Renaissance Drama; Shakespeare

Shakespeare og kompani, et intervju med Stanley Wells

by Stefan Andreas Sture

Publisert i Norsk Shakespeare- og teatertidsskrift nr 1, 2007

Et intervju med Stanley Wells, hvor han snakker om sin bok "Shakespeare & Co" Et intervju med Stanley Wells, hvor han snakker om sin bok "Shakespeare & Co"

Shakespeare and Fletcher Side-by-Side: The King’s Men, 1610-1611

by Rebecca Munson

For the Shakespeare Association of America seminar on Chronologies in Theater History. (Boston, 2012)

This paper begins with the matter of dating two plays, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster;... more This paper begins with the matter of dating two plays, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster; or rather, it begins with the impossibility of precisely dating them.  The contentious debate over the chronology of these plays raises the broader issue of the relationship of theatrical chronology to discussions of influence—Shakespeare’s and Beaumont’s and Fletcher’s—which this paper will explore in the particular case of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale and Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster and A King and No King.  It argues that focusing on the neutral territory of overlap in groups of plays, where priority ceases to matter, provides a new and useful way to read  repertory drama, particularly Shakespeare’s

“Play-Books Lost”: The Fire at the Fortune, The Admiral’s Men, and the History Play

by Rebecca Munson

For the Shakespeare Association of America seminar "Lacunae in Theater History."

On December 9, 1621 a fire destroyed the Fortune Theater, home of the extremely successful Palsgrave’s Company... more On December 9, 1621 a fire destroyed the Fortune Theater, home of the extremely successful Palsgrave’s Company (formerly known as the Admiral’s Company and Prince Henry’s players).  John Chamberlain reported in a letter that the theater, which had been regarded as the finest in town, “was quite burnt down in two hours, and all their apparel and play-books lost, whereby these poor companions are quite undone.” The absence of play texts from the company’s illustrious and prosperous past is thus one of the most easily explicable gaps in our records of the drama of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.  This absence is accompanied, however, by a wealth of detailed information provided by Philip Henslowe’s meticulous record-keeping.  Scholars of the period are thus in the maddening position of having an excellent idea of exactly what it is they are missing. 

This paper concerns a subset of these missing plays – those that take history as their subject.  Alfred Harbage, in The Annals of English Drama 975-1700, offers several generic categories for plays that deal with history (including, along with English history, “Foreign,” “Classical,” “Biblical,” “Pseudo” and “Allegorical”).  According to his categories, over time the company possessed at least seventy-nine history plays of which sixty-five are now lost.  In contrast, we have record of only thirty history plays owned by the King’s Men (formerly the Lord Chamberlain’s Men) during the same time span, and a full seventeen of these plays survive.  Additionally, of the seventeen, ten are Shakespeare’s history plays. This study focuses on the English history play as a means of considering the role of the lost Admiral’s plays in our understanding of the genre.  It uses the fact of the missing Admiral’s plays to reassess the general critical consensus concerning Shakespeare’s central role in the popularity and development of the form and to imagine what a critical narrative of the history play might be like had the Admiral’s plays survived.

"The Marks of Sovereignty": The Division of the Kingdom and the Division of the Mind in King Lear.

by Rebecca Munson

Published in 'Pacific Coast Philology' v. 46 (2011): 13-27

The causal relationship between Lear's division of the kingdom and descent into madness has divided critics for... more The causal relationship between Lear's division of the kingdom and descent into madness has divided critics for centuries.  This paper aims to illuminate the inherent connection between Lear’s mental state and the state of the kingdom through an exploration of the dual nature of the term sovereignty—of mind and of state—in the play.

Shakespeare, sound and sense

by Katherine Butler

Book Review

Coats and Conduct: The Materials of Military Obligation in Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V

by Vimala Pasupathi

Modern Philology, Vol. 109, No. 3 (February 2012), pp. 326-35

On the centralization of the militia under the Tudors, staged in the Henriad through references to military clothing... more On the centralization of the militia under the Tudors, staged in the Henriad through references to military clothing and its provision. 

