Oriental perspective on Shakespearean themes, drawing on Eastern philosophical, religious and ethical traditions. Korea has experienced a flowering of interest in Shakespeare over the last thirty years, bringing a valuable change of perspective to the study of Shakespeare's plays. In these seven previously unpublished essays, Joo-Hyon Kim offers fresh and stimulating insights into well-known texts, using concepts of Oriental philosophy, religion and ethics, and explores various aspects of Shakespeare's plays in relation to cultural differences. His work embraces Confucian principles, Noh drama, Shamanism, Chinese folk-tales, and Korean fiction, demonstrating the different traditions which shape the reception of Western literature in an Eastern culture. Fascinating in their own right, these essays thus provide a unique lens of viewing a world-famous group of plays, bridging the gap between East and West. JOO-HYON KIMis Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Soong-Sil University, Seoul.

This volume offers a wealth of critical analysis, supported with ample historical and bibliographical information about one of Shakespeare’s most enduringly popular and globally influential plays. Its eighteen new chapters represent a broad spectrum of current scholarly and interpretive approaches, from historicist criticism to performance theory to cultural studies. A substantial section addresses early modern themes, with attention to the protagonists and the discourses of politics, class, gender, the emotions, and the economy, along with discussions of significant ‘minor’ characters and less commonly examined textual passages. Further chapters scrutinize Macbeth’s performance, adaptation and transformation across several media—stage, film, text, and hypertext—in cultural settings ranging from early nineteenth-century England to late twentieth-century China. The editor’s extensive introduction surveys critical, theatrical, and cinematic interpretations from the late seventeenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, while advancing a synthetic argument to explain the shifting relationship between two conflicting strains in the tragedy’s reception. Written to a level that will be both accessible to advanced undergraduates and, at the same time, useful to post-graduates and specialists in the field, this book will greatly enhance any study of Macbeth. Contributors: Rebecca Lemon, Jonathan Baldo, Rebecca Ann Bach, Julie Barmazel, Abraham Stoll, Lois Feuer, Stephen Deng, Lisa Tomaszewski, Lynne Bruckner, Michael David Fox, James Wells, Laura Engel, Stephen Buhler, Bi-qi Beatrice Lei, Kim Fedderson and J. Michael Richardson, Bruno Lessard, Pamela Mason.

Shakespeare’s Unmuted Women explores women’s speeches in selected plays by Shakespeare, highlighting women’s discerning insight as a vital ingredient in these selected works. The book discusses the use of rhetoric in speeches by women as a cementing material that supports the casing of the incidents. Women holding forth on the issues related to the common concerns emerged in the plays perform a distinguishing role in strengthening the bond between decisions taken and executed by each character and make their major important contribution to the overall impact of the play. Comprising six chapters, the volume analyses Cordelia’s and Desdemona’s speeches in King Lear and Othello; Cleopatra’s and Tamora’s speeches in Antony and Cleopatra and Titus Andronicus; Beatrice’s and Rosalind’s speeches in Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It; and Katherine’s and Lady Anne’s speeches in Henry V and Richard III, respectively. The text discusses women’s rich and profound discourse in these works to accentuate the meaningful input in verbal communication. In Shakespeare’s selected plays, women’s insightfulness and perspicuity are closely considered to emphasize how women make efficient use of rhetoric, aptly used by Queen Elizabeth I during Shakespeare’s time. Queen Elizabeth’s outstanding public speeches inspired those who listened to her and Shakespeare’s women are partial embodiments of her.

This volume is a collection of all-new original essays covering everything from feminist to postcolonial readings of the play as well as source queries and analyses of historical performances of the play. The Merchant of Venice is a collection of seventeen new essays that explore the concepts of anti-Semitism, the work of Christopher Marlowe, the politics of commerce and making the play palatable to a modern audience. The characters, Portia and Shylock, are examined in fascinating detail. With in-depth analyses of the text, the play in performance and individual characters, this book promises to be the essential resource on the play for all Shakespeare enthusiasts.

This volume traces the modern critical and performance history of this play, one of Shakespeare's most-loved and most-performed comedies. The essay focus on such modern concerns as feminism, deconstruction, textual theory, and queer theory.

In this critical volume, leading scholars in the field examine the performance of Shakespeare in Asia. Emerging out of the view that it is in "play" or performance, and particularly in intercultural / multicultural performance, that the cutting edge of Shakespeare studies is to be found, the essays in this volume pay close attention to the modes of transference of the language of the text into the alternative languages of Asian theatres; to the history and politics of the performance of Shakespeare in key locations in Asia; to the new Asian experimentation with indigenous forms via Shakespeare and the consequent revitalizing and revising of the traditional boundaries of genre and gender; and to Shakespeare as a cultural capital world wide. Focusing specifically on the work of major directors in the central and emerging areas of Asia – Japan, China, India, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines - the chapters in this volume encompass a broader and more representative swath of Asian performances and locations in one book than has been attempted till now.