The Authentic Shakespeare: and Other Problems of the Early Modern Stage

In this lavishly illustrated book, one of the most important and influential scholars of the Renaissance stage brings together essays that have changed the way we think about the age of Shakespeare. His subjects are varied and interconnected: the theater as social phenomenon, the development of the stage as an architectural presence and a cultural institution, the changing use of setting and costume, the changing status of the acting profession, the complex relation of theater to the political life of the age. Most of all, The Authentic Shakespeare is about how the modern constructs the past, how the texts that were performed on the Elizabethan stage became the books and editions that are, for our time, Renaissance drama. Many essays in The Authentic Shakespeare have become classics. Collected here for the first time, they essential reading for students of the Renaissance stage and the history of the book.

Collects fifteen important essays by one of the most prominent scholars of Shakespeare studies. Humanities at Stanford. Among his many publications are Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England, The Illusion of Power, Inigo Jones (with Sir Roy Strong), and The Jonsonian Masque. He has published numerous editions of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Marlowe, and is the general editor of the New Pelican Shakespeare