Overview

Edited by Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin, Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide provides a practical and stimulating guide to all aspects of Shakespeare studies. The volume comprises over 40 specially commissioned essays by an outstanding team of Shakespeare scholars; each essay is written in an accessible and engaging style, and is followed by annotated suggestions for further reading. The volume is divided into four key parts, which as a whole offer a valuable balance of factual and critical content. In the first Part, chapters provide information about and discuss Shakespeare, the theatres of his time, the society in which he lived, the language of his period, the conventions of playwriting, and his contemporary impact. The second Part offers critical overviews of Shakespeare's achievement in the principal genres, and each overview is followed by a practical reading exploring Shakespeare's use of the traditions, scope and boundaries of that genre in one of his key works. Part Three offers guidance to the principal current critical approaches in the study of Shakespeare: each chapter outlines a particular critical approach, and is followed by a reading applying that approach to one of Shakespeare's works; and Part Four offers chapters on topics relating to Shakespeare's intellectual and cultural impact over the ages.

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9780199245222

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Reviews

At 700 pages and with over 40 well-known contributors, this breezeblock of a Guide is the quintessential college textbook. And a very good textbook it is. Coherently organised in four sections ... a wealth of information is presented at a reading level mainly that of an able college student who already has some acquaintance with Shakespeare.' Rex Gibson, Around the Globe 1/9/03

Author Information

Stanley Wells is Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford, and was Professor of Shakespeare Studies, and Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham from 1988 to 97, where he is now Emeritus Professor. He is the general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare, and co-editor of the Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works. With Peter Holland he is general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare Topics, and, with Michael Dobson, he recently edited the best-selling Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Lena Cowen Orlin is Professor of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Executive Director of the Shakespeare Association of America. Her publications include Material London, Ca. 1600 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), Elizabethan Households (University of Washington Press, 1995), and Private Matters and Public Cultures in Post-Reformation England (Cornell University Press, 1994).

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