Shakespeare and the Resistance

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Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1568588119
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (685 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare and the Resistance by : Clare Asquith

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Resistance written by Clare Asquith and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's largely misunderstood narrative poems contain within them an explosive commentary on the political storms convulsing his country The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents: two politically charged allegories of Tudor tyranny that justified-and even urged-direct action against an unpopular regime. The poems were Shakespeare's bestselling works in his lifetime, evidence that they spoke clearly to England's wounded populace and disaffected nobility, and especially to their champion, the Earl of Essex. Shakespeare and the Resistance unearths Shakespeare's own analysis of a political and religious crisis which would shortly erupt in armed rebellion on the streets of London. Using the latest historical research, it resurrects the story of a bold bid for freedom of conscience and an end to corruption that was erased from history by the men who suppressed it. This compelling reading situates Shakespeare at the heart of the resistance movement.

Secret Shakespeare

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Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 152618415X
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Secret Shakespeare by : Richard Wilson

Download or read book Secret Shakespeare written by Richard Wilson and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's Catholic context was the most important literary discovery of the last century. No biography of the Bard is now complete without chapters on the paranoia and persecution in which he was educated, or the treason which engulfed his family. Whether to suffer outrageous fortune or take up arms in suicidal resistance was, as Hamlet says, 'the question' that fired Shakespeare's stage. In 'Secret Shakespeare' Richard Wilson asks why the dramatist remained so enigmatic about his own beliefs, and so silent on the atrocities he survived. Shakespeare constructed a drama not of discovery, like his rivals, but of darkness, deferral, evasion and disguise, where, for all his hopes of a 'golden time' of future toleration, 'What's to come' is always unsure. Whether or not 'He died a papist', it is because we can never 'pluck out the heart' of his mystery that Shakespeare's plays retain their unique potential to resist. This is a fascinating work, which will be essential reading for all scholars of Shakespeare and Renaissance studies.

Shadowplay

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Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 1541774302
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (417 download)

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Book Synopsis Shadowplay by : Clare Asquith

Download or read book Shadowplay written by Clare Asquith and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 16th century England many loyal subjects to the crown were asked to make a terrible choice: to follow their monarch or their God. The era was one of unprecedented authoritarianism: England, it seemed, had become a police state, fearful of threats from abroad and plotters at home. This age of terror was also the era of the greatest creative genius the world has ever known: William Shakespeare. How, then, could such a remarkable man born into such violently volatile times apparently make no comment about the state of England in his work? He did. But it was hidden. Revealing Shakespeare's sophisticated version of a forgotten code developed by 16th-century dissidents, Clare Asquith shows how he was both a genius for all time and utterly a creature of his own era: a writer who was supported by dissident Catholic aristocrats, who agonized about the fate of England's spiritual and political life and who used the stage to attack and expose a regime which he believed had seized illegal control of the country he loved. Shakespeare's plays offer an acute insight into the politics and personalities of his era. And Clare Asquith's decoding of them offers answers to several mysteries surrounding Shakespeare's own life, including most notably why he stopped writing while still at the height of his powers. An utterly compelling combination of literary detection and political revelation, Shadowplay is the definitive expose of how Shakespeare lived through and understood the agonies of his time, and what he had to say about them.

Hamlet's Choice

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Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300247818
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Hamlet's Choice by : Peter Lake

Download or read book Hamlet's Choice written by Peter Lake and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating account of how Shakespeare worked through the tensions of Queen Elizabeth's England in two canon-defining plays Conspiracies and revolts simmered beneath the surface of Queen Elizabeth's reign. England was riven with tensions created by religious conflict and the prospect of dynastic crisis and regime change. In this rich, incisive account, Peter Lake reveals how in Titus Andronicus and Hamlet Shakespeare worked through a range of Tudor anxieties, including concerns about the nature of justice, resistance, and salvation. In both Hamlet and Titus the princes are faced with successions forged under questionable circumstances and they each have a choice: whether or not to resort to political violence. The unfolding action, Lake argues, is best understood in terms of contemporary debates about the legitimacy of resistance and the relation between religion and politics. Relating the plays to their broader political and polemical contexts, Lake sheds light on the nature of revenge, resistance, and religion in post-Reformation England.

