Titus Andronicus

by William Shakespeare, Alan Hughes (Editor), Sue Hall-Smith (Contribution by)

Overview

Titus Andronicus is still regarded by many as a bad play of dubious authorship. Its adversaries have abhorred the violence of the action and the apparent lapses in the quality of the verse. Since 1945, however, the play has been taken increasingly seriously in both the theatre and the study: the violence and cruelty it depicts were disconcertingly matched by the events of two World Wars. Hughes joins those critics who take the play seriously, arguing for its unity of theme and its grim humour, and demonstrates that it is the work of a brilliant stage craftsman, confident in his mastery of space, movement and verse. The text is based on the first quarto, supplemented by crucial additions and stage directions from the Folio. For this updated edition, a new section is included on recent stage, film and critical interpretations by Sue Hall-Smith. An updated reading list completes the edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781139836456
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2006
Series:	The New Cambridge Shakespeare
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.
 
Stephen Orgel is the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of the Humanities at Stanford University and general editor of the Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture. He has edited Ben Johnson’s masques, Christopher Marlowe’s poems and translations, and many other classics. His books include Imagining Shakespeare, The Authentic Shakespeare, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England and The Illusion of Power.
 
A. R. Braunmuller is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has written critical volumes on George Peele and George Chapman and has edited plays in both the Oxford (King John) and Cambridge (Macbeth) series of Shakespeare editions. He is also general editor of The New Cambridge Shakespeare.
 
Manuja Waldia is an illustrator and visual designer, living in Indianapolis. She graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2014.

Russ McDonald is a professor of English at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is the author of The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare. He has served as a trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America and was a director of the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Date of Death:

2018

Place of Birth:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Place of Death:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Preface; List of abbreviations and conventions; Introduction: Date; Sources; Authorship; Early stage history; The Longleat manuscript; From the Restoration to the nineteenth century; Twentieth-century performance and criticism; Recent stage, film and critical interpretations by Sue Hall-Smith; Note on the text; List of characters; The Play; Textual analysis; Appendix 1. Titus Andronicus at the Rose; Appendix 2. Performance by a small company; Reading list.

Editorial Reviews

Gorgeous new Shakespeare paperbacks.” 
—Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

“I have been using the Pelican Shakespeare for years in my lecture course—it's invaluable, the best individual-volume series available for students.”
—Marjorie Garber, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University 

From the Publisher