Shakespeare Without Women is a controversial study of female impersonation, and the connections between dramatic and political representation in Shakespeare's plays. In this original and challenging book, Callaghan argues that Shakespeare did not include women, and that his transvestite actors did not represent women, and were not, furthermore, meant to do so. All Shakespeare's actors were, of historical necessity, (white) males which meant that the portrayal of women and racial others posed unique problems for his theatre. What is important, Shakespeare Without Women claims, is not to bemoan the absence of women, Africans, or the Irish, but to determine what such absences meant in their historical context and why they matter today. Callaghan focuses in the implications of absence and exclusion in several of Shakespeare's works: * the exclusion of the female body fromTwelfth Night * the impersonation of the female voice in the original performances of the plays * racial impersonation in Othello * echoes of removal of the Gaelic Irish in The Tempest * the absence of women on stage and in public life as shown in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Covers Elizabethan theater, later changes in theatrical practice, scholarly interpretations, staging problems, analysis of principal characters. "Not an obscure or otherwise dull page in the book." — N.Y. Times Book Review.

SHAKESPEARE WITHOUT FEAR guides novice actors through Shakespearean verse, helping them understand dialogue, its meaning and purpose, and finally, helping them interpret it in their acting. It teaches actors how to use verse scansion, rhetoric, and vocal scoring to obtain the desired results from their own acting as well as from others in a scene. Written in the format of a dialogue between a student and an instructor, SHAKESPEARE WITHOUT FEAR explores a student's point of view, addressing the concerns of a first-time Shakespearean actor. The author writes with a sense of humor in a clear, unintimidating style.

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

As a high school and college student, Mary Janell Metzger sat through old-school lectures that swamped Shakespeare in literary tradition and form, leaving no breathing room for individual interpretation. As a teacher, she yearned to connect students to Shakespeare's plays, and in Shakespeare Without Fear she tells you how she finally removed the barrier between text and inquiry by focusing on the rich interactive possibilities between student, teacher, and bard. Shakespeare Without Fear offers methods that will get students emotionally and imaginatively involved with the plays while developing their capacity for critical judgment. Ideal for the experienced teacher as well as for the English Education methods course, Shakespeare Without Fear first debunks the idolatry and polarizing academic politics surrounding the study of Shakespeare and then allays reader anxieties by setting up the plays as engaging historical works instead of items to check off a cultural literacy list. Next Metzger takes you into real classrooms for a complete look at how she and other educators teach several major works, including Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, offering both a framework for teaching any Shakespearean drama and play-specific essential questions for teaching ten of his other most popular plays. Covering topics like teaching to standards, the challenges nonnative speakers face reading Shakespeare, and formatting lessons for AP instruction, Shakespeare Without Fear will help you create conditions where Shakespeare explodes off the page and into the imaginations of your students.

Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? This authoritative collection of essays brings fresh perspectives to bear on an intriguing cultural phenomenon.

Though written nearly four hundred years ago, the stories in Shakespeare's plays are relevant to any age. Stories of love, hate, jealousy, murder, greed, and magic. Comedies and tragedies to appeal to every taste. Humphrey Carpenter has retold the stories from twelve of Shakespeare's plays in an original and exciting way. Using contemporary language, each story is told from a different character's point of view and in a different style. Includes retellings of: Hamlet Twelfth Night Julius Caesar A Midsummer Night's Dream Macbeth Much Ado About Nothing King Lear The Merchant of Venice Othello As You Like It The Winter's Tale The Tempest

An electrifying new study that investigates the challenges of the Bard’s inconsistencies and flaws, and focuses on revealing—not resolving—the ambiguities of the plays and their changing topicality A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn’t tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant. In This Is Shakespeare, Emma Smith—an intellectually, theatrically, and ethically exciting writer—takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting, as we watch Shakespeare emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd (the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day), flirting with and skirting around the cutthroat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval, and technological change. Smith writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity, and sex. Instead of offering the answers, the Shakespeare she reveals poses awkward questions, always inviting the reader to ponder ambiguities.