Shakespeare and Textual Theory

Download Shakespeare and Textual Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350121258
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Textual Theory by : Suzanne Gossett

Download or read book Shakespeare and Textual Theory written by Suzanne Gossett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-10 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no Shakespeare without text. Yet readers often do not realize that the words in the book they hold, like the dialogue they hear from the stage, has been revised, augmented and emended since Shakespeare's lifetime. An essential resource for the history of Shakespeare on the page, Shakespeare and Textual Theory traces the explanatory underpinnings of these changes through the centuries. After providing an introduction to early modern printing practices, Suzanne Gossett describes the original quartos and folios as well as the first collected editions. Subsequent sections summarize the work of the 'New Bibliographers' and the radical challenge to their technical analysis posed by poststructuralist theory, which undermined the presumed stability of author and text. Shakespeare and Textual Theory presents a balanced view of the current theoretical debates, which include the nature of the surviving texts we call Shakespeare's; the relationship of the author 'Shakespeare' and of authorial intentions to any of these texts; the extent and nature of Shakespeare's collaboration with others; and the best or most desirable way to present the texts - in editions or performances. The book is illustrated throughout with examples showing how theoretical decisions affect the text of Shakespeare's plays, and case studies of Hamlet and Pericles demonstrate how different theories complicate both text and meaning, whether a play survives in one version or several. The conclusion summarizes the many ways in which beliefs about Shakespeare's texts have changed over the centuries.

Shakespeare and Literary Theory

Download Shakespeare and Literary Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191614416
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Literary Theory by : Jonathan Gil Harris

Download or read book Shakespeare and Literary Theory written by Jonathan Gil Harris and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-08-19 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers 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. How is it that the British literary critic Terry Eagleton can say that 'it is difficult to read Shakespeare without feeling that he was almost certainly familiar with the writings of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein and Derrida', or that the Slovenian psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek can observe that 'Shakespeare without doubt had read Lacan'? Shakespeare and Literary Theory argues that literary theory is less an external set of ideas anachronistically imposed on Shakespeare's texts than a mode - or several modes - of critical reflection inspired by, and emerging from, his writing. These modes together constitute what we might call 'Shakespearian theory': theory that is not just about Shakespeare but also derives its energy from Shakespeare. To name just a few examples: Karl Marx was an avid reader of Shakespeare and used Timon of Athens to illustrate aspects of his economic theory; psychoanalytic theorists from Sigmund Freud to Jacques Lacan have explained some of their most axiomatic positions with reference to Hamlet; Michel Foucault's early theoretical writing on dreams and madness returns repeatedly to Macbeth; Jacques Derrida's deconstructive philosophy is articulated in dialogue with Shakespeare's plays, including Romeo and Juliet; French feminism's best-known essay is Hélène Cixous's meditation on Antony and Cleopatra; certain strands of queer theory derive their impetus from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's reading of the Sonnets; Gilles Deleuze alights on Richard III as an exemplary instance of his theory of the war machine; and postcolonial theory owes a large debt to Aimé Césaire's revision of The Tempest. By reading what theoretical movements from formalism and structuralism to cultural materialism and actor-network theory have had to say about and in concert with Shakespeare, we can begin to get a sense of how much the DNA of contemporary literary theory contains a startling abundance of chromosomes - concepts, preoccupations, ways of using language - that are of Shakespearian provenance.

Shakespeare and Social Theory

Download Shakespeare and Social Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 9781032017174
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (171 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Social Theory by : BRADD. SHORE

Download or read book Shakespeare and Social Theory written by BRADD. SHORE and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-08-23 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a bridge between Shakespeare Studies and classical social theory, opening up readings of Shakespeare to a new audience outside of literary studies and the humanities. Shakespeare has long been known as a 'great thinker' and this book reads his plays through the lens of an anthropologist, revealing new connections between Shakespeare's plays and the lives we now lead. Close readings of a selection of frequently studied plays - Hamlet, The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar and King Lear - engage with the plays in detail while connecting them with some of the biggest questions we all ask ourselves, about love, friendship, ritual, language, human interactions and the world around us. The plays are examined through various social theories including performance theory, cognitive theory, semiotics, exchange theory and structuralism. The book concludes with a consideration of how "the new astronomy" of his day and developments in optics changed the very idea of "perspective," and shaped Shakespeare's approach to embedding social theory in his dramatic texts. This accessible and engaging book will appeal to those approaching Shakespeare from outside literary studies, but will also be valuable to literature students approaching Shakespeare for the first time, or looking for a new angle on the plays.

Shakespeare and Text

Download Shakespeare and Text PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192562614
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Text by : John Jowett

Download or read book Shakespeare and Text written by John Jowett and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare and Text is built on the research and experience of a leading expert on Shakespeare editing and textual studies. The first edition has proved its value as an indispensable and unique guide to its topic. It takes Shakespeare readers to the very foundation of his work, explaining how his plays first took shape in the theatre where writing was part of a larger collective enterprise. The account examines the early modern printing industry that produced the earliest surviving texts of Shakespeare's plays. It describes the roles of publisher and printer, the controls exerted through the Stationers' Company, and the technology of printing. A chapter is devoted to the book that gathered Shakespeare's plays together for the first time, the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare and Text goes on to survey the major developments in textual studies over the past century. It builds on the recent upsurge of interest in textual theory, and deals with issues such as collaboration, the instability of the text, the relationship between theatre culture and print culture, and the book as a material object. Later chapters examine the current critical edition, explaining the procedures that transform early texts in to a very different cultural artefact, the edition in which we regularly encounter Shakespeare. The new revised edition, which builds on Jowett's research for the New Oxford Shakespeare, engages with scholarship of the past decade, work that has transformed our understanding of textual versions, has opened up the taxonomy of Shakespeare's texts, and has significantly extended the picture of Shakespeare as a co-author. A new chapter describes digital text, digital editing, and their interface with the traditional media.

Shakespeare and the Question of Theory

Download Shakespeare and the Question of Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134964420
Total Pages : 589 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (349 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and the Question of Theory by : Geoffrey H. Hartman

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Question of Theory written by Geoffrey H. Hartman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06-01 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theoretical ferment which has affected literary studies over the last decade has called into question traditional ways of thinking about, classifying and interpreting texts. Shakespeare has been not just the focus of a variety of divergent critical movements within recent years, but also increasingly the locus of emerging debates within, and with, theory itself. This collection of essays, written by distinguished and powerful critics in the fields of literary theory and Shakespeare studies, is intended both for those interested in Shakespeare and for those interested more generally in the emerging debates within contemporary criticism and theory.

Shakespeare and Textual Theory

Download Shakespeare and Textual Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350121266
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Textual Theory by : Suzanne Gossett

Download or read book Shakespeare and Textual Theory written by Suzanne Gossett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no Shakespeare without text. Yet readers often do not realize that the words in the book they hold, like the dialogue they hear from the stage, has been revised, augmented and emended since Shakespeare's lifetime. An essential resource for the history of Shakespeare on the page, Shakespeare and Textual Theory traces the explanatory underpinnings of these changes through the centuries. After providing an introduction to early modern printing practices, Suzanne Gossett describes the original quartos and folios as well as the first collected editions. Subsequent sections summarize the work of the 'New Bibliographers' and the radical challenge to their technical analysis posed by poststructuralist theory, which undermined the presumed stability of author and text. Shakespeare and Textual Theory presents a balanced view of the current theoretical debates, which include the nature of the surviving texts we call Shakespeare's; the relationship of the author 'Shakespeare' and of authorial intentions to any of these texts; the extent and nature of Shakespeare's collaboration with others; and the best or most desirable way to present the texts - in editions or performances. The book is illustrated throughout with examples showing how theoretical decisions affect the text of Shakespeare's plays, and case studies of Hamlet and Pericles demonstrate how different theories complicate both text and meaning, whether a play survives in one version or several. The conclusion summarizes the many ways in which beliefs about Shakespeare's texts have changed over the centuries.

Shakespeare in Theory and Practice

Download Shakespeare in Theory and Practice PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 0748632158
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (486 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare in Theory and Practice by : Catherine Belsey

Download or read book Shakespeare in Theory and Practice written by Catherine Belsey and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-22 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these essays, collected here for the first time, renowned critic Catherine Belsey puts theory to work in order to register Shakespeare's powers of seduction, together with his moment in history. Teasing out the meanings of the narrative poems, as well as some of the more familiar plays, she demonstrates the possibilities of an attention to textuality that also draws on the archive. A reading of the Sonnets, written specially for this book, analyses their intricate and ambivalent inscription of desire. Between them, these essays trace the progress of theory in the course of three decades, while a new introduction offers a narrative and analytical overview, from a participant's perspective, of some of its key implications. Written with verve and conviction, this book shows how texts can offer access to the dissonances of the past when theory finds an outcome in practice.

Shakespeare and the Book

Download Shakespeare and the Book PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521786515
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (865 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and the Book by : David Scott Kastan

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Book written by David Scott Kastan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-20 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of Shakespeare's plays as they were transformed from scripts into books.

