Romeo and Juliet: The Oxford Shakespeare: The Oxford Shakespeareromeo and Juliet (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199535892 ISBN 13: 9780199535897

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 2008

Synopsis

This innovative edition of one of Shakespeare's most beloved plays offers modernized texts not only of the 1599 quarto but also of the short, or "bad" quarto of 1597, regarding each as witness to a "mobile text" which changed in composition as Shakespeare wrote it and which has continued to evolve throughout its richly varied history, both in the theatre and in film, television, opera, and ballet. The more familiar 1599 text is accompanied by a detailed explanatory commentary. The Introduction traces the Romeo and Juliet narrative from its origins in myth through its adaptation in the novella, and shows how Shakespeare's transmutation of the story reflects contemporary concerns with love, death, adolescence, and patriarchism.

About this title

Review:

This is undoubtedly the greatest love story ever written, spawning a host of imitators on stage and screen, including Leonard Bernstein's smash musical West Side Story, Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet filmed in 1968, and Baz Luhrmann's postmodern film version Romeo + Juliet. The tragic feud between "Two households, both alike in dignity/In fair Verona", the Montagues and Capulets, which ultimately kills the two young "star-crossed lovers" and their "death-marked love" creates issues which have fascinated subsequent generations. The play deals with issues of intergenerational and familial conflict, as well as the power of language and the compelling relationship between sex and death, all of which makes it an incredibly modern play. It is also an early example of Shakespeare fusing poetry with dramatic action, as he moves from Romeo's lyrical account of Juliet--"she doth teach the torches to burn bright!" to the bustle and action of a 16th-century household (the play contains more scenes of ordinary working people than any of Shakespeare's other works). It also represents an experimental attempt to fuse comedy with tragedy. Up to the third act, the play proceeds along the lines of a classic romantic comedy. The turning point comes with the death of one of Shakespeare's finest early dramatic creations--Romeo's sexually ambivalent friend Mercutio, whose "plague o' both your houses" begins the play's descent into tragedy, "For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo". --Jerry Brotton

Review:

many students will no doubt relish the fullness of Professor Levenson's notes. Indeed, they may often be particularly grateful for the care with which she directs readers to even fuller discussions to be found elsewhere (The Review of English Studies, Vol.52, No.207)

Professor Levenson provides an excellent and often very thought-provoking account of performance history, and many of her most interesting discussions and annotations relate to questions of staging, traditional, unusual, or possible (The Review of English Studies, Vol.52, No.207)

excellent decision to include the whole of the Q1 text as well as Q2 (The Review of English Studies, Vol.52, No.207)

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0199535892
• ISBN 13: 9780199535897
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 460
• Editor: Levenson Jill L.