Medieval Shakespeare
Medieval Shakespeare
Helen Cooper , University of Cambridge
Peter Holland , University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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For many, Shakespeare represents the advent of modernity. It is easy to forget that he was in fact a writer deeply embedded in the Middle Ages, who inherited many of his shaping ideas and assumptions from the medieval past. This collection brings together essays by internationally renowned scholars of medieval and early modern literature, the history of the book and theatre history to present new perspectives on Shakespeare and his medieval heritage. Separated into four parts, the collection explores Shakespeare and his work in the context of the Middle Ages, medieval books and language, the British past, and medieval conceptions of drama and theatricality, together showing Shakespeare's work as rooted in late medieval history and culture. Insisting upon Shakespeare's complexity and medieval multiplicity, Medieval Shakespeare gives readers the opportunity to appreciate both Shakespeare and his period within the traditions that fostered and surrounded him.
- Offers a far-ranging series of approaches to Shakespeare's use of medieval material, from original and modern performance practices to ideas of language, religion and nation
- Challenges received ideas of the Middle Ages as a sudden divide marked by Shakespeare and argues that Shakespeare appears as a late medieval or transition figure, not as the ancestor of modernity
- Brings readers up to date on some of the most innovative work in current Shakespeare studies
- Explores dramatic and linguistic cultures in unusual breadth and depth, broadening readers' appreciation of the culture of the early modern world and its shaping
Reviews & endorsements
'A fascinating dialogue between two literary periods.' The Times Literary Supplement
'The contributors to the volume do not understand the term 'medieval Shakespeare' in either narrow or prescriptive ways. Rather it is taken as a point of departure in thinking about Shakespeare's language, his representation of history, his theatre practice, and his subsequent reception. The essays offer the reader a sense of the range, scope, and dynamism of current research, highlighting the ways in which 'medieval Shakespeare' can encompass and contain approaches as diverse as book history, performance history, the history of ideas, historiography, and historical linguistics.' David Salter, Cahiers Élisabéthains
Product details
January 2013Adobe eBook Reader
9781107302471
0 pages
0kg
10 b/w illus.
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Introduction Helen Cooper
- Part I. The Middle Ages and Shakespeare:
- 1. Shakespeare's Middle Ages Bruce R. Smith
- 2. Late Shakespeare and the Middle Ages Bart van Es
- Part II. Books and Language:
- 3. The mediated 'medieval' and Shakespeare A. E. B. Coldiron
- 4. 'Not know my voice?': Shakespeare corrected
- English perfected - theories of language from the Middle Ages to Modernity Jonathan Hope
- 5. The afterlife of personification Helen Cooper
- Part III. The British Past:
- 6. 'King Lear in BC Albion' Margreta de Grazia
- 7. Shakespeare and the remains of Britain Ruth Morse
- Part IV. The Theatrical Dimension:
- 8. The art of playing Tom Bishop
- 9. Blood begetting blood: Shakespeare and the Mysteries Michael O'Connell
- 10. From scaffold to discovery-space: change and continuity Janette Dillon
- 11. Performing the Middle Ages Peter Holland
- 12. Afterword: the evil of 'medieval' David Bevington.
