The Merchant of Venice (The New Cambridge Shakespeare) - Hardcover

Shakespeare, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052182544X ISBN 13: 9780521825443

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Synopsis

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of The Merchant of Venice retains the text and Introduction prepared by M. M. Mahood and features a new introductory section by Charles Edelman. Where Mahood focuses in her Introduction on the expectations of the play's first audience and on our modern experience of seeing and hearing the drama performed, Edelman explores the play's sexual politics. He also foregrounds recent scholarship on the position of Jews in Shakespeare's time and surveys the international scope and diversity of theatrical interpretations of the text in the 1980s and 1990s. He pays particular attention to the ways in which directors and actors tackle the troubling figure of Shylock.

About this title

Review

'The introduction and commentary reveal an author with a lively awareness of the importance of perceiving the play as a theatrical document, one which comes to life, which is completed only in performance.' The Review of English Studies

Book Description

This second edition of The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare's most frequently performed comedy - retains M. M. Mahood's text and Introduction and features a new introductory section by Charles Edelman. Mahood explores audience expectations while Edelman focuses on stage productions of the late twentieth century and the troubling figure of Shylock.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052182544X
• ISBN 13: 9780521825443
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 216
• Editor: Mahood M. M.