Drama History Criticism category: 905 books

From Aristotle's Poetics to Vaclav Havel, the debate about the nature and function of theatre has been marked by controversy. Daniel Gerould's landmark work, Theatre/Theory/Theatre, collects history's most influential Eastern and Western dramatic theorists – poets, playwrights, directors and philosophers...

Shakespeare was acutely aware of our intimate struggles with aging. His dramatic characters either prosper or suffer according to their relationship with maturity, and his sonnets eloquently explore time's ravaging effects. "Wrinkled deep in time" is how the queen describes herself in Antony...

According to the dominant tradition of literary criticism, the novel is the form par excellence of the private individual. Empty Houses challenges this consensus by reexamining the genre's development from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century and exploring what has until now seemed an anomaly--the...

This 1817 volume of critical essays on Shakespeare's plays brings a fresh psychological perspective to the characters, as well as addressing the dramatic and poetic qualities of the works, placing special value on the great tragedies. The volume is a watershed in Shakespearean criticism, and has deeply influenced generations of scholars and critics. 

First published in 2001, this is an accessible, wide-ranging and informed introduction to Shakespeare's comedies and romances. Rather than taking each play in isolation, the chapters trace recurring issues, suggesting both the continuity and the variety of Shakespeare's practice and the creative use...

From Harold Bloom, one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time, comes an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Cleopatra—one of the Bard’s most riveting and memorable female characters—in “a masterfully perceptive reading of this seductive play’s endless wonders” (*Kirkus...

How should we read a text that does not exist, or present a play the manuscript of which is lost and the identity of whose author cannot be established for certain? Such is the enigma posed by Cardenio – a play performed in England for the first time in 1612 or 1613 and attributed forty years...

John Webster's classic revenge tragedy The Duchess of Malfi was first performed in 1613 and published in 1623. This guide offers students an introduction to its critical and performance history, including recent versions on stage and screen. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current...

The first book-length study of the relationship between science and theater during the long eighteenth century in Britain, The Theater of Experiment explores the crucial role of spectacle in the establishment of modern science by analyzing how eighteenth-century science was "staged" in a...

This volume offers a wealth of critical analysis, supported with ample historical and bibliographical information about one of Shakespeare’s most enduringly popular and globally influential plays. Its eighteen new chapters represent a broad spectrum of current scholarly and interpretive approaches,...

Presentist Shakespeares is the first extended study of the principles and practice of 'presentism', a critical movement that takes account of the never-ending dialogue between past and present. In this bold and consistently thought-provoking collection of presentist readings, the contributors: argue...

Symbol and psyche are twin concepts in contemporary symbological studies, where the symbol is considered to be a "statement" by the psyche. The psyche is a manifold of conscious and unconscious contents, and the symbol is their mediator. Because Lorca's dramatic characters are psychic entities made up...

This strong and timely collection provides fresh insights into how Shakespeare's plays and poems were understood to affect bodies, minds and emotions. Contemporary criticism has had surprisingly little to say about the early modern period's investment in imagining literature's impact on feeling. Shakespearean...

A contemporary of William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe was one of the most influential early modern dramatists, whose life and mysterious death have long been the subject of critical and popular speculation. This collection sets Marlowe's plays and poems in their historical context,...