Hamlet, Masculinity and the Nineteenth-Century Nationalism

by Magda Romanska

Published in "Ghosts, Stories, Histories: Ghost Stories and Alterative Histories." Ed. Sladja Blazan Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2007).

FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska argues that with the rise of nationalism in late nineteenth-century... more FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska argues that with the rise of nationalism in late nineteenth-century Europe, the pattern of the patriarchal covenant in Hamlet paralleled the process of nation-building. Hamlet’s filial loyalty toward his Father’s ghost was perceived as a symbol of
patriotic loyalty towards one’s nation/Father-land. Conversely, as a “gift of death” that cements the patriarchal contract, Ophelia became a model of the nineteenth-century feminine ideal."

An Imagined Drama of Competitive Opposition in Carter's Scrivo in Vento, with Notes on Narrative, Symmetry, Quantitative Flux and Heraclitus

by Joshua B. Mailman

Music Analysis, v.28, ii-ii (2009)

Carter's music poses struggles of opposition, for instance in timbre (Double Concerto), space (String Quartet No. 3)... more Carter's music poses struggles of opposition, for instance in timbre (Double Concerto), space (String Quartet No. 3) or pulse (String Quartet No. 5). His preference for the all-interval tetrachords, 4–Z15 [0, 1, 4, 6] and 4–Z29 [0, 1, 3, 7], is also well known. From these facets of Carter's music, I develop a narrative interpretation of his Petrarch sonnet–inspired solo flute piece, Scrivo in Vento (1991). Specifically, I forge narrative pathways by imagining the two tetrachords as active agents opposed in competition. Previous Scrivo analyses (Capuzzo 2002; Childs 2006) stress continuity by revealing Q-transforms and common-note voice leading between the tetrachords. While acknowledging such features, my analysis emphasises oppositional struggle by tracing the tetrachords as separate entities which cooperate and conflict as they manoeuvre to outdo each other.

The analysis advances three theses: (1) it guides listening to and reading Scrivo in a way which resonates with Carter's concern for the aesthetics of oppositional struggle, his choice of a sonnet as inspiration and his affinity for all-interval tetrachords; (2) it shows that music-analytical detail can be organised into dramatic narratives by (a) projecting dramatic roles onto categories asserted by a formal theory and (b) treating the formal theory's relations metaphorically as actions performed by each role as the musical work unfolds; and (3) it shows how detailed pc-set analysis can support a Heraclitean view of music: a flux of opposing forces seeking and resisting unity.

'Female Body as Geosomatic Apotrope in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Middleton'.

by Maura Giles-Watson

Mapping the Premodern: Selected Proceedings of the Newbury Library Center for Renaissance Studies 26th Graduate Student Conference, 2008.

Foreign and Native on the English Stage, 1588-1611 (Book Review)

by Elizabeth Pentland

A review of Jane Pettegree's new book for the fourth volume of Early English Studies (EES), an online journal devoted... more A review of Jane Pettegree's new book for the fourth volume of Early English Studies (EES), an online journal devoted to literary and cultural topics of study in the medieval and early modern periods. EES is published under the auspices of the University of Texas, Arlington English Department.
www.uta.edu/english/ees/index.html

The Divine Comedy

by Damir Ibrisimovic

This paper will be peer reviewed by the audience. However, my classmates and tutors have already given me passing marks.

MEMORY IN SHAKESPEARE'S HENRY V

by Rebecca Warren-Heys

Rewriting History: Exploring the Individuality of Shakespeare's history plays

by Pete Orford

PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2006

‘Rewriting History’ is a reappraisal of Shakespeare’s history cycle, exploring its origins, its popularity and its... more ‘Rewriting History’ is a reappraisal of Shakespeare’s history cycle, exploring its origins, its popularity and its effects before challenging its dominance on critical and theatrical perceptions of the history plays.
A critical history of the cycle shows how external factors such as patriotism, bardolatory, character-focused criticism and the editorial decision of the First Folio are responsible for the cycle, more so than any inherent aspects of the plays.
The performance history of the cycle charts the initial innovations made in the twentieth century which have affected our perception of characters and key scenes in the texts. I then argue how the cycle has become increasingly restrictive, lacking innovation and consequently undervaluing the potential of the histories.
Having accounted for the history of the cycle to date, the second part of my thesis looks at the consequent effects upon each history play, and details how each play can be performed and analysed individually.
I close my thesis with the suggestion that a compromise between individual and serial perceptions is warranted, where both ideas are acknowledged equally for their effects and defects. By broadening our ideas about these plays we can appreciate the dramatic potential locked within them.

'Capable, but uninspired': Evaluating Frank Benson's hesitant/heroic history cycle

by Pete Orford

Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol. 29, No. 2, Summer 2011

Frank Benson led his company to great success in Stratford-upon-Avon from 1889 to 1913, yet he is condemned to... more Frank Benson led his company to great success in Stratford-upon-Avon from 1889 to 1913, yet he is condemned to receiving lukewarm praise as someone who made good productions, but not great ones. His lasting legacy in theatre history is the first presentation of Shakespeare's history cycle on the English stage, though his productions were quite unlike any seen since.

This article investigates the circumstances surrounding the three cycles Benson produced in 1901, 1905 and 1906, reporting on their reception and analysing the productions' direction and value. In doing so it also grapples with the controversy surrounding Benson who was upheld by the Stratford audience as a leading exponent of the bard, while simultaneously being criticised by the London and national press for uninspiring performances.

Julius Caesar (review) Cahiers Elisabéthains, A Biannual Journal of English Renaissance English Studies, Spring 2005, N°67, p. 52-54, Centre d’Etudes de la Renaissance Anglaise, I.R.C.L., Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3

by Nathalie Rivere de Carles

Macbeth: A Defence of King James I

by Brahma Dutta Sharma

Brahma Dutta Sharma, Macbeth: A Defence of King James I, Punjab Journal of English Studies, VIII(1993), pp. 1-5.

Shakespeare and the Discourse of Protest

by sarbani chaudhury

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare-discourse-protest-Sarbani-Chaudhury/dp/B0000CP4F4

Shakespeare and the Discourse of Protest. Kolkata: Sarat Book House, 1994. Review: The Statesman 6 July 1998. more Shakespeare and the Discourse of Protest. Kolkata: Sarat Book House, 1994. Review: The Statesman 6 July 1998.
other links:
www.sundeepbooks.com/servlet/sugetbiblio?bno=024549;

http://starpublic.com/cgi-bin/igindex.pl?ProcessType=File&ProcessCode=itemdetail.htm&itemcode=S-2348&Grouptheme=star&Shipcntry=&Sessionid=
Book Code: S-2348
Title: SHAKESPEARE AND THE DISCOURSE OF PROTEST (pb)
Author: Chaudhury, Sarbani
About Book: dispels the stereotypical notion of homogeinity concerning Renaissance England and Shakespearean drama and enlarges upon the history of the displaced,the disposessed and the marginalized and traces their voices in the articulate and popular cultural expressions of the time.This continuous though multifarious discourse of protest,which thrived even during the most concentrated period of absolutism in England(i.e. Tudor and Stuart era) was consciously incorporated by Shakespeare in his plays
Price UKP: 8.00
Bibliography: 1994. iv+161p

‘Donne…. Dio me liberi!’ Querelles des femmes (Debate over Women) on Early Modern Stage

by Reka Rozsa

paper delivered at the Forum for the Study of Early Modern Women in Continental Europe, Interdisciplinary Colloquium: Thursday 2nd – Friday 3rd September 2010 Trinity College Dublin, The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Peasants in the Costume of Servants and Slaves

by Reka Rozsa

paper delivered at the seminar 'Shakespeare’s Italian Context: Influences, Appropriations, Intertextualities', EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ENGLISH (ESSE): 10TH CONFERENCE, University of Turin, 24 – 28 August 2010

'Urban Life in the Renaissance Comedy in Italy'

by Reka Rozsa

paper delivered at the ‘Popular Culture in the Early Modern World’ International Conference at the University of Sussex, 11-13 September 2007