Jasper Tolle, only to be publicly humiliated by a harsh and biased critique. Ten years later, her confidence as a playwright has never recovered, although she has just completed a work that she thinks is her best yet. It is based on the life of her ancestor Emilia Bassano, the first published female poet in England--and rumored...

Offering an unusual and exceptionally clear insight into Shakespeare's philosophy and a viewpoint seldom considered, this book argues that his philosophy was consistent, consciously held, and profoundly Christian. Showing that Shakespeare appreciated the danger faced in writing at a time of major religious intolerance, it explains how the playwright used the medieval allegory of love to veil his ideas. Fresh and fascinating, this record also demonstrates...

Here are fresh meditations on plays we have come to know and love, such as Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest, as well as others not often read or produced: Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3; The Merry Wives of Windsor; King John; Timon of Athens; Pericles; and Cymbeline. The author affords us a rare chance to trace Shakespeare's stylistic development as a writer of verse...

This book contains all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets written from 1593-1601. Each sonnet is presented on its own page, so the sonnets stand on their own as individual works.

"Shakespeare Without Tears" by Margaret Webster is an enlightening and accessible guide that demystifies the works of William Shakespeare, making them enjoyable and understandable for readers of all backgrounds. Webster, a renowned director, actress, and Shakespearean scholar, draws upon her extensive experience in the theatre to offer insights that bring Shakespeare's plays and characters to life. In this engaging book, Webster breaks down the complexities...

For more than forty years, Paul Cantor's Shakespeare's Rome has been a foundational work in the field of politics and literature. While many critics assumed that the Roman plays do not reflect any special knowledge of Rome, Cantor was one of the first to argue that they are grounded in a profound understanding of the Roman regime and its changes over time. Taking Shakespeare seriously as a political thinker, Cantor suggests that his Roman plays can...

A fire in an antiquarian bookstore leads to the discovery of encrypted 17th-century letters that reveal the existence--and whereabouts--of a never-produced and completely unknown Shakespearean manuscript. The bookseller who finds the letters takes them to a professor, who places them with lawyer Jake Mishkin for safekeeping; when the professor is tortured and killed by Russian thugs, Jake takes off for England to find the manuscript himself.

Shakespeare as a Way of Life shows how reading Shakespeare helps us to live with epistemological weakness and even to practice this weakness, to make it a way of life. In a series of close readings, Kuzner shows how Hamlet, Lucrece, Othello, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and Timon of Athens, impel us to grapple with basic uncertainties: how we can be free, whether the world is abundant, whether we have met the demands of love and social life....

The crises of faith that fractured Reformation Europe also caused crises of individual and collective identity. Structures of feeling as well as structures of belief were transformed; there was a reformation of social emotions as well as a Reformation of faith. As Steven Mullaney shows in The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare, Elizabethan popular drama played a significant role in confronting the uncertainties and unresolved traumas...

The Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken...