DOCSLIB.ORG

WRAP THESIS Kirwan 2011.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
WRAP THESIS Kirwan 2011.Pdf University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/45389 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Shakespeare and the Idea of Apocrypha: Negotiating the Boundaries of the Dramatic Canon by Peter Philip Kirwan A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature University of Warwick, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies August 2011 ii For my grandparents, Kathleen and Meynell Marshall The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant quantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they lead to the town. - James Joyce, Ulysses 250. All held Apocrypha, not worth survey. - Antonio’s Revenge 4.1.22. iii Contents Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................. v Declaration.............................................................................................................................. vi Thesis abstract ....................................................................................................................... vii Introduction: The Idea of Apocrypha.......................................................................................1 New directions.....................................................................................................................5 The Return of the Author...................................................................................................15 Chapter One: Canonising the Apocrypha...............................................................................18 The 43-Play Canon: 1664-1734..........................................................................................22 Restoring Reputations: 1723-65 ........................................................................................35 Biography, Chronology, Bardolatry: 1760-1844 ................................................................48 Canonising the Apocrypha: 1780-1908..............................................................................64 C.F. Tucker Brooke and the canonising of the Apocrypha.................................................88 Chapter Two: The Apocrypha in Rep .....................................................................................97 Prodigal Husbands and Patient Wives .............................................................................103 Absent Kings and Common Voices...................................................................................121 Romance and Nostalgia ...................................................................................................135 Ensemble Comedy ...........................................................................................................147 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................154 Chapter Three: Defining “Shakespeare”..............................................................................160 The Shakespearean corpse: physical traces of Shakespeare...........................................165 Sample Size, the “problem” of revision, and Locrine.......................................................177 Theory “versus” History...................................................................................................194 The integration of disintegration: Edward III and Arden of Faversham ..........................205 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................228 Chapter Four: Apocryphising the Canon..............................................................................231 The [Bibliographic] Complete Works of Shakespeare .....................................................238 The [Authorial] Works of William Shakespeare [and Thomas Middleton]......................255 The [Performative] Complete Works of Shakespeare .....................................................266 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................283 Epilogue: An Apocryphal Identity ........................................................................................287 Works Cited..........................................................................................................................305 iv List of illustrations Fig. 1. Frontispiece and title-page of the third Shakespeare Folio (1664)…………………………. 23 Fig. 2. Title page of Tyrrell, Henry, ed., The Doubtful Plays of Shakspere (1853?)…………..… 82 Fig. 3. Title pages of The London Prodigal (1605) and A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608)…………. 105 Fig. 4. Title page of Locrine (1595)…………………………………………………………………………………. 184 v Acknowledgements As this thesis will demonstrate, the presence of a single name on a title page rarely does justice to the number of agents who made it possible. While there isn’t space here to thank everyone, I would like to acknowledge my more prominent “collaborators”. My greatest debt is to my supervisor, Jonathan Bate, who gave me the opportunity to write this thesis in conjunction with his forthcoming edition of disputed plays. Jonathan’s intellectual guidance and professionalism have been invaluable throughout. My mentor, Paul Prescott, has also gone beyond the call of duty with his support and feedback. I hope that this thesis does justice to their patience and encouragement. The other members of my research team – Eric Rasmussen, Jan Sewell and Will Sharpe – have been a pleasure to work with, and I’m particularly grateful to Will for many stimulating conversations. Carol Rutter, Susan Brock and Nick Monk have been inspiring colleagues and friends. I am grateful for the support of the English faculty at Warwick, and to my past Shakespeare teachers: Mike Devitt, Tim Kershaw, Charlotte Scott and Tony Howard. I have benefited from the generosity of several scholars who have kindly sent me advance copies of work. Thanks to David Carnegie, Ward Elliott, Brean Hammond, Christa Jansohn, John Jowett, Edmund King, Thomas Merriam, Richard Proudfoot, Bernard Richards, Emma Smith, Tiffany Stern, Gary Taylor and Brian Vickers, this thesis is significantly more up to date than it might have been. The Arts and Humanities Research Council provided