This is the first fully annotated modern-spelling edition of King Henry VIII to appear for over a decade and includes up-to-date scholarship on all aspects of the play, including dating authorship, printing, sources and stage history. The editor accepts the view that the play is a collaboration between Shakespeare and Fletcher. Unique to this edition is the frequent reference to Cavendish's biography of Wolsey, neglected in earlier editions. This edition includes a fully detailed commentary and a selective collation of major variant readings appear immediately beneath the text....
This is the first fully annotated modern-spelling edition of King Henry VIII to appear for over a decade and includes up-to-date scholarship ...
Since its first performances around 1596 and its earliest editions (1597, 1599), Romeo and Juliet has remained one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. The reasons are not far to seek, as the play centers on a subject of perennial interest: romantic love. A mixed genre, the play begins as a comedy and ends as a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet are among Shakespeare's most memorable characters, for he has endowed them with some of his greatest lyric poetry. Students and scholars continue to debate whether the death of the two lovers is a tragedy of fate, or whether Romeo and Juliet are...
Since its first performances around 1596 and its earliest editions (1597, 1599), Romeo and Juliet has remained one of Shakespeare's most pop...
"The Merchant of Venice," even in its own time, was considered Shakespeare's most controversial play. Now, one of the most popularly read and performed works, the play raises even more important issues for our day, particularly anti-Semitism and the treatment of Jews. Shakespeare scholar Jay Halio brings together his fascinating literary insights and his considerable knowledge of Shakespeare's world to this student casebook. His analysis of the play helps students interpret Shakespeare's plot and interwoven subplots, the sources that helped shape the play and the characters, and the...
"The Merchant of Venice," even in its own time, was considered Shakespeare's most controversial play. Now, one of the most popularly read and perfo...
In its timeless exploration of familial and political dissolution, and in its relentless questioning of the apparent moral indifference of the universe, "King Lear" is Shakespeare's darkest tragedy. It is also one of his most timely, for many of the issues it raises resonate loudly within our own era. Perhaps because of its contemporary relevance, it is one of Shakespeare's most frequently produced, taught, and studied works. And the amount of scholarship on "King Lear" is exceeded only be the complexity which that scholarship reveals. This book is a lucid and thorough guide to the play's...
In its timeless exploration of familial and political dissolution, and in its relentless questioning of the apparent moral indifference of the univ...
William Shakespeare Jay L. Halio A. R. Braunmuller
This edition of King Lear is based on the first (1608) quarto and represents a significantly different version from that published in the Folio of 1623, which forms the basis of the standard New Cambridge Shakespeare edition. Most scholars now believe that the quarto derives from what was probably Shakespeare's own autograph draft of the play, whereas the Folio derives from a late, revised copy used as the prompt-book. Each has numerous unique passages and hundreds of variant readings, creating differences which affect the structure, characterization and overall impact of the play. This...
This edition of King Lear is based on the first (1608) quarto and represents a significantly different version from that published in the Folio of 162...
Original essays in this volume begin with a treatment of the historical background of Shakespeare's play, beginning with its first performances and possible audience reactions. Another offer a close reading of several key passages in King Lear, with an eye to the differences between the first published version and the revisions found in the Folio version of 1623. Two other new essays discuss the ways in which audiences and critics have responded to Shakespeare's tragedy and contrasts Lear with Marlowe's Tamburlaine. The reprinted essays provide readers with a sampling of those diverse but...
Original essays in this volume begin with a treatment of the historical background of Shakespeare's play, beginning with its first performances and po...
