The Bedford Shakespeare
First Edition ©2015
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
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Revolutionize the way your students read Shakespeare
Revolutionize the way your students read Shakespeare
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.
"An exhilaratingly modern edition, clearly designed for contemporary readers, but offering a keen sense of historical context."—Kim F. Hall, Barnard College"The editors elaborate without condescending and are well attuned to the status of the plays as poetry, as cultural artifacts, and as the artistic achievements that continue to generate productions on the stage, in film, and in other kinds of writing. These are editors I trust."—Timothy Billings, Middlebury College"I love the Asides. They do what footnotes can’t do—they draw attention to cruxes and issues that might be obscured for 21st-century readers—without enforcing a reading of the play. For the instructor, this is great: it will stimulate real discussion."—Karen Raber, The University of Mississippi"This is an ambitious, original, and exciting concept. Like all mold-breakers it prompts the question, ‘Why has no-one thought of this before?’ . . . The Bedford Shakespeare is a project designed for the Internet generation."—Laurie Maguire, Oxford University
Table of Contents
PREFACE READING SHAKESPEARE The Comedy of Errors Biography Titus Andronicus Bodies The Taming of the Shrew Discovery Richard III Empire Romeo and Juliet Gender A Midsummer Night’s Dream Genealogy Richard II Genre The Merchant of Venice Households 1 Henry IV Language Much Ado about Nothing Law 2 Henry IV London As You Like It Monarchy Henry V Nature Julius Caesar Players Hamlet Playhouses Twelfth Night Race Othello Religion Troilus and Cressida Renaissance Measure for Measure SCREENING SHAKESPEARE King Lear Society Macbeth Sources Coriolanus STAGING SHAKESPEARE Antony and Cleopatra Texts The Winter’s Tale World The Tempest The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Works CitedIndexAuthors
Russ McDonald
Russ McDonald is Professor of English Literature at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Having taught at five American universities, he is the winner of multiple awards for distinguished teaching, including North Carolina Professor of the Year. For a decade he helped to direct the NEH-sponsored Teaching Shakespeare Institute for secondary teachers at the Folger Library, and his pedagogical commitment led to his publishing the widely-adopted Bedford Companion to Shakespeare. A specialist in Shakespeare’s poetic language, he has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Mellon Foundation. His scholarly works include Shakespeare’s Late Style, Shakespeare and the Arts of Language, and other books and articles on Shakespeare and early modern writing and culture. In 2010-11 he served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America. He also writes regularly for Opera magazine.
Lena Cowen Orlin
Lena Cowen Orlin is Professor of English at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Shakespeare Association of America. She serves on the editorial boards of two Shakespeare journals, is co-editor of the Arden Shakespeare Critical Currents Series, and sits on executive committees for the International Shakespeare Association and the International Shakespeare Conference of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. As Executive Director of the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library, she developed many programs for college teachers of Shakespeare. She has co-edited Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide and is editor of A Sourcebook for English Studies: The Renaissance. She also publishes on the social, economic, and architectural history of Shakespeares times and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the Folger Library, the Huntington Library, and the Yale Center for British Art. Her books include Private Matters and Public Culture in Post-Reformation England and Locating Privacy in Tudor London.
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Notes on the Text for The Bedford Shakespeare
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