a grant that allowed me to devote myself to the project full time, and travel grants from the ISA and SAA enabled me to present at their meetings in 2011. Parts of this thesis have been trialled at conferences, and I would like to thank Adam Hooks, Lisa Hopkins, Helen Ostovich, Matt Kubus and Emily Oliver for invitations that proved especially useful. I would also like to thank the students of the Warwick Shakespeare Society who invited me to act as dramaturge for their rehearsed reading of Double Falsehood, a rich and informative experience. The expertise of staff at the Shakespeare Institute Library, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Rare Books and Reading Room of the British Library has been most helpful. The majority of this PhD was written in the Wolfson Research Exchange at Warwick Library, and I would like to thank the team for creating such a conducive environment. The administrative staff in the English office have been a source of information and good humour, and Peter Larkin and Cath Hanley have provided valuable technical advice. Most important are the real-world contexts that have kept me healthy and sane for the duration of the project. I am lucky to have an extraordinary group of friends in Warwick, Stratford and London, who have made the PhD experience a pleasure. I owe particular debts to Charlotte Mathieson, who is still an inspiration, and to Andy Kesson, who has been a constant source of encouragement and an enthusiastic reader. I would also like to thank Kate Scarth for her generosity, and Sara Thompson, who was right. My parents, Paul and Barbara, have insisted throughout on the importance of self-belief, and their support has made the last three years possible. Mark, Ruth and Sharon have kept me grounded in family, and Fionnuala O’Neill kept me smiling in the final stages. Final thanks go to Persephone for providing much-needed perspective. She would have enjoyed sitting on the finished product. vi Declaration This thesis is my own work; no part of it has been submitted for a degree at another university. No part of the thesis has been published elsewhere except the appendix, “The First Collected ‘Shakespeare Apocrypha’”, which is a reprint of an article forthcoming in Shakespeare Quarterly and is reproduced here for reference. vii Thesis abstract Shakespeare and the Idea of Apocrypha offers the most comprehensive study to date of an intriguing but understudied body of plays. It undertakes a major reconsideration of the processes that determine the constitution of the Shakespeare canon through study of that canon’s exclusions. This thesis combines historical analysis of the emergence and development of the “Shakespeare Apocrypha” with current theorisations of dramatic collaboration. Several new theoretical and historical approaches to
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Yorkshire Tragedy by William Shakespeare (Apocrypha)
    A Yorkshire Tragedy by William Shakespeare (Apocrypha) This etext was produced by Tony Adam. Shakespeare, William. A Yorkshire Tragedy. Not So New as Lamentable and True. In C.F. Tucker Brooke, ed., The Shakespeare Apocrypha (Oxford, 1918). ALL'S ONE, OR, ONE OF THE FOUR PLAYS IN ONE, CALLED A YORK-SHIRE TRAGEDY AS IT WAS PLAYED BY THE KING'S MAJESTY'S PLAYERS. Dramatis Personae. Husband. Master of a College. Knight, a Justice of Peace. Oliver, Ralph, Samuel, serving-men. Other Servants, and Officers. page 1 / 56 Wife. Maid-servant. A little Boy. SCENE I. A room in Calverly Hall. [Enter Oliver and Ralph, two servingmen.] OLIVER. Sirrah Ralph, my young Mistress is in such a pitiful passionate humor for the long absence of her love-- RALPH. Why, can you blame her? why, apples hanging longer on the tree then when they are ripe makes so many fallings; viz., Mad wenches, because they are not gathered in time, are fain to drop of them selves, and then tis Common you know for every man to take em up. OLIVER. Mass, thou sayest true, Tis common indeed: but, sirrah, is neither our young master returned, nor our fellow Sam come from London? RALPH. page 2 / 56 Neither of either, as the Puritan bawd says. Slidd, I hear Sam: Sam's come, her's! Tarry! come, yfaith, now my nose itches for news. OLIVER. And so does mine elbow. [Sam calls within. Where are you there?] SAM. Boy, look you walk my horse with discretion; I have rid him simply. I warrant his skin sticks to his back with very heat: if a should catch cold and get the Cough of the Lungs I were well served, were I not? [Enter Sam.
    [Show full text]
  • Robert Greene and the Theatrical Vocabulary of the Early 1590S Alan
    Robert Greene and the Theatrical Vocabulary of the Early 1590s Alan C. Dessen [Writing Robert Greene: Essays on England’s First Notorious Professional Writer, ed. Kirk Melnikoff and Edward Gieskes (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 25-37.\ Here is a familiar tale found in literary handbooks for much of the twentieth century. Once upon a time in the 1560s and 1570s (the boyhoods of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson) English drama was in a deplorable state characterized by fourteener couplets, allegory, the heavy hand of didacticism, and touring troupes of players with limited numbers and resources. A first breakthrough came with the building of the first permanent playhouses in the London area in 1576- 77 (The Theatre, The Curtain)--hence an opportunity for stable groups to form so as to develop a repertory of plays and an audience. A decade later the University Wits came down to bring their learning and sophistication to the London desert, so that the heavyhandedness and primitive skills of early 1580s playwrights such as Robert Wilson and predecessors such as Thomas Lupton, George Wapull, and William Wager were superseded by the artistry of Marlowe, Kyd, and Greene. The introduction of blank verse and the suppression of allegory and onstage sermons yielded what Willard Thorp billed in 1928 as "the triumph of realism."1 Theatre and drama historians have picked away at some of these details (in particular, 1576 has lost some of its luster or uniqueness), but the narrative of the University Wits' resuscitation of a moribund English drama has retained its status as received truth.
