Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama

Pamela Bickley and Jenny Stevens have taught Shakespeare at pre-university and degree level for many years. They lead the English Association's ongoing involvement with transition issues and lecture and publish on a range of literary topics. They are the authors of Essential Shakespeare: The Arden Guide to Text and Interpretation.

• Using this book Introduction TextShakespeare’s contemporariesEarly modern drama in its timePerforming early modern drama today1. Defining the self Romeo and Juliet Getting over the language: William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) The Duchess of Malfi Moving performances: Malfi at the Blackfriars and the Globe 2. Money and the modern city The Merchant of Venice Playing the Jew: Al Pacino in Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice (2004) Volpone Volpone as beast fable 3. Performance and performativity The Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare goes to Hollywood: Burton and Taylor (1966) The Tragedy of Mariam Closet drama 4. Servants, masters and service Othello Performing Othello in the twenty-first century The Changeling Compulsion (2009) 5. Fatherhood, state and the dynamics of revenge The Spanish Tragedy Things on stage Titus Andronicus Julie Taymor’s Titus and the aesthetics of revenge 6. Transgressive desire Measure for Measure Casting Isabella ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover: Peter Greenaway’s theatre of blood 7. Damnation Doctor FaustusPerforming Doctor Faustus: Stage on Screen, 2010 Hamlet A Soviet Hamlet: Grigori Kozintsev (Lenfilm, 1964) Glossary References Index

Excellent scholarship that can set the tone for complex and thoughtful engagement in the classroom … Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama: Text and Performance fills a gap in the Arden catalogue that helps to tie together the primary use of the Arden editions, pedagogy, and the expert scholarship found in the Critical Companions series … Given its wide focus on, yet clarity of explanation of, a variety of approaches to the texts, this book should become a regular feature in additional reading material on syllabuses across the English academy.