Shakespeare and the Body Politic

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739170961
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare and the Body Politic by : Bernard J. Dobski

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Body Politic written by Bernard J. Dobski and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: mate Shakespeare’s corpus, and one of the most prominent is the image of the body. Sketched out in the eternal lines of his plays and poetry, and often drawn in exquisite detail, variations on the body metaphor abound in the works of Shakespeare. Attention to the political dimensions of this metaphor in Shakespeare and the Body Politic permits readers to examine the sentiments of romantic love and family life, the enjoyment of peace, prosperity and justice, and the spirited pursuit of honor and glory as they inevitably emerge within the social, moral, and religious limits of particular political communities. The lessons to be learned from such an examination are both timely and timeless. For the tensions between the desires and pursuits of individuals and the health of the community forge the sinews of every body politic, regardless of the form it may take or even where and when one might encounter it. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare illuminates these tensions within the body politic, which itself constitutes the framework for a flourishing community of human beings and citizens—from the ancient city-states of Greece and Rome to the Christian cities and kingdoms of early modern Europe. The contributors to this volume attend to the political context and role of political actors within the diverse works of Shakespeare that they explore. Their arguments thus exhibit together Shakespeare’s political thought. By examining his plays and poetry with the seriousness they deserve, Shakespeare’s audiences and readers not only discover an education in human and political virtue, but also find themselves written into his lines. Shakespeare’s body of work is indeed politic, and the whole that it forms incorporates us all.

The Melancholy of Resistance

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Publisher : New Directions Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780811215046
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis The Melancholy of Resistance by : László Krasznahorkai

Download or read book The Melancholy of Resistance written by László Krasznahorkai and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize

How Shakespeare Put Politics on the Stage

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Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300222718
Total Pages : 683 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis How Shakespeare Put Politics on the Stage by : Peter Lake

Download or read book How Shakespeare Put Politics on the Stage written by Peter Lake and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 683 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The politics of virtue -- Honour and its enemies: women on top - again -- Anti-popery -- Divided we fall: the politics of faction in time of war -- CHAPTER 6 Richard III: political ends, providential means -- The making of a Machiavel -- Monstrous bodies and providential signs -- Signs and prophecies -- The audience as 'high all- seer' -- Ambiguities of 'evil counsel' -- From providence to predestination: the return of legitimacy -- Richard III as a guide to the past, present and future -- CHAPTER 7 Going Roman: Richard III and Titus Andronicus compared

Transversal Enterprises in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 0230584578
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis Transversal Enterprises in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries by : B. Reynolds

Download or read book Transversal Enterprises in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries written by B. Reynolds and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-03-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study expands on Reynolds' 'transversal poetics' - the theory, methodology, and aesthetics developed in response to the need for an approach that fosters agency, creativity and conscientious scholarship and pedagogy. It offers new readings of plays by, amongst others, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Middleton, Webster and Greene.

William Shakespeare's The Force Doth Awaken

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Publisher : Quirk Books
ISBN 13 : 1594749868
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (947 download)

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Book Synopsis William Shakespeare's The Force Doth Awaken by : Ian Doescher

Download or read book William Shakespeare's The Force Doth Awaken written by Ian Doescher and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experience the Star Wars saga reimagined as an Elizabethan drama penned by William Shakespeare himself, complete with authentic meter and verse, and theatrical monologues and dialogue by everyone from Rey to Chewbacca. As the noble Resistance clashes with the vile First Order, Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren, and BB-8 are pulled into a galaxy-wide drama. The romance of Han Solo and Leia Organa takes a tragic turn that Shakespeare would approve of. Authentic meter, stage directions, reimagined movie scenes and dialogue, and hidden Easter eggs throughout will entertain and impress fans of Star Wars and Shakespeare alike. Every scene and character from the film appears in the play, along with twenty woodcut-style illustrations that depict an Elizabethan version of the Star Wars galaxy.

Death By Shakespeare

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1472958241
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (729 download)

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Book Synopsis Death By Shakespeare by : Kathryn Harkup

Download or read book Death By Shakespeare written by Kathryn Harkup and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Shakespeare found dozens of different ways to kill off his characters, and audiences today still enjoy the same reactions – shock, sadness, fear – that they did more than 400 years ago when these plays were first performed. But how realistic are these deaths, and did Shakespeare have the knowledge to back them up? In the Bard's day death was a part of everyday life. Plague, pestilence and public executions were a common occurrence, and the chances of seeing a dead or dying body on the way home from the theatre were high. It was also a time of important scientific progress. Shakespeare kept pace with anatomical and medical advances, and he included the latest scientific discoveries in his work, from blood circulation to treatments for syphilis. He certainly didn't shy away from portraying the reality of death on stage, from the brutal to the mundane, and the spectacular to the silly. Elizabethan London provides the backdrop for Death by Shakespeare, as Kathryn Harkup turns her discerning scientific eye to the Bard and the varied and creative ways his characters die. Was death by snakebite as serene as Shakespeare makes out? Could lack of sleep have killed Lady Macbeth? Can you really murder someone by pouring poison in their ear? Kathryn investigates what actual events may have inspired Shakespeare, what the accepted scientific knowledge of the time was, and how Elizabethan audiences would have responded to these death scenes. Death by Shakespeare will tell you all this and more in a rollercoaster of Elizabethan carnage, poison, swordplay and bloodshed, with an occasional death by bear-mauling for good measure.

