Here is a book that will bring a breath of fresh air into your Shakespeare class; an exercise of surreal imagination that brings Shakespeare to life in order to defend himself against all who have suffered as a result of his overwhelming success. Tormented by the challenge of having to try and understand his complex works in order to pass exams, his victims are represented by their champion the Prosecutor, who accuses Shakespeare of mental cruelty. Using characters from some of his well-known plays to spearhead his argument, the Prosecutor builds a strong case with the view to destroying Shakespeare's reputation and thus releasing the stranglehold he has over the English education system. But is he up to the task? Realising how they have been used by the Prosecutor, Shakespeare's characters hatch a plan to try and persuade the Prosecutor to drop his charges in order to secure their continued existence. The outcome, however, is not one that they could have predicted; nor for that matter, is it one that the Prosecutor or even Shakespeare could have foreseen. The Trial of William Shakespeare provides a gateway into the world of Shakespeare and his plays, allowing you to bring your students into contact with many of the important aspects of his life and times that help to lead them to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the man and his works. And all through the medium of a play script – what could be more appropriate?

Demonstrates that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon really did write the plays and poems attributed to him via a literary forensics case that puts all other authorship theories to rest.

In Shakespeare and Abraham, Ken Jackson illuminates William Shakespeare’s dramatic fascination with the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22. Themes of child killing fill Shakespeare’s early plays: Genesis 22 informed Clifford’s attack on young Rutland in 3 Henry 6, Hubert’s providentially thwarted murder of Arthur in King John, and Aaron the Moor’s surprising decision to spare his son amidst the filial slaughters of Titus Andronicus, among others. However, the playwright’s full engagement with the biblical narrative does not manifest itself exclusively in scenes involving the sacrifice of children or in verbal borrowings from the famously sparse story of Abraham. Jackson argues that the most important influence of Genesis 22 and its interpretive tradition is to be found in the conceptual framework that Shakespeare develops to explore relationships among ideas of religion, sovereignty, law, and justice. Jackson probes the Shakespearean texts from the vantage of modern theology and critical theory, while also orienting them toward the traditions concerning Abraham in Jewish, Pauline, patristic, medieval, and Reformation sources and early English drama. Consequently, the playwright’s “Abrahamic explorations” become strikingly apparent in unexpected places such as the “trial” of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and the bifurcated structure of Timon of Athens. By situating Shakespeare in a complex genealogy that extends from ancient religion to postmodern philosophy, Jackson inserts Shakespeare into the larger contemporary conversation about religion in the modern world.

Contains the material gathered by the author's investigation into the identity of the real Shakespeare--Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

Is King Lear an autonomous text, or a rewrite of the earlier and anonymous play King Leir? Should we refer to Shakespeare’s original quarto when discussing the play, the revised folio text, or the popular composite version, stitched together by Alexander Pope in 1725? What of its stage variations? When turning from page to stage, the critical view on King Lear is skewed by the fact that for almost half of the four hundred years the play has been performed, audiences preferred Naham Tate's optimistic adaptation, in which Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after. When discussing King Lear, the question of what comprises ‘the play’ is both complex and fragmentary. These issues of identity and authenticity across time and across mediums are outlined, debated, and considered critically by the contributors to this volume. Using a variety of approaches, from postcolonialism and New Historicism to psychoanalysis and gender studies, the leading international contributors to King Lear: New Critical Essays offer major new interpretations on the conception and writing, editing, and cultural productions of King Lear. This book is an up-to-date and comprehensive anthology of textual scholarship, performance research, and critical writing on one of Shakespeare's most important and perplexing tragedies. Contributors Include: R.A. Foakes, Richard Knowles, Tom Clayton, Cynthia Clegg, Edward L. Rocklin, Christy Desmet, Paul Cantor, Robert V. Young, Stanley Stewart and Jean R. Brink