Overview
George Lyman Kittredge's insightful editions of Shakespeare have endured in part because of his eclecticism, his diversity of interests, and his wide-ranging accomplishments, all of which are reflected in the valuable notes in each volume. These new editions have specific emphasis on the performance histories of the plays (on stage and screen). Features of each edition include: - The original introduction to the Kittredge Edition - Editor's Introduction to the Focus Edition. An overview on major themes of the plays, and sections on the play's performance history on stage and screen. - Explanatory Notes. The explanatory notes either expand on Kittredge's superb glosses, or, in the case of plays for which he did not write notes, give the needed explanations for Shakespeare's sometimes demanding language. - Performance notes. These appear separately and immediately below the textual footnotes and include discussions of noteworthy stagings of the plays, issues of interpretation, and film and stage choices. - How to read the play as Performance Section. A discussion of the written play vs. the play as performed and the various ways in which Shakespeare's words allow the reader to envision the work ""off the page."" - Comprehensive Timeline. Covering major historical events (with brief annotations) as well as relevant details from Shakespeare's life. Some of the Chronologies include time chronologies within the plays. - Topics for Discussion and Further Study Section. Critical Issues: Dealing with the text in a larger context and considerations of character, genre, language, and interpretative problems. Performance Issues: Problems and intricacies of staging the play connected to chief issues discussed in the Focus Editions' Introduction. - Select Bibliography & Filmography Each New Kittredge edition also includes screen grabs from major productions, for comparison and scene study.
Full Product Details
Author: William Shakespeare ,
Patricia Lennox ,
James H. Lake
Publisher: Focus Publishing/R Pullins & Co
Imprint: Focus Publishing/R Pullins & Co
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 0.90cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.200kg
ISBN: 9781585102792
ISBN 10: 1585102792
Pages: 134
Publication Date: 01 October 2010
Recommended Age: From 12 to 17 years
Audience:
General/trade
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General/trade
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Primary & secondary/elementary & high school
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General
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General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.
Reviews
Seventy years after their publication, George Lyman Kittredge's editions of Shakespeare remain exceptional for the combination of learning, acuity, wit, and clarity. Now, in the twenty-first century, Patricia Lennox broadens that understanding in her excellent edition of As You Like It where she draws on her knowledge of international film and television. She offers new meaning for modern readers who, while they savor Shakespeare's language also understand visual signals from contemporary media.<p>- Irene G. Dash, Hunter College, CUNY, retired
Now, in the twenty-first century, Patricia Lennox broadens that understanding in her excellent edition of As You Like It where she draws on her knowledge of international film and television. She offers new meaning for modern readers who, while they savor Shakespeare's language also understand visual signals from contemporary media. - Irene G. Dash, Hunter College, CUNY, retired Even as the New Kittredge Shakespeare series glances back to George Lyman Kittredge's student editions of the plays, it is very much of our current moment: the slim editions are targeted largely at high school and first-year college students who are more versed in visual than in print culture. Not only are the texts of the plays accompanied by photographs or stills from various stage and cinema performances: the editorial contributions are performance-oriented, offering surveys of contemporary film interpretations, essays on the plays as performance pieces, and an annotated filmography. Traditional editorial issues (competing versions of the text, cruxes, editorial emendation history) are for the most part excluded; the editions focus instead on clarifying the text with an eye to performing it. There is no disputing the pedagogic usefulness of the New Kittredge Shakespeare's performance-oriented approach. At times, however, it can run the risk of treating textual issues as impediments, rather than partners, to issues of performance. This is particularly the case with a textually vexed play such as Pericles: Prince of Tyre . In the introduction to the latter, Jeffrey Kahan notes the frequent unintelligibility of the play as originally published: the chances of a reconstructed text matching what Shakespeare actually wrote are about 'nil' (p. xiii) But his solution to use a traditional text rather than one corrected as are the Oxford and Norton Pericles obscures how this traditional text, including its act and scene division, is itself a palimpsest produced through three centuries of editorial intervention. Nevertheless, the series does a service to its target audience with its emphasis on performance and dramaturgy. Kahan's own essay about his experiences as dramaturge for a college production of Pericles is very good indeed, particularly on the play's inability to purge the trace of incestuous desire that Pericles first encounters in Antioch. Other plays' cinematic histories: Annalisa Castaldo's edition of Henry V contrasts Laurence Oliver's and Branagh's film productions; Samuel Crowl's and James Wells's edition of (respectively) I and 2 Henry IV concentrate on Welle's Chimes at Midnight and Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho; Patricia Lennox's edition of As You Like It offers an overview of four Hollywood and British film adaptations; and John R. Ford's edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream provides a spirited survey of the play
Author Information
Patricia Lennox (Ph.D. CUNY Graduate Center) teaches in the Individualized Study at New York University. Her interests include myths, fables, and fairy tales; Shakespeare; early modern female writers; fashion; classic literature; film history; and theater.
