William Shakespeare

Jill L. Levenson

Professor of English Jill L Levenson

Romeo and Juliet

A Critical Edition of the Anonymous Elizabethan Play The Weakest Goeth to the Wall

Daniel Fischlin

Sky Gilbert

Overpowering adolescent passion at odds with a troubled adult world: this ancient tale was never more grippingly told than Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where two youths come together in a love that is both transformative and death-marked. The society around them lacks flexibility, failing to govern this destabilizing energy.

Shakespeare scholar Jill L. Levenson-whose work on this play has opened new readings of Romeo and Juliet internationally-shows how the play's treatment of gender, class, sexuality, and political fragmentation has found rich resonance in Canada. There are a variety of surprisingly creative adaptations not just in French and English but also, for example, in French and Attikamek. From ballet to Ann-Marie MacDonald's award-winning play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), Romeo and Juliet remains a compelling exploration of passion and violence.
--back cover

Jill L. Levenson

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