A Midsummer Night's Dream

Author: William Shakespeare

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $17.95 AUD
  • : 9780230217898
  • : Palgrave Macmillan Limited
  • : Palgrave Pivot
  • :
  • : 0.206
  • : July 2008
  • : 196mm X 129mm X 11mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 19.95
  • : November 2011
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  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : William Shakespeare
  • : RSC Shakespeare
  • : Paperback
  • : 1008
  • :
  • : English
  • : 822.33
  • :
  • :
  • : 184
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  • :
  • :
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Barcode 9780230217898
9780230217898

Description

This is the first edition of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" developed by and for the RSC, with unique material including a new introduction from Jonathan Bate and interviews with RSC directors. This is the first edition of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to be developed by and for the RSC, the world's leading Shakespeare theatre company and it includes unique material to help the reader understand and enjoy Shakespeare on the stage as well as on the page.It is illustrated with photographs of classic and unusual performances. It includes outstanding on-page notes which explain words and phrases unfamiliar to a modern audience, including the slang, political references and bawdy humour often ignored or censored in competing editions. It includes scene-by-scene summary, offering an easily understandable way into the play. It offers completely new introduction by Jonathan Bate, exploring the text and critical debates around it. It provides summary of the play's performance history at the RSC and elsewhere. It presents interviews with important Shakespearean directors Michael Boyd, Gregory Doran and Tim Supple discussing key productions at the RSC.From the Royal Shakespeare Company, this fresh new edition of Shakespeare's most loved comedy presents a historical overview of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with three leading directors - Michael Boyd, Gregory Doran and Tim Supple.

Reviews

'Jonathan Bate writes with as much elegance as insight about the making of theatre and the creation of the plays.' - Richard Eyre, The Sunday Telegraph 'Footnotes at the bottom of each page gloss unfamiliar vocabulary, paraphrase tricky meanings and uncover bawdy puns. There is a universe to be found in these annotations: the Renaissance world of power and fate, sex and death, language and philosophy.' - Times Educational Supplement

Author description

JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.

Table of contents

Introduction to the Play Magical thinking Metamorphosis The festive world 'The poet's eye ... the poet's pen' Introduction to the Text Key Facts A Midsummer Night's Dream Textual Notes Scene-by-scene Analysis A Midsummer Night's Dream in Performance: the RSC and Beyond Four Centuries of the Dream: An Overview At the Royal Shakespeare Company The Director's Cut: interviews with Michael Boyd, Gregory Doran, Tim Supple Shakespeare's Career in the Theatre Shakespeare's Works: a Chronology Further Reading and Viewing Acknowledgements and Picture Credits