Overview

Troilus and Cressida: A Critical Reader offers an accessible and thought-provoking guide to this complex problem play, surveying its key themes and evolving critical preoccupations. Considering its generic ambiguity and experimentalism, it also provides a uniquely detailed and up-to-date history of the play’s stage performance from Dryden’s rewriting up to Mark Ravenhill and Elizabeth LeCompte’s controversial 2012 production for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Wooster Group. Moving through to four new critical essays, the guide opens up fresh perspectives on the play’s iconoclastic nature and its key themes, ranging from issues of gender and sexuality to Elizabethan politics, from the uses of antiquity to questions of cultural translation, with particular attention paid on Troilus’ “Greekness”. The volume finishes with a helpful guide to critical and web-based resources. Discussing the ways in which this challenging and acerbic play can be brought to life in the classroom, it suggests performance-based strategies, designed to engage with the dramaturgical and theatrical dimensions of the text; close-reading exercises with an emphasis on rhetoric, metaphor and the practice of “troping”; and a series of tools designed to situate the play in a range of contexts, including its classical and critical frameworks.

Full Product Details

Author:   Efterpi Mitsi (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece) ,  Dr Andrew Hiscock ,  Professor Lisa Hopkins (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   The Arden Shakespeare
Weight:   0.426kg
ISBN:  

9781350014190

ISBN 10:   1350014192
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   10 January 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Series Introduction List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Timeline Introduction (Efterpi Mitsi, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece) 1. The Critical Backstory (Kinga Foeldvary, Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Hungary) 2. Performance History (Francesca Rayner, Universidade do Minho, Portugal) 3. The State of the Art (Johann Gregory, Cardiff University, UK) 4. New Directions: The Decay of Exemplarity in Troilus and Cressida (Rob Maslen, University of Glasgow, UK) 5. New Directions: 'What art thou, Greek?' - Greeks and Greece in Troilus and Cressida (Miklos Peti, Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church, Hungary) 6.New Directions: '[B]its and greasy relics': the Politics of Relics in Troilus and Cressida (Vassiliki Markidou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece) 7. New Directions: Scenes of Repossession: Greek Translations and Performances of Troilus and Cressida (Paschalis Nikolaou, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece) 8. 'Degrees in schools': Learning and Teaching Resources (Richard Stacey, University of Glasgow, UK) Notes Select Bibliography Index

Reviews

A rich treasure trove not only for the undergraduate student, providing basic information on Troilus and Cressida, but proves equally inspiring for instructors and scholars ... An inspiring mixture of informative and original scholarship. * Cahiers Elisabethains * Troilus and Cressida: A Critical Reader is a brilliant reassessment of the play's widely divergent meanings and contexts, including selected Greek appropriations. Highly recommended for scholars in Shakespearean and classical studies. -- Professor Jyotsna Singh, Michigan State University, USA This much-needed collection shows how a play that was less than popular with earlier generations can prove fascinating for present-day audiences - taught by recent history to recognise the contradictions in tales of war, self and community. -- Rui Carvalho Homem, University of Porto, Portugal

Troilus and Cressida: A Critical Reader is a brilliant reassessment of the play's widely divergent meanings and contexts, including selected Greek appropriations. Highly recommended for scholars in Shakespearean and classical studies. -- Professor Jyotsna Singh, Michigan State University, USA

Troilus and Cressida: A Critical Reader is a brilliant reassessment of the play's widely divergent meanings and contexts, including selected Greek appropriations. Highly recommended for scholars in Shakespearean and classical studies. -- Professor Jyotsna Singh, Michigan State University, USA This much-needed collection shows how a play that was less than popular with earlier generations can prove fascinating for present-day audiences - taught by recent history to recognise the contradictions in tales of war, self and community. -- Rui Carvalho Homem, University of Porto, Portugal

Author Information

Efterpi Mitsi is Associate Professor in English Literature and Culture at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.

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