Over the past three decades, no critical movement has been more prominent in Shakespeare Studies than new historicism. And yet, it remains notoriously difficult to pin down, define and explain, let alone analyze. Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of new historicism as a development in Shakespeare studies while asking fundamental questions about its status as literary theory and its continued usefulness as a method of approaching Shakespeare's plays.

Shakespeare's History Plays boldly moves criticism of Shakespeare's history plays beyond anti-humanist theoretical approaches. This important intervention in the critical and theoretical discourse of Shakespeare studies summarises, evaluates and ultimately calls time on the mode of criticism that has prevailed in Shakespeare studies over the past thirty years. It heralds a new, more dynamic way of reading Shakespeare as a supremely intelligent and creative political thinker, whose history plays address and illuminate the very questions with which cultural historicists have been so preoccupied since the 1980s. In providing bold and original readings of the first and second tetralogies (Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II and Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2), the book reignites old debates and re-energises recent bids to humanise Shakespeare and to restore agency to the individual in the critical readings of his plays

Individual chapters deal with cultural materialism, new historicism, poststructuralism, and feminist criticism. The theoretical basis of each critical mode is examined and some representative critiques analyzed. Most importantly, in each chapter the various interpretations are tested against Shakespeare's texts, and the strengths and weaknesses of the different readings are assessed.

The Chicago Shakespeare Theater is widely known for vibrant productions that reflect the Bard's genius for intricate storytelling, musicality of language, and depth of feeling for the human condition. Affectionately known to natives of the Windy City as "Chicago Shakes," this vanguard of Chicago's rich theatrical tradition celebrates its silver anniversary with this bracing collection of original essays by world-renowned scholars, directors, actors, and critics. Chicago Shakespeare Theater unveils the artistic visions and decisions that helped shape this venerable institution and examines the theater's international reputation for staging such remarkable and provocative performances. The volume brings together works by such heralded drama critics as Terry Teachout, Jonathan Abarbanel, and Michael Billington; theater industry giants like Michael Bogdanov, Edward Hall, and Simon Callow; interviews with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater's own Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Executive Director Criss Henderson; and essays by such noted figures in academe as Clark Hulse, Wendy Wall, and Michael Shapiro.

The last half of the twentieth century has seen the emergence of literary theory as a new discipline. As with any body of scholarship, various schools of thought exist, and sometimes conflict, within it. I.R. Makaryk has compiled a welcome guide to the field. Accessible and jargon-free, the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory provides lucid, concise explanations of myriad approaches to literature that have arisen over the past forty years. Some 170 scholars from around the world have contributed their expertise to this volume. Their work is organized into three parts. In Part I, forty evaluative essays examine the historical and cultural context out of which new schools of and approaches to literature arose. The essays also discuss the uses and limitations of the various schools, and the key issues they address. Part II focuses on individual theorists. It provides a more detailed picture of the network of scholars not always easily pigeonholed into the categories of Part I. This second section analyses the individual achievements, as well as the influence, of specific scholars, and places them in a larger critical context. Part III deals with the vocabulary of literary theory. It identifies significant, complex terms, places them in context, and explains their origins and use. Accessibility is a key feature of the work. By avoiding jargon, providing mini-bibliographies, and cross-referencing throughout, Makaryk has provided an indispensable tool for literary theorists and historians and for all scholars and students of contemporary criticism and culture.

Published with academic researchers and graduate students in mind, this volume of the 'Shakespeare Survey' presents a number of contributions on the theme of the play 'Macbeth'.

Over the past three decades, no critical movement has been more prominent in Shakespeare Studies than new historicism. And yet, it remains notoriously difficult to pin down, define and explain, let alone analyze. Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of new historicism as a development in Shakespeare studies while asking fundamental questions about its status as literary theory and its continued usefulness as a method of approaching Shakespeare's plays.

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment brings together 42 of the most important scholars writing on the subject today. They explore representations of gender in the context of race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and religion, and consider Shakespeare's life, contemporary editing practices, and the performance of his plays.

Examines the aesthetics, concepts and politics of chaotic and obscured moving images.

This book offers a theoretical rationale for the emerging presentist movement in Shakespeare studies and goes on to show, in a series of close readings, that a presentist Shakespeare is not an anachronism. Relying on a Brechtian aesthetic of "naïve surrealism" as the performative model of the early modern, urban, public theater, James O’Rourke demonstrates how this Brechtian model is able to capture the full range of interplays that could take place between Shakespeare’s words, the nonillusionist performance devices of the early modern stage, and the live audiences that shared the physical space of the theatre with Shakespeare’s actors. O’Rourke argues that the limitations placed upon the critical energies of early modern drama by the influential new historicist paradigm of contained subversion is based on a poetics of the sublime, which misrepresents the performative aesthetic of the theater as a self-sufficient spectacle that compels reception in its own terms. Reimagining Shakespeare as our contemporary, O’Rourke shows how the immanent critical logic of Shakespeare’s works can enter into dialogue with our most sophisticated critiques of our cultural fictions.