Priscilla

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Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062297058
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Priscilla by : Nicholas Shakespeare

Download or read book Priscilla written by Nicholas Shakespeare and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Nicholas Shakespeare stumbled across a box of documents belonging to his late aunt, Priscilla, he was completely unaware of where this discovery would take him and what he would learn about her hidden past. The glamorous, mysterious figure he remembered from his childhood was very different from the morally ambiguous young woman who emerged from the trove of love letters, photographs, and journals, surrounded by suitors and living the dangerous existence of a British woman in a country controlled by the enemy. He had heard rumors that Priscilla had fought in the Resistance, but the truth turned out to be far more complicated. As he investigated his aunt's life, dark secrets emerged, and Nicholas discovered the answers to the questions over which he'd been puzzling: What caused the breakdown of Priscilla's marriage to a French aristocrat? Why had she been interned in a prisoner-of-war camp, and how had she escaped? And who was the "Otto" with whom she was having a relationship as Paris was liberated? Piecing together fragments of one woman's remarkable and tragic life, Priscilla is at once a stunning story of detection, a loving portrait of a flawed woman trying to survive in terrible times, and a spellbinding slice of history.

The Faith of William Shakespeare

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Publisher : Lion Books
ISBN 13 : 0745968929
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (459 download)

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Book Synopsis The Faith of William Shakespeare by : Graham Holderness

Download or read book The Faith of William Shakespeare written by Graham Holderness and published by Lion Books. This book was released on 2016-11-18 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Shakespeare stills stands head and shoulders above any other author in the English language, a position that is unlikely ever to change. Yet it is often said that we know very little about him - and that applies as much to what he believed as it does to the rest of his biography. Or does it? In this authoritative new study, Graham Holderness takes us through the context of Shakespeare's life, times of religious and political turmoil, and looks at what we do know of Shakespeare the Anglican. But then he goes beyond that, and mines the plays themselves, not just for the words of the characters, but for the concepts, themes and language which Shakespeare was himself steeped in - the language of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Considering particularly such plays as Richard ll, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, Othello, The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, Holderness shows how the ideas of Catholicism come up against those of Luther and Calvin; how Christianity was woven deep into Shakespeare's psyche, and how he brought it again and again to his art.

Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393635767
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by : Stephen Greenblatt

Download or read book Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics written by Stephen Greenblatt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brilliant, beautifully organized, exceedingly readable."—Philip Roth World-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores the playwright’s insight into bad (and often mad) rulers. Examining the psyche—and psychoses—of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Coriolanus, Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the disasters visited upon the societies over which these characters rule. Tyrant shows that Shakespeare’s work remains vitally relevant today, not least in its probing of the unquenchable, narcissistic appetites of demagogues and the self-destructive willingness of collaborators who indulge them.

At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean

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Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1847064922
Total Pages : 135 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean by : Steve Mentz

Download or read book At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean written by Steve Mentz and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2009-12-10 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascinating study revealing Shakespeare's career-long engagement with the sea and his frequent use of maritime imagery.

As If: Essays in As You Like It

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Publisher : punctum books
ISBN 13 : 0615988172
Total Pages : 138 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (159 download)

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Book Synopsis As If: Essays in As You Like It by : William N. West

Download or read book As If: Essays in As You Like It written by William N. West and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's As You Like It is a play without a theme. Instead, it repeatedly poses one question in a variety of forms: What if the world were other than it is? As You Like It is a set of experiments in which its characters conditionally change an aspect of their world and see what comes of it: what if I were not a girl but a man? What if I were not a duke, but someone like Robin Hood? What if I were a deer? "What would you say to me now an [that is, "if"] I were your very, very Rosalind?" (4.1.64-65). "Much virtue in 'if'," as one of its characters declares near the play's end; 'if' is virtual. It releases force even if the force is not that of what is the case. Change one thing in the world, the play asks, and how else does everything change? In As You Like It, unlike Shakespeare's other plays, the characters themselves are both experiment and experimenters. They assert something about the world that they know is not the case, and their fictions let them explore what would happen if it were-and not only if it were, but something, not otherwise apparent, about how it is now. What is as you like it? What is it that you, or anyone, really likes or wants? The characters of As You Like It stand in 'if' as at a hinge of thought and action, conscious that they desire something, not wholly capable of getting it, not even able to say what it is. Their awareness that the world could be different than it is, is a step towards making it something that they wish it to be, and towards learning what that would be. Their audiences are not exempt. As You Like It doesn't tell us that it knows what we like and will give it to us. It pushes us to find out. Over the course of the play, characters and audiences experiment with other ways the world could be and come closer to learning what they do like, and how their world can be more as they like it. By exploring ways the world can be different than it is, the characters of As You Like It strive to make the world a place in which they can be at home, not as a utopia-Arden may promise that, but certainly doesn't fulfill it-but as an ongoing work of living. We get a sense at the play's end not that things have been settled once and for all, but that the characters have taken time to breathe-to live in their new situations until they discover better ones, or until they discover newer desires. As You Like It, in other words, is a kind of essay: a set of tests or attempts to be differently in the world, and to see what happens. These essays in As If: As You Like It, originally commissioned as an introductory guide for students, actors, and admirers of the play, trace the force and virtue of someof the claims of the play that run counter to what is the case-its 'ifs.' William N. West is Associate Professor of English, Classics, and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University, where he is also chair of the Department of Classics and co-editor of the journal Renaissance Drama. He is co-editor (with Helen Higbee) of Robert Weimann's Author's Pen and Actor's Voice: Writing and Playing in Shakespeare's Theatre (Cambridge, 2000) and (with Bryan Reynolds) of Rematerializing Shakespeare: Authority and Representation on the Early Modern Stage (Palgrave, 2005). In addition to his book Theatres and Encyclopedias in Early Modern Europe (2002), he has recently published articles on Romeo and Juliet's understudies, irony and encyclopedic writing before and after the Enlightenment, Ophelia's intertheatricality (with Gina Bloom and Anston Bosman), humanism and the resistance to theology, Shakespeare's matter, and conversation as a theory of knowledge in Browne's Pseudodoxia. His work has been supported by grants from the NEH and the Beinecke, Folger, Huntington, and Newberry libraries.

