Friday, March 6, 2009

Coming soon from McFarland (Shakespeare and the Middle Ages)

Shakespeare and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Performance and Adaptation of the Plays with Medieval Sources or Settings

Edited by Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray
Foreword by Michael Almereyda and Dakin Matthews

ISBN 978-0-7864-3405-3
ca. 55 photos, filmography, notes, bibliography, index
softcover (7 x 10) 2009

Price: $39.95

Not Yet Published, Available Spring/Summer 2009

Description
Every generation reinvents Shakespeare for its own needs, imagining through its particular choices and emphases the Shakespeare that it values. Shakespeare himself was deeply involved in his own kind of historical reimagining. This collection of essays examines the playwright’s medieval sources and inspiration, and how they shaped and informed his works. With an introduction by Michael Almereyda, director of Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke, and dramaturge Dakin Matthews, these thirteen essays analyze the ways in which our modern understanding of medieval life has been influenced by our appreciation of Shakespeare’s plays.

About the Author
Martha W. Driver is Distinguished Professor of English at Pace University.

Sid Ray is a Professor of English and women’s and gender studies at Pace University.

1 comment:

  1. The contents have finally been uploaded to McFarland's web site:

    Table of Contents

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi
    FOREWORD: “THE SKELETON IN THE MIRROR”
    Michael Almereyda and Dakin Matthews 1
    GENERAL INTRODUCTION
    Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray 7

    Part I. “Abstract and Brief Chronicles of Time”: The Histories
    INTRODUCTION TO PART I
    Martha W. Driver 21
    “Richard’s Himself Again”: The Body of Richard III on Stage and Screen
    Jim Casey 27
    Falstaff in America
    Catherine Loomis 49
    Scoring the Fields of the Dead: Musical Styles and Approaches to Postbattle Scenes from Henry V (1944, 1989)
    Linda K. Schubert 62

    Part II. “Carnal, Bloody, and Unnatural Acts”: The Tragedies
    INTRODUCTION TO PART II
    Martha W. Driver 81
    “We’re Everyone You Depend On”: Filming Shakespeare’s Peasants
    Carl James Grindley 89
    Medieval Hamlet in Performance
    Patrick J. Cook 105
    Finding Gruoch: The Hidden Genealogy of Lady Macbeth in Text and Cinematic Performance
    Sid Ray 116

    Part III. “Many Merry Men”: The Comedies
    INTRODUCTION TO PART III
    Sid Ray 135
    Reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream through Middle English Romance
    Martha W. Driver 140
    “Chaucer ... the Story Gives”: Troilus and Cressida and The Two Noble Kinsmen
    Julia Ruth Briggs 161
    Shakespeare’s Virgin Mother on the Modern Stage: All’s Well, That Ends Well and the Madonna del Parto Tradition
    Gary Waller 178

    Part IV. “Tragical-Comical-Historical-Pastoral”: The Romances
    INTRODUCTION TO PART IV
    Sid Ray 195
    “The Quick and the Dead”: Performing the Poet Gower in Pericles
    Kelly Jones 201
    Shakespeare as Medievalist: What It Means for Performing Pericles
    R. F. Yeager 215
    A Touch of Chaucer in The Winter’s Tale
    Louise M. Bishop 232
    Caliban’s God: The Medieval and Renaissance Man in the Moon
    Kim Zarins 245

    ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 263
    INDEX 267

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