Responses to Shakespeare : From the Elizabethan to the Edwardian Era

ISBN-13: 9780415163217 / Angielski / Twarda / 1998 / 2400 str.

John Adler

Opis

From his own lifetime thorugh to the present day, the one constant feature of the English theatre has been the work of William Shakespeare. Correspondingly, the influence of his poetry on the critical tradition of successive ages has been central. With the growing influence of neo-classicism after the Restoration, Shakespeare came to be viewed with a mixture of awe and contempt; as a brilliant but flawed artist. He was both subjected to prescriptive literary criticism and frequently re-invented according to largely irrelevant criteria, in his intepretation on the stage. However, whether admired or reviled he was never ignored and was consistently a seminal influence in the work of poets, critics and actors. As the Romantic movement emerged, the rift between the worlds of literature and the theatre began slowly to heal and Shakespeare as the absis for serious theatrical art appeared to become a possibility.