Overview

Oxford Shakespeare Topics provides students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. Notes and a critical guide to further reading equip the interested reader with the means to broaden research. This is the first full account of Shakespeare's impact on the whole of Eastern and East Central Europe up to the present day. Starting with the tours of the English Comedians on the Continent during Shakespeare's lifetime and shortly after his death, it traces their routes as far as Poland (Gdansk, Warsaw) and the core of the Habsburg Empire (Prague, Vienna, Graz). Later chapters explore the profound Shakespearian influence on Russian drama, literature, and criticism since the 18th centuryDSTsarina Catherine II's Russian adaptations of Merry Wives and Timon, Tolstoy's attack on King Lear, Stanislavsky's interpretation of Hamlet and OthelloDSand Shakespeare's major role in the national revivals in Poland, the Czech lands, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Chapters on Shakespeare after the Bolshevik revolution and behind the Iron Curtain deal with the appropriation of his plays for political interpretations but also with the ways his humanism became an increasingly inspiring voice of dissent from Stalinist totalitarianism. The book evaluates the Shakespearian achievements of the film-maker Grigori Kozintsev, the poet and translator Boris Pasternak, the composers Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich, and the stage designer Josef Svoboda as well as the more controversial contributions of the critic Jan Kott and the playwright and director Bertolt Brecht.

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9780198711650

Table of Contents

Reviews

Stribrny's book gives an important new focus to the recent growth of interest in Shakespeare as an international phenomenon of many hues ... fine collection of analyses. English Studies Professor Zdenek Stribrny is one of the most respected Shakespeareans ... In this recent book he lives up to his reputation by achieving the impossile: in a slim volume of some 160 pages we are offered a succinct history of Shakespeare's reception in a number of countries that formed the Soviet bloc for several decades after the Second World War. English Studies Oxford University Press offer a mix of engagingly written introductions to a variety of Topics intended largely for undergraduates. Each author has clearly been reading and listening to the most recent scholarship, but they wear their learning lightly. Ruth Morse, Times Literary Supplement Oxford Shakespeare Topics is a new series of handsomely produced volumes. Jonathan Bate, TLS Shakespeare and Eastern Europe by Zdenek Stribrny is full of interest ... It begins with a lively and informative account of Elizabethan touring players in Eastern Europe, then proceeds to Shakespeare under the Tsars. Jonathan Bate, Times Literary Supplement Zdenek Stribrny's book on Shakespeare and Eastern Europe is a gem. In fewer than l50 pages (excluding notes and index), he has been able to cover the history of Shakespearean representation, criticism, and scholarship in East Europe in a succint but eminently lucid study that is a delight to read and learn from ... An excellent contribution to scholarship. Shakespeare Bulletin

Author Information

Zdenĕk St%ríbrný is Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Director of Graduate Studies at Charles University in Prague.

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