    [Show full text]
  • Arden of Faversham, Shakespearean Authorship, and 'The Print of Many'
    Chapter 9 Arden of Faversham, Shakespearean Authorship, and 'The Print of Many' JACK ELLIOTT AND BRETT GREATLEY-HIRSCH he butchered body of Thomas Arden is found in the field behind the Abbey. After reporting Tthis discovery to Arden's wife, Franklin surveys the circumstantial evidence of footprints in the snow and blood at the scene: I fear me he was murdered in this house And carried to the fields, for from that place Backwards and forwards may you see The print of many feet within the snow. And look about this chamber where we are, And you shall find part of his guiltless blood; For in his slip-shoe did I find some rushes, Which argueth he was murdered in this room. (14.388-95) Although The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland by Raphael Holinshed and his editors records the identities and fates of Arden's murderers in meticulous detail (Holinshed 1587, 4M4r-4M6v; 1587, 5K1v-5K3v), those responsible for composing the dramatization of this tragic episode remain unknown. We know that the bookseller Edward White entered The Lamentable and True Tragedy ofArden ofFaversham in Kent into the Stationers' Register on 3 April 1592 (Arber 1875-94, 2: 607 ), and we believe, on the basis of typographical evidence, that Edward Allde printed the playbook later that year ( STC 733). We know that Abel Jeffes also printed an illicit edition of the playbook, as outlined in disciplinary proceedings brought against him and White in a Stationers' Court record dated 18 December 1592 (Greg and Boswell 1930, 44). No copies of this pirate edition survive, but it is assumed to have merely been a reprint of White's; Jeffes was imprisoned on 7 August 1592, so his edition must have appeared prior to this date.
    [Show full text]
  • King and Country: Shakespeare’S Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company
    2016 BAM Winter/Spring #KingandCountry Brooklyn Academy of Music Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board BAM, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board The Ohio State University present Katy Clark, President Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company BAM Harvey Theater Mar 24—May 1 Season Sponsor: Directed by Gregory Doran Set design by Stephen Brimson Lewis Global Tour Premier Partner Lighting design by Tim Mitchell Music by Paul Englishby Leadership support for King and Country Sound design by Martin Slavin provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Movement by Michael Ashcroft Fights by Terry King Major support for Henry V provided by Mark Pigott KBE. Major support provided by Alan Jones & Ashley Garrett; Frederick Iseman; Katheryn C. Patterson & Thomas L. Kempner Jr.; and Jewish Communal Fund. Additional support provided by Mercedes T. Bass; and Robert & Teresa Lindsay. #KingandCountry Royal Shakespeare Company King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings BAM Harvey Theater RICHARD II—Mar 24, Apr 1, 5, 8, 12, 14, 19, 26 & 29 at 7:30pm; Apr 17 at 3pm HENRY IV PART I—Mar 26, Apr 6, 15 & 20 at 7:30pm; Apr 2, 9, 23, 27 & 30 at 2pm HENRY IV PART II—Mar 28, Apr 2, 7, 9, 21, 23, 27 & 30 at 7:30pm; Apr 16 at 2pm HENRY V—Mar 31, Apr 13, 16, 22 & 28 at 7:30pm; Apr 3, 10, 24 & May 1 at 3pm ADDITIONAL CREATIVE TEAM Company Voice
    [Show full text]
  • {PDF} the First Quarto of Hamlet 1St Edition Ebook
    THE FIRST QUARTO OF HAMLET 1ST EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK William Shakespeare | 9780521653909 | | | | | The First Quarto of Hamlet 1st edition PDF Book The Murder of Gonzago is played before the assembled court, but is interrrupted when Claudius suddenly rises and leaves. This is the only modernised critical edition of the quarto in print. Scarce thus. The First Quarto of Hamlet. A handful of sources contributed significantly to the creation of Hamlet. King Richard II. Condition: Very Good. The first critic of the , first Spanish translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. British Library copies of Hamlet contains detailed bibliographic descriptions of all the quarto copies of the play. Great Neck, N. Perhaps most crucially, Amleth lacks Hamlet's melancholy disposition and long self-reflexive soliloquies, and he survives after becoming king" British Library. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that Shakespeare did at least consult Saxo. There is an entire scene between Horatio and Gertrude in which Horatio tells her that Hamlet has escaped from the ship after discovering Claudius' plan to kill him. Protected under mylar cover. Published by Printed for P[hilip] C[hetwinde], London Theatrical adaption. Some scenes take place at a different point in the story — for example Hamlet's " To be, or not to be " soliloquy occurs in Act Two, immediately after Polonius proposes to set up an "accidental" meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia. According to the title page, the play was printed 'as it is now acted at His Highness the Duke of York's Theatre. Namespaces Article Talk. Occasional neat underlinings and scholarly notes, some minor marginal wormholes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
    AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume2, Number 1, February 2018 Pp. 97-105 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol2no1.7 The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Rachid MEHDI Department of English, Faculty of Art Abderahmane-Mira University of Bejaia, Algeria Abstract This article is a study on the representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night; or, What You Will, one of his most popular comic play in the modern theatre. In mocking Malvolio’s morality and ridiculous behaviour, Shakespeare wanted to denounce Puritans’ sober society in early modern England. Indeed, Puritans were depicted in the play as being selfish, idiot, hypocrite, and killjoy. In the same way, many other writers of different generations, obviously influenced by Shakespeare, have espoused his views and consequently contributed to promote this anti-Puritan literature, which is still felt today. This article discusses whether Shakespeare’s portrayal of Puritans was accurate or not. To do so, the writer first attempts to define the term “Puritan,” as the latter is quite equivocal, then take some Puritans’ characteristics, namely hypocrisy and killjoy, as provided in the play, and analyze them in the light of the studies of some historians and scholars, experts on the post Reformation Puritanism, to demonstrate that Shakespeare’s view on Puritanism is completely caricatural. Keywords: caricature, early modern theatre, Malvolio, Puritans, satire Cite as: MEHDI, R. (2018). The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies, 2 (1). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol2no1.7 Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 97 eISSN: 2550-1542 |www.awej-tls.org AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies Volume, 2 Number 1, February 2018 The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night MEHDI Introduction Puritans had been the target of many English writers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Thesis
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Telltale women the dramaturgy of female characters in Shakespeare's history plays Bachrach, Hailey Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 02. Oct. 2021 Bachrach 1 TELLTALE WOMEN The Dramaturgy of Female Characters in Shakespeare’s History Plays By Hailey Bachrach Submitted to King’s College London English Department in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 30 September 2020 Bachrach 2 Abstract .....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Structure, Legitimacy, and Magic in <Em>The Birth of Merlin</Em>
    Early Theatre 9.1 Megan Lynn Isaac Legitimizing Magic in The Birth of Merlin Bastardy, adultery, and infidelity are topics at issue in The Birth of Merlin on every level. Unfortunately, most of the critical examination of these topics has not extended beyond the title page. In 1662 Francis Kirkman and Henry Marsh commissioned the first known printing of the play from an old manuscript in Kirkman’s possession. The title page of their version attributes the play to Shakespeare and Rowley, and generations of critics have quarreled over the legitimacy of that ascription. Without any compelling evidence to substantiate the authorship of Shakespeare and Rowley, many critics have tried to solve the dilemma from the other end. Just as in the play Merlin’s mother spends most of the first act inquiring of every man she meets whether he might have fathered her child, these scholars have attempted to attribute the play to virtually every dramatist and combination of dramatists on record. Beaumont, Fletcher, Ford, Middleton, and Dekker, among others, have all been subjected to the literary equivalent of a blood-test; analyses of their spelling and linguistic preferences have been made in an effort to link them to The Birth of Merlin.1 Unlike the hero of the drama, however, the play itself is still without a father, though it does have a birthdate in 1622, as has been demonstrated be N.W. Bawcutt.2 Debates over authorship are not particularly uncommon in early modern studies, but the question of who fathered the legendary Merlin, the topic of the play, is more unusual and more interesting.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Shakespeare, by 1
    An Introduction to Shakespeare, by 1 An Introduction to Shakespeare, by H. N. MacCracken and F. E. Pierce and W. H. Durham This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: An Introduction to Shakespeare Author: H. N. MacCracken F. E. Pierce W. H. Durham Release Date: January 16, 2010 [EBook #30982] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 An Introduction to Shakespeare, by 2 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE *** Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST FOLIO, 1628 The first collected edition of Shakespeare's Plays (From the copy in the New York Public Library)] AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE BY H. N. MacCRACKEN, PH.D. F. E. PIERCE, PH.D. AND W. H. DURHAM, PH.D. OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF YALE UNIVERSITY New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1925 All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA An Introduction to Shakespeare, by 3 COPYRIGHT, 1910, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1910. Reprinted April, December, 1911; September, 1912; July, 1913; July, 1914; December, 1915; November, 1916; May, 1918; July, 1919; November, 1920; September, 1921; June, 1923; January, 1925. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. {v} PREFACE The advances made in Shakespearean scholarship within the last half-dozen years seem to justify the writing of another manual for school and college use.
