Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright

by Patrick Cheney

Overview

Reassessing Shakespeare as a poet and dramatist, Patrick Cheney contests critical preoccupation with Shakespeare as "a man of the theatre" by reclaiming his original standing as an early modern author. Cheney considers him as a working dramatist who composed extraordinary poems and traces Shakespeare's literary origins to his favorite author, Ovid. Although the book concentrates on Shakespeare's poems, it makes frequent reference to the plays, and ranges widely through the work of other Renaissance writers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521072250
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/14/2008
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Patrick Cheney is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Marlowe's Counterfeit Profession: Ovid, Spenser, Counter-Nationhood (1997) and Spenser's Famous Flight: A Renaissance Idea of a Literary Career (1993) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Marlowe (2004).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Note on texts; Proem: Shakespeare's 'Plaies and Poems'; Part I. The Imprint of Shakespearean Authorship: Prelude: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Petrarch; 1. The sixteenth-century poet-playwright; 2. Francis Meres, the Ovidian poet-playwright, and Shakespeare criticism; Part II. 1593–1594: The Print Author Presents Himself: Play Scene: 'Two Gentlemen' to 'Richard III'; 3. Authorship and acting: plotting Venus and Adonis along the Virgilian path; 4. Publishing the show: The Rape of Lucrece as Lucanian counter-epic of empire; Part III. 1599–1601: The Author Brought Into Print: Play Scene: 'Love's Labor's Lost' to 'Troilus and Cressida'; 5. 'Tales … coined': 'W. Shakespeare' in Jaggard's The Passionate Pilgrim; 6. 'Threne' and 'scene': the author's relics of immortality in 'The Phoenix and Turtle'; Part IV. 1609: Imprinting the Question of Authorship: Play Scene: 'Measure for Measure' to 'Coriolanus'; 7. 'O, let my books be … dumb presagers': poetry and theatre in the sonnets; 8. 'Deep-brain'd sonnets' and 'tragic shows': Shakespeare's late Ovidian art in A Lover's Complaint; Epilogue. Ariel and Autolycus: Shakespeare's counter-laureate authorship; Works cited; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Patrick Cheney's Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright is a remarkable book."
Jeanne A. Roberts, The Spenser Review

"Poet-Playwright introduces and illustrates the pertinence of the dyadic Ovidian model of authorship in the 'inter-textual intercourse' between Shakespeare's plays and poems. The author challenges the nearly 400 years of Shakespearean editing that has forced the poetry of England's national poet-playwright to the backs of numerous volumes. Cheney has lofty ambitions, but his goals are largely met." - Jacob Heil, Texas A&M University

From the Publisher