Rosenblum Joseph - The definitive Shakespeare companion: overviews, documents, and analysis

The Definitive
Shakespeare
Companion

The Definitive
Shakespeare
Companion

OVERVIEWS, DOCUMENTS, AND ANALYSIS

Volume 1

Overviews and the History Plays

JOSEPH ROSENBLUM, EDITOR

Copyright 2017 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The editors and publishers will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rosenblum, Joseph, editor.

Title: The definitive Shakespeare companion : overviews, documents, and analysis / Joseph Rosenblum, editor.

Description: Santa Barbara : Greenwood, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Alphabetical List of plays and poemsA preface for usersA Shakespeare chronologyVolume 1. Overviews and the history playsVolume 2. The comediesVolume 3. The tragediesVolume 4. The romances and poetry.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016046659 (print) | LCCN 2017008402 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440834448 (set : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440847714 (volume 1 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440847721 (volume 2 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440847738 (volume 3 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440847745 (volume 4 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440834455 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Shakespeare, William, 15641616Criticism and interpretationHandbooks, manuals, etc. | Shakespeare, William, 15641616Sources. | Shakespeare, William, 15641616Bibliography.

Classification: LCC PR2976 .D43 2017 (print) | LCC PR2976 (ebook) | DDC 822.3/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046659

ISBN: 978-1-4408-3444-8 (set)

ISBN: 978-1-4408-4771-4 (vol. 1)

ISBN: 978-1-4408-4772-1 (vol. 2)

ISBN: 978-1-4408-4773-8 (vol. 3)

ISBN: 978-1-4408-4774-5 (vol. 4)

EISBN: 978-1-4408-3445-5

21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

Greenwood

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC

130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911

Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Alphabetical List of Plays and Poems

The Plays

Selected Sonnets

The Longer Poems

A Preface for Users

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!

(Henry V, Prologue, 12)

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, John Dryden revised William Shakespeares Troilus and Cressida. Explaining why he tampered with the text of the man he had called divine, Dryden wrote,

It must be allowed to the present age, that the tongue in general is so much refined since Shakespeares time, that many of his words, and more of his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which are understood, some are ungrammatical, others coarse; and his whole style is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as it is obscure.

The twenty-first-century student of Shakespeare will likely concur with Drydens judgment. Shakespeare is hard. Even seasoned scholars differ on subjects ranging from the meaning of individual words to the implications of entire plays. No wonder, then, if high school students, undergraduates, and general readers are sometimes puzzled as they read one of Shakespeares works or watch one of his plays. Thousands of studies of Shakespeare are published each year and recorded in the annual World Shakespeare Bibliography, but this thicket of scholarship often renders Shakespeare more forbidding to students rather than less.

Throughout, The Definitive Shakespeare Companion aims to demystify Shakespeare so that students and general readers will be encouraged to appreciate the artistry of the writing and will come to a fuller appreciation of Shakespeares genius. Students will find here what his works mean, how they came to be, how they make meaning, and how critics and directors have interpreted them over the centuries. No reference work can include all that is known or thought about Shakespeare, but the editor, contributors, and publisher have sought to make this Companion the best place to begin a study of this great writer. We hope that you will find the contents both useful and enjoyable.

CONTENT AND ARRANGEMENT

The four-volume Definitive Shakespeare Companion includes more than eighty essays offering a guide to the perplexed. All of these essays have been written expressly for this work by dedicated scholars commissioned because of their scholarship and teaching skills.

The first three volumes are devoted to the plays as follows:

Volume 1 is divided into two sections: first, a series of essays about Shakespeares age, his life, the theater of the time, the texts of his work, the English language of his era, and the authorship questionsall of which will deepen the readers understanding of the works; second, essays that focus on the history plays.

Volume 2 explores the comedies.

Volume 3 presents the tragedies.

Volume 4 begins with essays on the late plays called romances; the remainder of the volume discusses William Shakespeares poetry, beginning with an overview of the sonnets. Thirty-one essays examine selected individual or paired sonnets, including full texts of each sonnet reviewed. Compared with the rest of Shakespeares poetry, these sonnets are the most studied and reveal the widest range of subjects and attitudes. The other essays in this volume discuss the long-narrative poems: A Lovers Complaintthat fascinating envoi to the sonnet cycleimmediately follows the sonnets, as it did when originally published with those poems; then, in chronological order, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and The Phoenix and Turtle; The Passionate Pilgrim (in which two of Shakespeares sonnets to the mysterious Dark Lady were first printed) has been placed last because most of the poems contained therein are not by Shakespeare.

The essays are arranged chronologically within genre. To further assist readers in finding essays on particular plays or poems, an alphabetical list of the works studied in this Companion immediately follows the table of contents.

Other Features

A Shakespeare Chronology, preceding the overview essays in volume 1, shows when William Shakespeares works were written and published and provides basic facts about his life. An annotated bibliography accompanies each essay. At the end of volume 4, an appendix offers a selected, annotated list of Web sites about William Shakespeare and his work. Following that list is a selected bibliography. A subject index and an index of key passages concludes the work.