Edward Albee, perhaps best known for his acclaimed and infamous 1960s drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is one of America's greatest living playwrights. Now in his seventies, he is still writing challenging, award-winning dramas. This collection of essays on Albee, which includes contributions from the leading commentators on Albee's work, brings fresh critical insights to bear by exploring the full scope of the playwright's career, from his 1959 breakthrough with The Zoo Story to his recent Broadway success, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (2002). The contributors include scholars of both theatre and English literature, and the essays thus consider the plays both as literary texts and as performed drama. The collection considers a number of Albee's lesser-known and neglected works, provides a comprehensive introduction and overview, and includes an exclusive, original interview with Mr Albee, on topics spanning his whole career.

This updated Companion offers students crucial guidance on virtually every aspect of the work of this complex and controversial writer. It brings together the contrasting views of major critics and active practitioners, and this edition introduces more voices and themes. The opening essays place Brecht's creative work in its historical and biographical context and are followed by chapters on single texts, from The Threepenny Opera to The Caucasian Chalk Circle, on some early plays and on the Lehrstücke. Other essays analyse Brecht's directing, his poetry, his interest in music and his work with actors. This revised edition also contains additional essays on his early experience of cabaret, his significance in the development of film theory and his unique approach to dramaturgy. A detailed calendar of Brecht's life and work and a selective bibliography of English criticism complete this provocative overview of a writer who constantly aimed to provoke.

Edward Albee (1928–2016) was a central figure in modern American theatre, and his bold and often experimental theatrical style won him wide acclaim. This book explores the issues, public and private, that so influenced Albee's vision over five decades, from his first great success, The Zoo Story (1959), to his last play, Me, Myself, & I (2008). Matthew Roudané covers all of Albee's original works in this comprehensive, clearly structured, and up-to-date study of the playwright's life and career: in Part I, the volume explores Albee's background and the historical contexts of his work; Part II concentrates on twenty-four of his plays, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962); and Part III investigates his critical reception. Surveying Albee's relationship with Broadway, and including interviews conducted with Albee himself, this book will be of great importance for theatregoers and students seeking an accessible yet incisive introduction to this extraordinary American playwright.

Providing a comprehensive overview of American thought in the period following World War II, after which the US became a global military and economic leader, this book explores the origins of American utopianism and provides a trenchant critique from the point of view of those left out of the hegemonic ideal. Centring the voices of those oppressed by or omitted from the consumerist American Dream, this book celebrates alternative ways of thinking about how to create a better world through daily practices of generosity, justice, and care. The chapters collected here emphasize utopianism as a practice of social transformation, not as a literary genre depicting a putatively perfect society, and urgently make the case for why we need utopian thought today. With chapters on climate change, economic justice, technology, and more, alongside chapters exploring utopian traditions outside Western frameworks, this book opens a new discussion in utopian thought and theory.

In his short life, William Morris (1834-96) combined the roles of poet, author, painter, designer, translator, lecturer, political activist, journalist, weaver, bookmaker, and businessman. This volume draws together influential voices from different disciplines who have participated in the recent critical, political, and curatorial revival of his work, with essays exploring the contemporary resonance of his exceptional legacy. As a critic of capitalism, his thinking has thrived in these years of financial crisis; as a theorist of work and craftsmanship, his legacy interacts with a more recent ethics of making that questions the values of 'off-shored' production; and as a protector of landscape and buildings Morris's concern with what is precious strikes a chord in our age of environmental crisis. At the same time, a careful and scholarly approach observes the particularity of Morris's context, in a way that confounds the 'false friends' of hasty historical reception and reveals unexpected connections.

Nelson Mandela was one of the most revered figures of our time. He committed himself to a compelling political cause, suffered a long prison sentence, and led his violent and divided country to a peaceful democratic transition. His legacy, however, is not uncontested: his decision to embark on an armed struggle in the 1960s, his solitary talks with apartheid officials in the 1980s, and the economic policies adopted during his presidency still spark intense debate, even after his death. The essays in this Companion, written by experts in history, anthropology, jurisprudence, cinema, literature, and visual studies, address these and other issues. They examine how Mandela became an icon during his lifetime and consider the meanings and uses of his internationally recognizable image. Their overarching concerns include Mandela's relation to 'tradition' and 'modernity', the impact of his most famous public performances, the oscillation between Africanist and non-racial positions in South Africa, and the politics of gender and national sentiment. The volume concludes with a meditation on Mandela's legacy in the twenty-first century and a detailed guide to further reading.

Fifteen short, accessible essays exploring the most important topics and themes in John Milton's masterpiece, Paradise Lost. The essays invite readers to begin their own independent exploration of the poem by equipping them with useful background knowledge, introducing them to key passages, and acquainting them with the current state of critical debates. Chapters are arranged to mirror the way the poem itself unfolds, offering exactly what readers need as they approach each movement of its grand design. Part I introduces the characters who frame the poem's story and set its plot and theological dynamics in motion. Part II deals with contextual issues raised by the early books, while Part III examines the epic's central and final episodes. The volume concludes with a meditation on the history of the poem's reception and a detailed guide to further reading, offering students and teachers of Milton fresh critical insights and resources for continuing scholarship.

A key introductory guide for students to Bede's cultural world, his writings, and his reputation in later times.

John Bunyan was a major figure in seventeenth-century Puritan literature, and one deeply embroiled in the religious upheavals of his times. This Companion considers all his major texts, including The Pilgrim's Progress and his autobiography Grace Abounding. The essays, by leading Bunyan scholars, place these and his other works in the context of seventeenth-century history and literature. They discuss such key issues as the publication of dissenting works, the history of the book, gender, the relationship between literature and religion, between literature and early modern radicalism, and the reception of seventeenth-century texts. Other chapters assess Bunyan's importance for the development of allegory, life-writing, the early novel and children's literature. This Companion provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to an author with an assured and central place in English literature.

A historical overview of autobiography from the works of Augustine, Montaigne, and Rousseau to the Romantic, Victorian, and modern eras.