Thomas Kyd’s highly influential and popular revenge play is now available in a richly documented and critically engaging Norton Critical Edition. The freshly edited and annotated text comes with a full introduction and illustrative materials intended for student readers. The Spanish Tragedy was well known to sixteenth-century audiences, and its central elements—a play-within-a-play and a ghost bent on revenge—are widely believed to have influenced Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This volume includes a generous selection of supporting materials, among them Kyd’s likely sources (Virgil, Jacques Yver, and the anonymous “The Earl of Leicester Betrays His Own Servant”), Thomas Nashe’s satiric criticism of Kyd, Michel de Montaigne and Francis Bacon on revenge, and “The Ballad of The Spanish Tragedy,” which suggests the play’s initial reception. “Criticism” is thematically organized to provide readers with a clear sense of the play’s major themes. Contributors include Michael Hattaway, Jonas A. Barish, Donna B. Hamilton, G. K. Hunter, Lorna Hutson, Molly Smith, J. R. Mulryne, T. McAlindon, and Andrew Sofer. A Selected Bibliography is also included.

Thomas Kyd's highly influential and popular revenge play is now available in a richly documented and critically engaging Norton Critical Edition.

The great English Renaissance tragedy—violent, powerful, unforgettable—in a freshly edited and annotated student edition. This Norton Critical Edition of John Webster’s 1612–13 tragedy offers a newly edited and annotated text together with a full introduction and illustrative materials intended for student readers. The Duchess of Malfi’s themes of love, loyalty, and betrayal have resonated through the centuries, making this a perennially popular play with audiences and readers alike. This volume includes a generous selection of supporting materials, among them Webster’s likely sources for the play (William Painter, George Whetstone, Simon Goulart, and Thomas Beard) as well as related works by Webster and George Wither on widows, funerals, and memorializing death. A generous selection from Mark H. Curtis’s classic essay, “The Alienated Intellectuals of Early Stuart England,” tells readers as much about the character of Bosola as it does about his creator. Henry Fitzgeffrey (1617) and Horatio Busino (1618) provide early responses to the play. “Criticism” is thematically organized to provide readers with a clear sense of The Duchess of Malfi’s central themes of dramaturgy; the politics of family, court, and religion; and gender. Also included are essays on contemporary re-imaginings of the play and its critical reception over time. Contributors include Don D. Moore, Inga-Stina Ewbank, Christina Luckyj, Barbara Correll, D. C. Gunby, Lee Bliss, Rowland Wymer, Brian Chalk, Theodora Jankowski, and Pascale Aebischer. A selected bibliography is also included.

This much-anticipated Norton Critical Edition of Shakespeare’s best-known play is based on the Second Quarto, widely agreed to be the most authoritative early text. By carefully selecting extracts from sources, scholars, and scriptwriters, Gordon McMullan tells a series of stories about Romeo and Juliet, globally and from their legend's origins to the present day. The Norton Critical Edition includes: · Introductory materials and explanatory annotations by Gordon McMullan as well as numerous images. · Sources and early rewritings by Luigi Da Porto, Matteo Bandello, Pierre Boaistuau, Kareen Seidler, and Thomas Otway, among others. · Critical readings and later rewritings spanning four centuries and including those by Stanley Wells, Wendy Wall, Dympna C. Callaghan, Jill L. Levenson, Nia?h Cusack, David Tennant, and Courtney Lehmann. · A Selected Bibliography.

A wealth of background and analytical material makes Sor Juana's proto-feminist writings, newly translated, all the more compelling. 2014 PEN USA Literary Award for Translation Finalist This Norton Critical Edition includes: · Edith Grossman’s acclaimed translations of the Tenth Muse’s best-known works. · Introductory materials and explanatory footnotes by Anna More along with numerous images. · Additional works by Sor Juana, related writings by Ovid, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and Diego Calleja, and historical interpretations. · Seven critical essays by Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Irving Leonard, Octavio Paz, Georgina Sabat de Rivers, Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel, Emilie Bergmann, and Charlene Villasenor Black. · Diana Taylor’s interview with Jesusa Rodríguez about performing “First Dream.” · A Chronology and Selected Bibliography.

“I wanted an edition of Othello that had the necessary footnotes, background material, and a good selection of recent critical articles that would be accessible to students and would spark class discussions. This was it.” —Deborah Montuori, Shippensburg University This Norton Critical Edition includes: ·The First Folio text (1623). · An introduction, explanatory footnotes, note on the text, and textual notes by Edward Pechter. · Fifteen illustrations. · Giraldi Cinthio’s sixteenth-century story in its entirety, which Shakespeare used for both the plot and many details of Othello. · A generous selection of interpretive responses to Othello from its origins to the present day, including—new to the Second Edition—those by Stanley Cavell and Lois Potter. Edward Pechter’s popular theatrical and critical overview of Othello has been significantly expanded. · An updated Selected Bibliography.

'Tell me, Muse, of the man of many turns, who was driven far and wide after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy' Twenty years after setting out to fight in the Trojan War, Odysseus is yet to return home to Ithaca. His household is in disarray: a horde of over 100 disorderly and arrogant suitors are vying to claim Odysseus' wife Penelope, and his young son Telemachus is powerless to stop them. Meanwhile, Odysseus is driven beyond the limits of the known world, encountering countless divine and earthly challenges. But Odysseus is 'of many wiles' and his cunning and bravery eventually lead him home, to reclaim both his family and his kingdom. The Odyssey rivals the Iliad as the greatest poem of Western culture and is perhaps the most influential text of classical literature. This elegant and compelling new translation is accompanied by a full introduction and notes that guide the reader in understanding the poem and the many different contexts in which it was performed and read.