Within English Renaissance studies, the powerful influence of new critical methodologies - feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism - has radically changed our conceptions of texts and respresentation itself. Literary texts are now viewed as sites of meaning, not its exclusive sources, as stages where authors and readers negotiate the conventions of society and language to contest and construct the significance of texts. The essays in Staging the Renaissance analyze this dynamic process within Renaissance drama where texts stage radical collaborations between playwright, actor,...
Within English Renaissance studies, the powerful influence of new critical methodologies - feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism - has...
David Scott Kastan lucidly explores the remarkable richness and the ambitious design of King Henry IV Part 1 and shows how these complicate any easy sense of what kind of play it is. Conventionally regarded as a history play, much of it is in fact conspicuously invented fiction, and Kastan argues that the non-historical, comic plot does not simply parody the historical action but by its existence raises questions about the very nature of history. The full and engaging introduction devotes extensive discussion to the play's language, indicating how its insistent economic vocabulary...
David Scott Kastan lucidly explores the remarkable richness and the ambitious design of King Henry IV Part 1 and shows how these complicate ...
