Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest--three of Shakespeare's final plays diverge from his usual standards. Mowat posits that by confronting the comic form with the tragic, the realistic with the artificial, the dramatic with the narrative, Shakespeare frees romance from the traditional bounds and makes meaning in a new way.

This book examines Shakespeare's response in his late plays to the challenge of making romance stories believable through theatrical representation and the kind of experience the late plays in performance seek to create for their spectators. Taking The Winter's Tale as a case study, the book's central chapters demonstrate how Shakespeare tests and transforms the techniques to create the sweeping, restorative transformations of individuals and communities that are central to both earlier dramatic romances and Shakespeare's own romance experiments. The book's three other chapters address the methodologies for study of spectator's experience through a dramatic text, the history of dramatic romance to 1610, and Shakespeare's further experiments with the staging of romance after The Winter's Tale.-

This expansive four-volume work gives students detailed explanations of Shakespeare's plays and poems and also covers his age, life, theater, texts, and language. Numerous excerpts from primary source historical documents contextualize his works, while reviews of productions chronicle his performance history and reception. Shakespeare's works often served to convey simple truths, but they are also complex, multilayered masterpieces. Shakespeare drew on varied sources to create his plays, and while the plays are sometimes set in worlds before the Elizabethan age, they nonetheless parallel and comment on situations in his own era. Written with the needs of students in mind, this four-volume set demystifies Shakespeare for today's readers and provides the necessary perspective and analysis students need to better appreciate the genius of his work. This indispensable ready reference examines Shakespeare's plots, language, and themes; his use of sources and exploration of issues important to his age; the interpretation of his works through productions from the Renaissance to the present; and the critical reaction to key questions concerning his writings. The book provides coverage of each key play and poems in discrete sections, with each section presenting summaries; discussions of themes, characters, language, and imagery; and clear explications of key passages. Readers will be able to inspect historical documents related to the topics explored in the work being discussed and view excerpts from Shakespeare's sources as well as reviews of major productions. The work also provides a comprehensive list of print and electronic resources suitable for student research.

"This updated edition should be welcomed by anyone interested in Shakespeare. Particularly useful are its pithy introductions and bibliographies on various critical approaches". -- David Bevington, editor of Complete Works of Shakespeare. "A handy, compact map to the changing and contested field of Shakespeare studies". -- Bruce R. Smith, author of Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

In this book, leading international Shakespeare scholars consider the significant characteristics of Shakespeare's last plays and place them in their Jacobean context.

Romance is a varied and fluid literary genre, notoriously difficult to define. This groundbreaking Companion surveys the many permutations of romance throughout the ages. Considers the literary and historical development of the romance genre from its classical origins to the present day Incorporates discussion of the changing readership of romance and of romance’s special relation to women readers Comprises 30 essays written by leading authorities on different periods and sub-genres Challenges the idea that the appeal of romance is exclusively escapist Draws on a wide range of specific and influential literary examples

Bringing together leading scholars, critics, and theatre practitioners, this collection of essays is devoted to 'The History of Cardenio', a play based on Don Quixote and said to have been written by Shakespeare and the young man who was taking his place, John Fletcher.

"The Shakespeare studied in this book is Shakespeare the playmaker, engaged in every step of the process from the first draft of the text to the performance before a live audience. This, the author contends, is the Shakespeare that is most essential, the Shakespeare who should be known as the foundation underlying any other treatment of the plays, and the Shakespeare most exciting and rewarding to pursue."--Jacket.

William Shakespeare’s last four plays carry us across space and time—from classical antiquity to Roman Britain to pagan Sicily to a remote island—and they move as well into a wilder geography of the imagination, one dominated by the wondrous and fantastical, and by reconciliation and renewal. Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest are famously fraught with shipwrecks and adventures, magic and disguise, speaking statues and ethereal spirits, tragic deceptions and moving reunions, and they number among the most enduringly delightful of Shakespeare’s works. The texts of the plays, authoritatively edited by Sylvan Barnet, are supplemented here with textual notes, a bibliography, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, and a substantial introduction in which acclaimed scholar Tony Tanner discusses each play individually and in the context of Shakespeare’s oeuvre.

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.