Troilus and Cressida (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series)

by William Shakespeare, David Bevington (Editor), Richard Proudfoot (Editor), Ann Thompson (Editor), David Scott Kastan (Editor)

Overview

This volume offers the most comprehensive and critically up-to-date edition of Troilus and Cressida available today. Bevington's learned and engaging introduction discusses the ambivalent status and genre of the play, variously presented in its early printing as a comedy, a history and a tragedy. He examines and assimilates the wide variety of critical responses the play has elicited, and argues its importance in today's culture as an experimental and open-ended work. He also, however, suggests that this experimentalism may have contributed to its lack of immediate stage success, and goes on to place the work in its late Elizabethan context of political instability and theatrical rivalry. A thorough performance history focuses chiefly on recent productions. The complex text situation is re-examined and the differing textual readings carefully explicated.'Bevington's edition is so clearly the best now available that it will no doubt quickly become standard practice for all study of this remarkable play to begin with this remarkable edition.'Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada at Reno, Shakespeare Survey

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781903436707
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/20/1998
Series:	The Arden Shakespeare Third Series
Edition description:	3RD
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.06(d)

About the Author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English dramatist, poet, and actor, generally regarded as the greatest playwright of all time.

David Bevington is the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Chicago.

Professor Richard Proudfoot served as Senior General Editor of the Arden Shakespeare for 35 years, until his retirement from King's in 1999. In 2001 The Arden Shakespeare published Proudfoot's Shakespeare: Text, Stage and Canon a critical overview of the scholarly achievements made in the field of Shakespeare studies by the end of the twentieth century.

ANN THOMPSON is Emeritus Professor in English at King' s College London UK.

David Scott Kastan is the George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University, USA.

Henry Woudhuysen is Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, UK.

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 General editors preface Preface Introduction - A new play, never staled with the stage: genre and the question of original performance - An envious fever of pale and bloodless emulation: historical context in the last years of Elizabeths reign - Wars and lechery: demystification of the heroes of ancient Greece - Tis but the chance of war: sceptical deflation of Trojan honour and chivalry - The gods have heard me swear: tragic irony and the death of Hector - As true as Troilus: male obsessions about honour and sexuality - As false as Cressid: women as objects of desire - Call them all panders: voyeurism and male bonding - Whats aught but as tis valued?: commercial and subjective valuation of identity and worth - Divides more wider than the sky and earth: the fragmentation of the divided self - Stuff to make paradoxes: performance history of Troilus and Cressida TROILUS AND CRESSIDA Longer notes Instructed by the antiquary times: Shakespeares sources Words, words, mere words: The text of Troilus and Cressida Abbreviations and references Index

Editorial Reviews

“Bevington's edition is so clearly the best now available that it will no doubt quickly become standard practice for all study of this remarkable play to begin with this remarkable edition.” —Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada at Reno, Shakespeare Survey

From the Publisher

Bevington's edition is so clearly the best now available that it will no doubt quickly become standard practice for all study of this remarkable play to begin with this remarkable edition.

Eric Rasmussen