Julie Sanders

Susan Wiseman

Kate Chedgzoy

This collection of multi-authored essays not only refashions and revises critical understandings of the early modern dramatist Ben Jonson and his canon of work, but is also self-reflexive about the process. It includes original essays by both established and emergent Jonson scholars, and employs materialist, feminist and queer theory in the production of its readings of Jonsonian playtexts and masques, familiar and otherwise. It is intended to encourage new approaches by students to this central figure from the Renaissance.

Gender, Politics, and the Jonsonian Canon

Refashioning Ben Jonson

In a time exceptionally preoccupied with the relations between the personal and the political, sexuality and power, Measure for Measure is one of the most frequently staged and discussed of Shakespeare's plays. Drawing on performance history and current critical approaches, this study considers the play in relation to its historical contexts and contemporary relevance. It traces the dramatic unfolding of the plot through the social and theatrical spaces of Shakespeare's Vienna: court, convent, prison, and public street. It explores the intertwining of religion, sexuality, politics and morality in the institutions associated with the maintenance of social order in Vienna, and asks whether the world of the play holds open any possibilities for challenging the power of these institutions. The reader is led carefully through some of Measure for Measure's most problematic moments, but the compelling theatrical pleasures offered by this strange and fascinating play are not overlooked.

Measure for Measure

William Shakespeare

Over the last quarter-century, feminist criticism of Shakespeare has greatly expanded and enriched the range of interpretations of the Shakespearean texts, their original historical location, and subsequent reinterpretation. Characteristically it weaves between past and present, driven by a commitment both to intervene in contemporary cultural politics and to recover a fuller sense of the sexual politics of the literary heritage. Collecting together essays which offer detailed accounts of particular plays with others that take a broader overview of the field, this Casebook showcases the range of critical strategies used by feminist criticism, and illustrates how vital attention to the politics of gender and sexuality is to a full understanding and appreciation of Shakespearean drama.

Shakespeare, Feminism and Gender

This book argues that Shakespeare is not the exclusive possession of any one social group or cultural formation, but has provided an enabling and empowering resource which has allowed 'other' radical voices to be heard.

Kate Chedgzoy

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