A Selective Study Of English History Plays In The Period Between 1960 And 1977

Download or read book Shakespeare's History Plays written by A. J. Hoenselaars and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-23 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, with a foreword by Dennis Kennedy, addresses a range of attitudes to Shakespeare's English history plays in Britain and abroad from the early seventeenth century to the present day. It concentrates on the play texts as well as productions, translations and adaptations of them. The essays explore the multiple points of intersection between the English history they recount and the experience of British and other national cultures, establishing the plays as genres not only relevant to the political and cultural history of Britain but also to the history of nearly every nation worldwide. The plays have had a rich international reception tradition but critics and theatre historians abroad, those practising 'foreign' Shakespeare, have tended to ignore these plays in favour of the comedies and tragedies. By presenting the British and foreign Shakespeare traditions side by side, this volume seeks to promote a more finely integrated world Shakespeare.