Shakespeare's Pictures is the first full-length study of visual objects in Shakespearean drama. In several plays (Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, among others) pictures are brought on stage - in the form of portraits or other images - as part of the dramatic action. Shakespeare's characters show, exchange and describe them. The pictures arouse in their beholders strong feelings, of desire, nostalgia or contempt, and sometimes even taking the place of the people they depict. The pictures presented in Shakespeare's work are part of the language of the drama, and they have a significant impact on theatrical performance, from Shakespeare's time to our own. Keir Elam pays close attention to the iconographic and literary contexts of Shakespeare's pictures while also exploring their role in performance history. Highly illustrated with 46 images, this volume examines the conflicted cooperation between the visual and the verbal.

Anonymous, directed by Roland Emmerich and written by John Orloff, speculates on an issue that has for centuries intrigued academics and brilliant minds, ranging from Mark Twain and Charles Dickens to Sigmund Freud, Orson Welles, and Sir John Gielgud, namely: Who was the author of the 38 plays and 154 sonnets credited to William Shakespeare? The movie poses one possible answer, focusing on a time when scandalous political intrigue, illicit romances in the royal court, and the schemes of greedy nobles hungry for the power of the throne were exposed in the most unlikely of places: the London stage. A riveting portrayal of the complex world of Shakespeare’s times, the movie stars Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis, Xavier Samuel, Sebastian Armesto, Rafe Spall, Edward Hogg, Jamie Campbell Bower, and Derek Jacobi. With 165 color images, this stunning visual companion captures the striking recreation of the Elizabethan period that imagines Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the plays credited to William Shakespeare. The brilliant work of the talented filmmakers is celebrated in this book that features: a fascinating introduction by director Roland Emmerich (The Patriot, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, Independence Day) an essay by screenwriter John Orloff (Band of Brothers, Legends of the Guardians, A Mighty Heart) essays on the Shakespeare authorship question by Mark Twain and by Charles Beauclerk (author of Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom) illustrated script excerpts, sidebars on historical references, concept drawings, and production illustrations commentaries from the cast and crew on the film’s production, cinematography, costume design, and visual effects an extensive bibliography In his introduction, Roland Emmerich tells how his reading of screenwriter John Orloff’s script “The Soul of the Age” led to his fascination with the Shakespeare authorship mystery as the two worked together for more than ten years on what finally became Anonymous. He writes about choosing the extraordinary cast and marvels at how his amazing production crew was able to recreate 16th-century London.

This mesmerizing retelling of Shakespeare's comic tragedy Titus Andronicus is as visually stunning as it is theatrically charged. For Taymor, the play "not only reflects dark events but turns them inside out, probing and challenging our fundamental beliefs on morality and justice." With the film, this uniquely talented director has transformed a largely overlooked lesser work of the great bard into a powerful, daring exploration of the contemporary human condition.

This 2002 Companion is designed for readers interested in past and present productions of Shakespeare's plays, both in and beyond Britain. The first six chapters describe aspects of the British performing tradition in chronological sequence, from the early staging of Shakespeare's own time, through to the present day. Each relates Shakespearean developments to broader cultural concerns and adopts an individual approach and focus, on textual adaptation, acting, stages, scenery or theatre management. These are followed by three explorations of acting: tragic and comic actors and women performers of Shakespeare roles. A section on international performance includes chapters on interculturalism, on touring companies and on political theatre, with separate accounts of the performing traditions of North America, Asia and Africa. Over forty pictures illustrate peformers and productions of Shakespeare from around the world. An amalgamated list of items for further reading completes the book.

Drawing on the poetics of intertextuality and profiting from the more recent concepts of cultural mobility and permeability between cultures in the early modern period, this volume’s tripartite structure considers the relationship between Renaissance material arts, theatre, and emblems as an integrated and intermedial genre, explores the use and function of Italian visual culture in Shakespeare’s oeuvre, and questions the appropriation of the arts in the production of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. An afterword, a rich bibliography of primary and secondary literature, and a detailed Index round off the volume.

A cutting-edge and comprehensive reassessment of the theories, practices and archival evidence that shape editorial approaches to Shakespeare's texts.

"Q. Is 'the Shakespeare connection' (a) a family tree, (b) a drug racket, (c) a railway journey? A. It is all three. From the Carling Black Label television advertisement to the design of the £20 note, from Tony Hancock and Edna Everage to the Stratford Memorial Theatre, from O level exam question to Zeffirelli on the big screen, Shakespeare has permeated English life like no one before or since. The plays and their legendary author function and flourish in more varied and diverse forms than are usually reckoned. Through post-structuralist linguistics, historiographical research, psychoanalytic theories and feminist sexual politics, radical criticism exposes the existence of a culturally produced and historically-determined 'Shakespeare myth'. This anthology of specifically-commissioned essays and interviews directly addresses that myth, as it works through ideology, popular culture, sexual politics, and the institutions of theatre, education and broadcasting. It demonstrates how the 'Shakespeare myth' functions in contemporary culture as an ideological framework for containing consensus and for sustaining delusions of unity, integration and harmony in the cultural superstructures of a divided and fractured society. For every particular present, Shakespeare is here, now, always, what is currently being made of him: to disclose the process of that making is the object of The Shakespeare myth." -- Back cover

Based on extensive archival research, Shakespeare in the Victorian Periodicals offers an entirely new perspective on popular Shakespeare reception by focusing on articles published in Victorian periodicals. Shakespeare had already reached the apex of British culture in the previous century, becoming the national poet of the middle and upper classes, but during the Victorian era he was embraced by more marginal groups. If Shakespeare was sometimes employed as an instrument of enculturation, imposed on these groups, he was also used by them to resist this cultural hegemony.

Seismic shifts in the theatrical meanings of The Merry Wives of Windsor have taken place across the centuries as Shakespeare’s frequently performed play has relocated to Windsor across the world, journeying along the production/adaptation/appropriation continuum. This (eco-)performance history of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor not only offers the first in-depth analysis of the play in production, with a particular focus on the representation of merry women, but also utilises the comedy’s forest-aware dramaturgy to explore Mistress Page’s concept of being ‘frugal in my mirth’ in relation to sustainable theatre practices. Herne’s Oak – the fictitious tree in Windsor Forest where everyone meets in the final scene of the play – is utilised to enable a maverick but ecologically based reframing of the productions of Merry Wives analysed here. This study engages with gender, physical comedy, and cultural relocations of Windsor across the world to offer new insight into Merry Wives and its theatricality.