The Arden Shakespeare Miscellany

Description

An ideal reference companion for students and enthusiasts of Shakespeare, this informative and entertaining Miscellany gives a wealth of contextual and biographical information to enhance your understanding and enjoyment of his work. There is an entry for every play, summarising its plot and outlining its major characters and themes. Whether you need to know the plot of Cymbeline, the names of characters in As You Like It, or something about the actors Shakespeare wrote for, this book provides the perfect quick reference. If you need to know more about Shakespeare's life and times, details are given of the debates surrounding his identity and appearance, the known and fanciful facts of his life, the theatres in which he worked and the acting companies of which he was a member. The book is arranged thematically rather than alphabetically, with a full index making it easy to navigate if you want an answer to a particular question, or intriguing just to dip in and out of. The core topics covered are: Theatres and Players; Controversies; Shakespeare the Writer; Facts and Figures; Shakespeare and Language; Afterlife; Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays; A Biographical Chronology. Cover Contents Illustrations Foreword I: ‘Speak of Me as I Am’: The Life Will who? What did Shakespeare look like? What was he like? Was Shakespeare a Catholic? Was Shakespeare a lawyer? Was Shakespeare bisexual? Did writing come easily to Shakespeare? Did Shakespeare contribute to the King James Bible? Shakespeare on stage Parents and siblings Shakespeare’s children The King’s Free Grammar School The ‘lost years’ What was he up to? Shakespeare on the road Shakespeare the deerstealer What his contemporaries thought of him Retirement Shakespeare’s will What did he die of? Saints Shakespearean names for your baby girl Shakespearean names for your baby boy II: ‘Within This Wooden O’: Theatres and Players The London theatres The borough of Southwark Audiences Plague ‘A local habitation’: Open-air theatres Playing indoors: Blackfriars Censorship The acting companies Sharers and housekeepers Actors The male lead The comic lead Minor roles Boy actors Did actors have scripts? Shakespearean heroines Shakespeare’s ghosts Vows Top ten heroines Top ten heroes III: ‘Devise, Wit; Write, Pen’: Controversies: Authorship, Sonnets and Texts The authorship controversy The Sonnets and the ‘onlie begetter’ Who’s who in the Sonnets ‘To be, or not to be – ay, there’s the point’: The texts of Shakespeare’s plays Shakespeare’s handwriting Flowers Birds and animals IV: ‘The Brightest Heaven of Invention’: Shakespeare the Writer Playwriting as a career: Shakespeare’s contemporaries The ‘great reckoning’: Marlowe and Shakespeare Which of his plots did Shakespeare invent himself? Shakespeare’s reading Not all by Shakespeare? Collaboration and revision Not by Shakespeare at all? A play by any other name Food Two frocks Ten worst villains V: ‘The Two-hours’ Traffic of Our Stage’: Facts and Figures Longest and shortest plays Longest and shortest roles Famous partnerships Verse . . . and prose Most and fewest characters Nasty deaths Undesirable characters: Shakespearean names to avoid VI: ‘A Man of Fire-new Words’: Shakespeare and Language Soliloquy Blank verse Divided lines How large was Shakespeare’s vocabulary? Short and long words New words Playing with prefixes An Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman Sports and games Ten compliments Ten insults VII: ‘Our Thoughts Are Ours, Their Ends None of Our Own’: Afterlife Rewriting Shakespeare: The Bowdlers and the Lambs The Pre-Raphaelites’ list of Immortals: Painting Shakespeare Shakespeare in music Shakespeare in film What the dickens: everyday phrases Eminent Shakespeareans: Actors Actresses A Chronology of Shakespeare’s Plays A Biographical Chronology Works Consulted and Recommended Reading Index of Play Synopses