Shakespeare and Queer Theory

Download Shakespeare and Queer Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1474256694
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (742 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Queer Theory by : Melissa E. Sanchez

Download or read book Shakespeare and Queer Theory written by Melissa E. Sanchez and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare and Queer Theory is an indispensable guide on the ongoing critical debates about queer method both within and beyond Shakespeare and early modern studies. Clearly elucidating the central ideas of the theory, the field's historical emergence from feminist and gay and lesbian studies within the academy, and political activism related to the AIDS crisis beyond it, it also illuminates current debates about historicism and embodiment. Through a series of original readings of texts including Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and Venus and Adonis, as well as film adaptations of early modern drama including Derek Jarman's The Tempest and Edward II, Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, and Julie Taymor's Titus, it illustrates the value of queer theory to Shakespeare scholarship, and the value of Shakespearean texts to queer theory.

Shakespeare's Theory of Drama

Download Shakespeare's Theory of Drama PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521633581
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (335 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Theory of Drama by : Pauline Kiernan

Download or read book Shakespeare's Theory of Drama written by Pauline Kiernan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-07-23 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Shakespeare write drama? Did he have specific reasons for his choice of this art form? Did he have clearly defined aesthetic aims in what he wanted drama to do - and why? Pauline Kiernan opens up a new area of debate for Shakespearean criticism in showing that a radical, complex defence of drama which challenged the Renaissance orthodox view of poetry, history and art can be traced in Shakespeare's plays and poems. This study, first published in 1996, examines different stages in the canon to show that far from being restricted by the 'limitations' of drama, Shakespeare consciously exploits its capacity to accommodate temporality and change, and its reliance on the physical presence of the actor. This lively, readable book offers an original and scholarly insight into what Shakespeare wanted his drama to do and why.

Shakespeare After Theory

Download Shakespeare After Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135965102
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (359 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare After Theory by : David Scott Kastan

Download or read book Shakespeare After Theory written by David Scott Kastan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most familiar assertion of Shakespeare scholarship is that he is our contemporary. Shakespeare After Theory provocatively argues that he is not, but what value he has for us must at least begin with a recognition of his distance from us.

Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory

Download Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1408185261
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (81 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory by : Jyotsna G. Singh

Download or read book Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory written by Jyotsna G. Singh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback, Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory is an up-to-date guide to contemporary debates in postcolonial studies and how these shape our understanding of Shakespeare's politics and poetics. Taking a historical perspective, it covers early modern discourses of colonialism, 'race', gender and globalization, through to contemporary intercultural appropriations and global adaptations of Shakespeare. Showing how the dialogue between Shakespeare criticism and postcolonial studies has evolved, this book offers a critical vocabulary that connects contemporary and early modern cultural struggles. Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory also provides guides to further reading and online resources which make this an essential resource for students and scholars of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories

Download Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN 13 : 1409478424
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (94 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories by : Professor Michele Marrapodi

Download or read book Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories written by Professor Michele Marrapodi and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throwing fresh light on a much discussed but still controversial field, this collection of essays places the presence of Italian literary theories against and alongside the background of English dramatic traditions, to assess this influence in the emergence of Elizabethan theatrical convention and the innovative dramatic practices under the early Stuarts. Contributors respond anew to the process of cultural exchange, cultural transaction, and generic intertextuality involved in the debate on dramatic theory and literary kinds in the Renaissance, exploring, with special emphasis on Shakespeare's works, the level of cultural appropriation, contamination, revision, and subversion characterizing early modern English drama. Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories offers a wide range of approaches and critical viewpoints of leading international scholars concerning questions which are still open to debate and which may pave the way to further groundbreaking analyses on Shakespeare's art of dramatic construction and that of his contemporaries.

Shakespeare's Brain

Download Shakespeare's Brain PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400824001
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Brain by : Mary Thomas Crane

Download or read book Shakespeare's Brain written by Mary Thomas Crane and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-20 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here Mary Thomas Crane considers the brain as a site where body and culture meet to form the subject and its expression in language. Taking Shakespeare as her case study, she boldly demonstrates the explanatory power of cognitive theory--a theory which argues that language is produced by a reciprocal interaction of body and environment, brain and culture, and which refocuses attention on the role of the author in the making of meaning. Crane reveals in Shakespeare's texts a web of structures and categories through which meaning is created. The approach yields fresh insights into a wide range of his plays, including The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest. ? Crane's cognitive reading traces the complex interactions of cultural and cognitive determinants of meaning as they play themselves out in Shakespeare's texts. She shows how each play centers on a word or words conveying multiple meanings (such as "act," "pinch," "pregnant," "villain and clown"), and how each cluster has been shaped by early modern ideological formations. The book also chronicles the playwright's developing response to the material conditions of subject formation in early modern England. Crane reveals that Shakespeare in his comedies first explored the social spaces within which the subject is formed, such as the home, class hierarchy, and romantic courtship. His later plays reveal a greater preoccupation with how the self is formed within the body, as the embodied mind seeks to make sense of and negotiate its physical and social environment.

