Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Fun With Palamon And Arcite: Rationale And Strategies For Teaching The Two Noble Kinsmen As The Culmination Of The Shakespearean Canon, Joanne E. Gates

Presentations, Proceedings & Performances

Hardly noticed in the reception of Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human several years ago was his hint that not The Tempest but The Two Noble Kinsmen makes an appropriate final accomplishment. On one level, the play is merely a stage adaptation of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, with a rather crude couple of subplots thrown in, perhaps to please the commoners. In an undergraduate forum, I am less inclined to evaluate Fletcher's contribution as distinct from Shakespeare, but I do think the play important for how it is representative of many of the co-authored English Renaissance plays …

Shakespeare In The Nineteenth Century; Shakespeare, Time And The Victorians: A Pictorial Exploration, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner reviews Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century (edited by Gail Marshall) and Shakespeare, Time and the Victorians: A Pictorial Exploration (by Stuart Sillars) for Victorian Studies.

Summer Of Shrew, Part 4: Which End’S Up?, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In the last of a four-part series on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner explores how expanding the range of the titular Shrew to include male characters is actually a return to its original meaning. Pollack-Pelzner focuses on a long-forgotten Renaissance sequel to Shrew (John Fletcher's The Tamer Tamed) that takes the taming of men even further and turns its gender roles upside down.

Love Kills: Exploring Young Women In Shakespeare, Malcolm X. Evans

Senior Theses and Projects

Taking a look at how William Shakespeare writes young women (particularly in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet), Evans puts forth the idea that "love kills." There are no young and strong characters that are powerful, entirely as women, in the works of Shakespeare. To further put forth the idea Evans comments on a production of his own design, by the same name, which brings together the Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.

Playing Devil's Advocate: The Attractive Shakespearean Villain, Jonathan Montgomery Green

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The characters of William Shakespeare have spawned countless words of critical interpretation inspired by the playwright's aptitude for fashioning intricate and conflicted figures. As a master character craftsman, Shakespeare is consistent in creating fascinatingly deep characters, and many of them have even gone so far as to generate entire literary archetypes. From the contemplative Prince Hamlet to the despicable yet charming John Falstaff, Shakespeare's characters remain eternal representatives of what any good character should be: interesting, provocative, and complicated.

However, among the playwright's most hypnotic figures are his villains, those characters whom audiences should by all counts detest but cannot …

'Rather Say I Play The Man I Am': Shakespeare's Coriolanus And Elizabethan Anti-Theatricality, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

In the second act of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, the hero is informed that his acceptance as a Roman consul is dependent upon donning the robe of humility and petitioning the common people in the market-place for their ratifying vote. Coriolanus recoils from the custom, outraged at the idea of acting a part—complete with costume, dialogue, and stage directions— that does not correspond with his inner truth. At this moment and others, Coriolanus echoes the anti-theatricalist rhetoric of Elizabethan pamphleteers like the popular and prolific Stephen Gosson. In many ways, Coriolanus serves as a stand-in for the anti-theatrical ideology of Gosson and …

A Historical Survey And Evaluation Of The Most Prominent Theories That Shakespeare Did Not Write The Works Attributed To Him, Lola Vida Johnson

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The question of the authorship of the plays, poems, and sonnets traditionally attributed to the pen if William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon has now been before the public for over one hundred years. Many of the most noted poets, playwrights, and nobles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been assigned the authorship of these works. The controversy can be compared to the controversy over Homer’s authorship. In 1975, Friederick Augustus Wolf proposed that Homer did not write The Iliad and The Odyssey. By 1900, Wolf had been disproven, but the question was one of great importance when it was first …

A Comparison Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Century Criticism Of Shakespeare's Heroines, Grace Mcleod Gartman

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The nineteenth century critics appraised Shakespeare's heroines by standards different from those of the twentieth; consequently the two ages reached different conclusions. The purpose of this paper is to point out just what these differences are.

A paper of this scope had to be narrowed in some ways. Otherwise a formidable array of heroines would have been enumerated, but little depth of research could have been shown. In the general conclusion the result would have been the same, as I have discovered through wide reading. To limit the subject only the most famous heroines could be included. The process of …

Jealousy In Shakespeare's Tragedies, Harold M. Kimball

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In undertaking a study of the theme of jealousy, one must make some limitation of material. The field of literature as a whole, or the more limited ones of drama or even tragedy - each of these is too large for so short a study as this must be. Only certain aspects of such a restricted subject as the tragedies of Shakespeare can be given any thorough treatment, while others, both interesting and profitable, must be put aside; for instance, space will prohibit a careful comparison of Shakespeare's use of jealousy with that of other dramatists; nor can a study …