King John and Henry VIII (The RSC Shakespeare) - Softcover

William Shakespeare

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0230361927 ISBN 13: 9780230361928

Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012

Synopsis

From the Royal Shakespeare Company – a modern, definitive edition of Shakespeare's most unusual and provocative histories. With an expert introduction by Sir Jonathan Bate, this unique edition presents a historical overview of King John and Henry VIII in performance, takes a detailed look at specific productions, and recommends film versions. Included in this edition are interviews with three leading directors – Gregory Doran, Josie Rourke and Gregory Thompson – providing an illuminating insight into the extraordinary variety of interpretations that are possible. This edition also includes an essay on Shakespeare’s career and Elizabethan theatre, and enables the reader to understand the play as it was originally intended – as living theatre to be enjoyed and performed.

Ideal for students, theatre-goers, actors and general readers, the RSC Shakespeare editions offer a fresh, accessible and contemporary approach to reading and rediscovering Shakespeare’s works for the twenty-first century.

About this title

From the Back Cover

From the Royal Shakespeare Company – a fresh new edition of two of Shakespeare's most unusual and provocative histories

This book includes:

* Illuminating introductions to King John and Henry VIII by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate
* The two plays – with clear explanatory notes on each page
* Helpful scene-by-scene analyses and key facts about both plays
* An introduction to Shakespeare's career and the Elizabethan theatre
* Rich explorations of approaches to staging both plays featuring photographs of key productions of each

The most enjoyable way to understand a Shakespeare play is to see it or participate in it. This book presents a historical overview of two of Shakespeare's classical plays King John and Henry VIII in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with three leading Directors – Gregory Doran, Josie Rourke and Gregory Thompson – so that we may get a sense of the extraordinary variety of interpretations that are possible - a variety that gives Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made 'our contemporary' four centuries after his death.

About the Author

JONATHAN BATE Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as 'the best modern book on Shakespeare.' In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'.
ERIC RASMUSSEN Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0230361927
• ISBN 13: 9780230361928
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376