Shakespeare and Reception Theory

Download Shakespeare and Reception Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350112119
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Reception Theory by : Nigel Wood

Download or read book Shakespeare and Reception Theory written by Nigel Wood and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arden Shakespeare and Theory provides a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical developments that have dominated Shakespeare studies in recent years, as well as those that are emerging at the present moment. Each volume provides: · a clear definition of a particular theory; · a survey of its major theorists and critics; · an analysis of its significance in Shakespeare studies; · a summary of relevant political, social and economic contexts; · a wealth of suggested resources for further investigation. Reception Theory provides readers with a unique overview and understanding of the ways in which both audiences and readers have reacted to Shakespeare's works historically and in the present. This study demonstrates how recent emphases on a reader's and a spectator's role in the creation of meaning might allow us to contemplate Shakespeare's work in fresh and often provocative ways. Among the plays included as case studies are A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, The Tempest, King Lear and Henry V. Shakespeare and Reception Theory pays close attention to early modern modes of interaction in the playhouse alongside more recent assumptions that underlie spectating and performing.

Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory

Download Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350073598
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory by : Sujata Iyengar

Download or read book Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory written by Sujata Iyengar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory reconsiders, after 20 years of intense critical and creative activity, the theory and practice of adapting Shakespeare to different genres and media. Organized around clusters of key metaphors, the book explicates the principal theories informing the field of Shakespearean adaptation and surveys the growing field of case studies by Shakespeare scholars. Each chapter also looks anew at a specific Shakespeare play from the perspective of a prevailing set of theories and metaphors. Having identified the key critics responsible for developing these metaphors and for framing the discussion in this way, Iyengar moves on to analyze afresh the implications of these critical frames for adaptation studies as a whole and for particular Shakespeare plays. Focusing each chapter around a different play, the book contrasts comic, tragic, and tragicomic modes in Shakespeare's oeuvre and within the major genres of adaptation (e.g., film, stage-production, novel and digital media). Each chapter seasons its theoretical discussions with a lively sprinkling of allusions to Shakespeare - ranging from TikTok to tissue-boxes, from folios and fine arts to fan work. To conclude each chapter, the author provides a case-study of three or four significant and interesting adaptations from different genres or media. A glossary of terms compiled by Philip Gilreath and the author completes the book.

The Shakespeare Wars

Download The Shakespeare Wars PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0307807924
Total Pages : 626 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Shakespeare Wars by : Ron Rosenbaum

Download or read book The Shakespeare Wars written by Ron Rosenbaum and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-11-09 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Ron Rosenbaum] is one of the most original journalists and writers of our time.” –David Remnick In The Shakespeare Wars, Ron Rosenbaum gives readers an unforgettable way of rethinking the greatest works of the human imagination. As he did in his groundbreaking Explaining Hitler, he shakes up much that we thought we understood about a vital subject and renews our sense of excitement and urgency. He gives us a Shakespeare book like no other. Rather than raking over worn-out fragments of biography, Rosenbaum focuses on cutting-edge controversies about the true source of Shakespeare’s enchantment and illumination–the astonishing language itself. How best to unlock the secrets of its spell? With quicksilver wit and provocative insight, Rosenbaum takes readers into the midst of fierce battles among the most brilliant Shakespearean scholars and directors over just how to delve deeper into the Shakespearean experience–deeper into the mind of Shakespeare. Was Shakespeare the one-draft wonder of Shakespeare in Love? Or was he rather–as an embattled faction of textual scholars now argues–a different kind of writer entirely: a conscientious reviser of his greatest plays? Must we then revise our way of reading, staging, and interpreting such works as Hamlet and King Lear? Rosenbaum pursues key partisans in these debates from the high tables of Oxford to a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in a strip mall in the Deep South. He makes ostensibly arcane textual scholarship intensely seductive–and sometimes even explicitly sexual. At an academic “Pleasure Seminar” in Bermuda, for instance, he examines one scholar’s quest to find an orgasm in Romeo and Juliet. Rosenbaum shows us great directors as Shakespearean scholars in their own right: We hear Peter Brook–perhaps the most influential Shakespearean director of the past century–disclose his quest for a “secret play” hidden within the Bard’s comedies and dramas. We listen to Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, as he launches into an impassioned, table-pounding fury while discussing how the means of unleashing the full intensity of Shakespeare’s language has been lost–and how to restore it. Rosenbaum’s hilarious inside account of “the Great Shakespeare ‘Funeral Elegy’ Fiasco,” a man-versus-computer clash, illustrates the iconic struggle to define what is and isn’t “Shakespearean.” And he demonstrates the way Shakespearean scholars such as Harold Bloom can become great Shakespearean characters in their own right. The Shakespeare Wars offers a thrilling opportunity to engage with Shakespeare’s work at its deepest levels. Like Explaining Hitler, this book is destined to revolutionize the way we think about one of the overwhelming obsessions of our time.