    [Show full text]
  • Durham E-Theses
    Durham E-Theses Translation and Réécriture in the Middle Ages: Rewriting Merlin in the French and Italian Vernacular Traditions CAMPBELL, LAURA,JANE How to cite: CAMPBELL, LAURA,JANE (2011) Translation and Réécriture in the Middle Ages: Rewriting Merlin in the French and Italian Vernacular Traditions, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/705/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Translation and Réécriture in the Middle Ages: Rewriting Merlin in the French and Italian Vernacular Traditions PhD Laura Jane Campbell Durham University, Department of French Submission Date: October 2010 i Translation and Réécriture in the Middle Ages: Rewriting Merlin in the French and Italian Vernacular Traditions Laura Jane Campbell, Durham University Abstract: This thesis will investigate the processes of translation and rewriting (réécriture) in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, through a study of the French and Italian Merlin corpus.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    introduction Romance is a twilight zone in studies of late sixteenth-century literary genres in England. Half-way between the nostalgia of medieval chivalry and the enterprising spirit of early modern exploration, piracy and com- merce as preludes to a future empire, it is both very old-fashioned and innovatively modern. Appearing in narrative as well as in dramatic forms, romance lays simultaneous claims to history and imagination, which were not necessarily in opposition in the period, and caters for a readership of servants and citizens while equally fi nding its way into Spenserian epic, Sidneyan pastoral or even late Shakespearian tragicomedy and Miltonian poetry. The three plays grouped in this volume are early modern attempts at conquering that twilight zone in a context of expanding contacts with Muslim lands around the Mediterranean. romance and conquest in early modern england ‘The structural core of all fi ction’ for Northrop Frye, who sees it as a means to translate mythical archetypes into human experience, 1 romance is also ‘a notoriously slippery category’, as Barbara Fuchs warns. 2 The basic defi nition with which Helen Cooper starts her authoritative study of the genre is a primarily narrative fi ction in the vernacular which appears from the twelfth century onward, characterised by exotic settings, distant in time and/or place, concerned with love and/or chivalry, and involving high-ranking individuals engaged in some ideal quest. It may include such recurrent patterns as encounters with the supernatural, obscured identities or miraculous conversions. 3 Patricia Parker’s earlier deconstructionist approach complicates this defi nition by insisting on the proliferating digressions which form the structure of romance and defer its closure and collective coherence.
    [Show full text]
  • 2017-Richard-3-Learning-Resources
    LEARNING RESOURCES SYNOPSIS 2 QUICK FACTS 3 PERFORMANCE HISTORY 4 SOURCES AND SHAKESPEARE SHAPING HISTORY 5 HISTORY OF WOMEN PLAYING MALE ROLES IN SHAKESPEARE 6 CHARACTERS 8 THEMES 12 FROM THE DIRECTOR 17 DESIGN 18 OTHER RESOURCES 21 ACTIVITIES 23 EXERCISE ONE 23 EXERCISE TWO 24 EXERCISE THREE 25 EXERCISE FOUR 26 LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 1 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 SYNOPSIS England is enjoying a period of peace after a long civil war between the royal families of York and Lancaster, in which the Yorks were victorious and Henry VI was murdered (by Richard). King Edward IV is newly declared King, but his youngest brother, Richard (Gloucester) is resentful of Edward’s power and the general happiness of the state. Driven by ruthless ambition and embittered by his own deformity, he initiates a secret plot to take the throne by eradicating anyone who stands in his path. Richard has King Edward suspect their brother Clarence of treason and he is brought to the Tower by Brackenbury. Richard convinces Clarence that Edward’s wife, Queen Elizabeth, and her brother Rivers, are responsible for this slander and Hastings’ earlier imprisonment. Richard swears sympathy and allegiance to Clarence, but later has him murdered. Richard then interrupts the funeral procession of Henry VI to woo Lady Anne (previously betrothed to Henry VI’s deceased son, again killed by Richard). He falsely professes his love for her as the cause of his wrong doings, and despite her deep hatred for Richard, she is won and agrees to marry him.
    [Show full text]