Title: The authentic Shakespear: and other problems of the early modern stage /
Authors: Orgel, Stephen
Publisher: Routledge,
Year: 2002
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, Stage history; Shakespeare, William, Criticism, Textual.; Theater England History; Theater England History; Playwriting History; Playwriting History
Abstract: In this lavishly illustrated book, one of the most important and influential scholars of the Renaissance stage brings together essays that have changed the way we think about the age of Shakespeare. His subjects are varied and interconnected: the theater as social phenomenon, the development of the stage as an architectural presence and a cultural institution, the changing use of setting and costume, the changing status of the acting profession, the complex relation of theater to the political life of the age. Most of all, The Authentic Shakespeare is about how the modern constructs the past, how the texts that were performed on the Elizabethan stage became the books and editions that are, for our time, Renaissance drama. Many essays in The Authentic Shakespeare have become classics. Collected here for the first time, they essential reading for students of the Renaissance stage and the history of the book.
Contents: What is a text? -- What is a character? -- What is an editor? -- Acting scripts, performing texts -- The poetics of spectacle -- The spectacles of state -- The Renaissance poet as plagiarist -- Gendering the crown -- The play of conscience -- Shakespeare and the kinds of drama -- Macbeth and the antic round -- Prospero's wife -- Marginal Jonson -- Tobacco and boys -- The authentic Shakespeare.