The Taming of a Shrew: The 1594 Quarto (The New Cambridge Shakespeare: The Early Quartos) - Hardcover

Shakespeare, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521563232 ISBN 13: 9780521563239

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Synopsis

This is a new edition of an anonymous play that appears to be an alternative version of Shakespeare's popular comedy, The Taming of the Shrew. Stephen Miller suggests that someone rewrote Shakespeare's more complicated version, making it shorter, simpler and different in some ways. The main difference between the two plays concerns the framing story of Christopher Sly, the drunk, who disappears early on in Shakespeare's version, but who has a much larger role in A Shrew. This edition provides a modernized text and extensive commentary.

About this title

From the Publisher

An exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespeare with these features: Illustrated with photographs from New York Shakespeare Festival productions, vivid readable readable introductions for each play by noted scholar David Bevington, a lively personal foreword by Joseph Papp, an insightful essay on the play in performance, modern spelling and pronunciation, up-to-date annotated bibliographies, and convenient listing of key passages.

From the Back Cover

From the Royal Shakespeare Company – a fresh new edition of Shakespeare's controversial comedy of the war between the sexes
 
THIS EDITION INCLUDES:
· An illuminating introduction to The Taming of the Shrew by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate
· The play - with clear and authoritative explanatory notes on each page
· A helpful scene-by-scene analysis and key facts about the play
· An introduction to Shakespeare's career and the Elizabethan theatre
· A rich exploration of approaches to staging the play featuring photographs of key productions

The most enjoyable way to understand a Shakespeare play is to see it or participate in it. This unique edition presents a historical overview of The Taming of the Shrew in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with two leading directors and an actress - Gregory Doran, Phyllida Lloyd and Michelle Gomez – 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.

Ideal for students, theatre-goers, actors and general readers, the RSC Shakespeare plays offer an accessible and contemporary approach to reading and rediscovering Shakespeare's works for the twenty-first century.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521563232
• ISBN 13: 9780521563239
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 172
• Editor: Miller Stephen Roy