Providing a unique combination of well-written, up-to-date background information and intriguing selections from primary documents, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare introduces students to the topics most important to the study of Shakespeare in their full historical and cultural context. This new edition contains many new documents, particularly by women and other marginalized voices from the early modern period. There is also a new chapter on Shakespeare in performance, which introduces students to the great variety of productions of Shakespeare's works over the centuries.

Finally, the collected works you’ve been waiting for: visual, historical, contextualized. Based on the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of the text, The Bedford Shakespeare gathers the 25 most frequently taught plays and augments them with the rich historical and contextual materials you expect from Bedford/St. Martin’s. Thoughtful, provocative analysis by eminent scholars Russ McDonald and Lena Cowen Orlin offers students concrete entry points into the plays and creates opportunities for lively classroom discussion. A lavish collection of images throughout the book features production shots, paintings, film stills, Renaissance woodcuts, maps, and more, to help students visualize what they are reading.

'Russ McDonald... offers an initiation into Shakespeares English.... Like a good musician leading us beyond merely humming the tunes, he helps us hear Shakespearean unclarity, revealing just how expression in late Shakespeare sometimes transcends ordinary verbal meaning.... particularly recommendable.' -Ruth Morse, Times Literary Supplement 'Oxford University Press offer a mix of engagingly written introductions to a variety of Topics intended largely for undergraduates. Each author has clearly been reading and listening to the most recent scholarship, but they wear their learning lightly.' -Ruth Morse, Times Literary SupplementOxford Shakespeare Topics (General Editors Peter Holland and Stanley Wells) 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. Notes and a critical guide to further reading equip the interested reader with the means to broaden research. For the modern reader or playgoer, English as Shakespeare used it - especially in verse drama - can seem alien. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language offers practical help with linguistic and poetic obstacles. Written in a lucid, nontechnical style, the book defines Shakespeare's artistic tools, including imagery, rhetoric, and wordplay, and illustrates their effects. Throughout, the reader is encouraged to find delight in the physical properties of the words: their colour, weight, and texture, the appeal of verbal patterns, and the irresistible affective power of intensified language.

Providing a unique combination of well-written, up-to-date background information and intriguing selections from primary documents, "The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare" introduces students to the topics most important to the study of Shakespeare in their full historical and cultural context.

Shakespeare: Criticism and Theory is an anthology of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century. An anthology of about 50 of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century. Introduces students to the variety of theoretical positions, thematic claims, methodologies, and modes of argument in Shakespeare criticism over the last 50 years. Critical views represented range from the old style historicism of E.M.W. Tillyard and the new criticism of William Empson to the new historicism of Stephen Greenblatt and the feminist perspective of Catherine Belsey. Pieces are organised into categories of critical thought and introduced in clear language. Most pieces are reproduced in their entirety.

This landmark collection of newly-commissioned essays by leading international scholars, offers expert close readings of Shakespeare and other early modern authors. The book is an intervention into current critical methodology as well as an invaluable tool for all students of the literature of the period, exemplifying the possibilities of close reading in the hands of a range of gifted practitioners. Chapters cover a range of key texts from Shakespeare and other major writers of the period such as Milton, Donne, Jonson and Sidney. This is a unique collection as no other book offers such a rich variety of self-contained, short-form close readings. As such it can be used in the undergraduate classroom as well as by scholars and post-graduates and will also appeal to literary readers with an enthusiasm for Shakespeare. Contributors include leading Shakespeareans Stanley Wells, Stanley Fish, Coppelia Kahn and Lukas Erne.

"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.