Sweet Swan of Avon

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Publisher : Peachpit Press
ISBN 13 : 0132797771
Total Pages : 406 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (327 download)

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Book Synopsis Sweet Swan of Avon by : Robin Williams

Download or read book Sweet Swan of Avon written by Robin Williams and published by Peachpit Press. This book was released on 2006-03-15 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is long overdue that someone took a closer look at the brilliant Mary Sidney. I have a suspicion that Mary Sidney’s life, and especially her dedication to the English language after her brother’s death, may throw important light on the mysterious authorship of the Shakespeare plays and poems. —Mark Rylance Actor; Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, 1996–2006; Chairman of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust For more than two hundred years, a growing number of researchers have questioned whether the man named William Shakespeare actually wrote the works attributed to him. There is no paper trail for William Shakespeare—no record that he was ever paid for writing, nothing in his handwriting but a few signatures on legal documents, no evidence of his presence in the royal court except as an actor in his later years, no confirmation of his involvement in the literary circles of the time. With so little information about this man—and even less evidence connecting him to the plays and sonnets—what can and what can’t we assume about the author of the greatest works of the English language? For the first time, Robin P. Williams presents an in-depth inquiry into the possibility that Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, wrote the works attributed to the man named William Shakespeare. As well educated as Queen Elizabeth I, this woman was at the forefront of the literary movement in England, yet not allowed to write for the public stage. But that’s just the beginning . . . The first question I am asked by curious freshmen in my Shakespeare course is always, “Who wrote these plays anyway?” Now, because of Robin Williams’ rigorous scholarship and artful sleuthing, Mary Sidney Herbert will forever have to be mentioned as a possible author of the Shakespeare canon. Sweet Swan of Avon doesn’t pretend to put the matter to rest, but simply shows how completely reasonable the authorship controversy is, and how the idea of a female playwright surprisingly answers more Shakespearean conundrums than it creates... —Cynthia Lee Katona Professor of Shakespeare and Women’s Studies, Ohlone College; Author of Book Savvy

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

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Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 0472024620
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance by : Nandi Bhatia

Download or read book Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance written by Nandi Bhatia and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its importance to literary and cultural texts of resistance, theater has been largely overlooked as a field of analysis in colonial and postcolonial studies. Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance seeks to address that absence, as it uniquely views drama and performance as central to the practice of nationalism and anti-colonial resistance. Nandi Bhatia argues that Indian theater was a significant force in the struggle against oppressive colonial and postcolonial structures, as it sought to undo various schemes of political and cultural power through its engagement with subjects derived from mythology, history, and available colonial models such as Shakespeare. Bhatia's attention to local histories within a postcolonial framework places performance in a global and transcultural context. Drawing connections between art and politics, between performance and everyday experience, Bhatia shows how performance often intervened in political debates and even changed the course of politics. One of the first Western studies of Indian theater to link the aesthetics and the politics of that theater, Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance combines in-depth archival research with close readings of dramatic texts performed at critical moments in history. Each chapter amplifies its themes against the backdrop of specific social conditions as it examines particular dramatic productions, from The Indigo Mirror to adaptations of Shakespeare plays by Indian theater companies, illustrating the role of theater in bringing nationalist, anticolonial, and gendered struggles into the public sphere. Nandi Bhatia is Associate Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario.