This second edition of Approaches to Teaching Cervantes's Don Quixote highlights dramatic changes in pedagogy and scholarship in the last thirty years: today, critics and teachers acknowledge that subject position, cultural identity, and political motivations afford multiple perspectives on the novel, and they examine both literary and sociohistorical contextualization with fresh eyes.

Part 1, "Materials," contains information about editions of Don Quixote, a history and review of the English translations, and a survey of critical studies and Internet resources. In part...

The works of Henry Fielding, though written nearly three hundred years ago, retain their sense of comedy and innovation in the face of tradition, and they easily engage the twenty-first-century student with many aspects of eighteenth-century life: travel, inns, masquerades, political and religious factions, the '45, prisons and the legal system, gender ideals and realities, social class.

Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," discusses the available editions of Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, Shamela, Jonathan Wild, and Amelia; suggests useful critical and...

Indiana, George Sand's first solo novel, opens with the eponymous heroine brooding and bored in her husband's French countryside estate, far from her native Ile Bourbon (now Reunion). Written in 1832, the novel appeared during a period of French history marked by revolution and regime change, civil unrest and labor concerns, and slave revolts and the abolitionist movement, when women faced rigid social constraints and had limited rights within the institution of marriage. With this politically charged history serving as a backdrop for the novel, Sand brings together Romanticism,...

The award-winning playwright August Wilson used drama as a medium to write a history of twentieth-century America through the perspectives of its black citizenry. In the plays of his Pittsburgh Cycle, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences and The Piano Lesson, Wilson mixes African spirituality with the realism of the American theater and puts African American storytelling and performance practices in dialogue with canonical writers like Aristotle and Shakespeare. As they portray black Americans living through migration, industrialization, and war, Wilson's plays explore...

Chekhov's works are unflinching in the face of human frailty. With their emphasis on the dignity and value of individuals during unique moments, they help us better understand how to exist with others when we are fundamentally alone. Written in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century, when the country began to move fitfully toward industrialization and grappled with the influence of Western liberalism even as it remained an autocracy, Chekhov's plays and stories continue to influence contemporary writers.

The essays in this volume provide classroom strategies for teaching...

A significant and prolific francophone writer and filmmaker, Assia Djebar is celebrated for her experimental, multilingual prose and her nuanced, imaginative representations of Algeria. From her first novel, La soif (The Mischief), to her final book, Nulle part dans la maison de mon pere ("No Place in My Father's House"), she offers a wealth of pedagogical and theoretical possibilities.

Part 1, "Materials," presents valuable teaching resources, including biographical information, French- and English-language editions of Djebar's writing, and secondary works. In part 2,...

A prolific poet, art critic, essayist, and translator, Charles Baudelaire is best known for his volumes of verse (Les Fleurs du Mal Flowers of Evil]) and prose poems (Le Spleen de Paris Paris Spleen]). This volume explores his prose poems, which depict Paris during the Second Empire and offer compelling and fraught representations of urban expansion, social change, and modernity.

Part 1, "Materials," surveys the valuable resources available for teaching Baudelaire, including editions and translations of his oeuvre, historical accounts of his life and...

Shakespeare's history plays make up nearly a third of his corpus and feature iconic characters like Falstaff, the young Prince Hal, and Richard III--as well as unforgettable scenes like the storming of Harfleur. But these plays also present challenges for teachers, who need to help students understand shifting dynastic feuds, manifold concepts of political power, and early modern ideas of the body politic, kingship, and nationhood.

Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," introduces instructors to the many editions of the plays, the wealth of contextual and critical writings available,...