This study challenges traditional treatments of Shakespeare through a study of their textual imperatives in the late eighteenth century. The examination of earlier treatments demonstrates that concepts now basic to Shakespeare were once largely irrelevant. Only with Edmond Malone's 1790 Shakespeare edition do such criteria as authenticity, historical periodization, factual biography, chronological development, and in-depth reading become necessary as parts of a tightly interlocked textual schema. Their emergence, this text shows, must be seen as a specific historical response to the problem...

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...

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...

This collection of essays brings together leading scholars of the early modern period, and offers a new focus on the literature and culture of the Renaissance. Traditionally, Renaissance studies has concentrated on the human subject; the essays collected here bring objects--purses, clothes, tapestries, houses, maps, feathers, tools, skulls--back into view. Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture puts things back into relation with people, eliciting not only new critical readings of key texts, but also new configurations of Renaissance culture.

This collection of essays brings together leading scholars of the early modern period, and offers a new focus on the literature and culture of the Renaissance. Traditionally, Renaissance studies has concentrated on the human subject; the essays collected here bring objects--purses, clothes, tapestries, houses, maps, feathers, tools, skulls--back into view. Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture puts things back into relation with people, eliciting not only new critical readings of key texts, but also new configurations of Renaissance culture.

'Hamlet' without Hamlet sets out to counter the modern tradition of abstracting the character Hamlet from the play. For over two centuries, Hamlet has been valued as the icon of consciousness: but only by ignoring the hard fact of his dispossession. By admitting that premise, this book brings the play to life around man's relation to land, from graves to estate to empire. Key preoccupations are thereby released, including the gendered imperatives of genealogy, and man's elemental affinity to dust. As de Grazia demonstrates from the 400 years of Hamlet's afterlife, such features have...

'Hamlet' without Hamlet sets out to counter the modern tradition of abstracting the character Hamlet from the play. For over two centuries, Hamlet has been valued as the icon of consciousness: but only by ignoring the hard fact of his dispossession. By admitting that premise, this book brings the play to life around man's relation to land, from graves to estate to empire. Key preoccupations are thereby released, including the gendered imperatives of genealogy, and man's elemental affinity to dust. As de Grazia demonstrates from the 400 years of Hamlet's afterlife, such features have...

Written by a team of leading international scholars, this Companion is designed to illuminate Shakespeare's works through discussion of the key topics of Shakespeare studies. Twenty-one essays provide lively and authoritative approaches to recent scholarship and criticism for readers keen to expand their knowledge and appreciation of Shakespeare. The book contains stimulating chapters on traditional topics such as Shakespeare's biography and the transmission of his texts. Individual readings of the plays are given in the context of genre as well as through the cultural and historical...