How Plays Work: Reading and Performance

Language: English

Published by Oxford University Press, United Kingdom, Oxford, 2007

0199215499 / 9780199215492

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Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United KingdomWorldofBooks

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Softcover

Condition: Used - Very good

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Item description from seller

Why are readers who are generally at home with narrative and discursive prose, and even readily responsive to poetry, far less confident and intuitive when it comes to plays? The complication lies in the twofold character of the play as it exists on the page - as a script or score to be realized, and as literature. Martin Meisel's engaging account of how we read play plays on the page shows that the path to the fullest imaginative response is an understanding of how plays work. What is entailed is something like learning a language - vocabulary, grammar, syntax - but learning also how the language operates in those concrete situations where it is deployed. Meisel begins with a look at matters often taken for granted in coding and convention, and then - under 'Beginnings' - at what is entailed in establishing and entering the invented world of the play. Each succeeding chapter is a gesture at enlarging the scope: 'Seeing and Hearing', 'The Uses of Place', 'The Role of the Audience', 'The Shape of the Action', and 'The Action of Words'. The final chapters, 'Reading Meanings' and 'Primal Attractions', explore ways in which both the drive for significant understanding and the appetite for wonder can and do find satisfaction and delight. Cultivated in tone and jargon-free, How Plays Work is illuminated by dozens of judiciously chosen examples from western drama - from classical Greek dramatists to contemporary playwrights, both canonical and relatively obscure. It will appeal as much to the serious student of the theatre as to the playgoer who likes to read a play before seeing it performed. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Seller Inventory # GOR005719199

Title
How Plays Work: Reading and Performance
Author
Martin Meisel (Brander Matthews Professor Emeritus of Dramatic Literature, Columbia University)
Publisher
Oxford University Press, United Kingdom, Oxford
Publication year
2007
Condition
Very Good
Binding
Paperback
Language
English
ISBN 10
0199215499
ISBN 13
9780199215492
Item weight
635 grams
Dimensions
164.0 x 240.0

WorldofBooks

Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom

5-star seller

AbeBooks seller since March 16, 2007

Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.

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In 2002, World of Books Group was founded on an ethos to do good, protect the planet and support charities by enabling more goods to be reused. Since then, we've grown into to a global company pioneering the circular economy. Today, we drive the circular economy through three re-commerce brands: - Wob: Through Wob, we sell. We provide affordable, preloved books and media to customers all over the world. A book leaves our collection of over seven million titles and begins a new chapter every two seconds, enabling more goods to be reused. - Ziffit: Through Ziffit, we buy. We give people around the world the opportunity to contribute to the circular economy, earn money and protect the planet, by trading their unwanted books and media. - Shopiago: Through Shopiago, we help others. By sharing the technology that has grown World of Books Group into the business it is today, we’re helping charities increase revenue and reduce waste through re-commerce.

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World of Books Ltd

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