Red imprint: 1729 books

The Dancing of the title was in Shakespeare's mind as he wrote: a physical and active imagination. This book studies its operation in his most frequently performed texts and encourages readers to seek out the performance possibilities of all the texts for themselves. The need to study Shakespeare's...

Why is Shakespeare as highly regarded now as he ever has been? This book's answer to this question counters claims that Shakespeare's iconic status is no more than an accident of history. The plays, Belsey argues, entice us into a world we recognize by retelling traditional fairy tales with a difference, each chapter providing a detailed reading.

This guide helps students navigate A.C. Bradley's classic text, while providing an important commentary on the value of Bradley's approach and how it can be adapted to present-day interests. John Russell Brown highlights the advantages of understanding Bradley's methods and provides major insights for any student of Shakespeare.

Of unknown authorship, Beowulf is an Old English epic poem which incites contentious debate and has been endlessly interpreted over the centuries. This Reader's Guide provides a much-needed overview of the large body of Beowulf criticism, moving from eighteenth-century reactions to twenty-first-century...

Poets have written about wars throughout the twentieth century - questioning, protesting and, sometimes, celebrating the nature and purpose of conflict. Attracting an enthusiastic popular readership, war poetry has often been seen as a way of remembering and re-imagining wars. Today, war poems are...

This Guide surveys existing criticism and theory, making clear the key critical debates, themes and issues surrounding a wide variety of Irish poets, playwrights and novelists. It relates Irish literature to debates surrounding issues such as national identity, modernity and the Revival period, armed struggle, gender, sexuality and post colonialism.

This Guide examines the critical construction of the genre of 'contemporary Scottish literature' and assesses the critical responses to a wide range of contemporary Scottish fiction, poetry and drama. The Guide is structured thematically with each chapter addressing a specific area of debate within the field of contemporary Scottish Studies.

Ian McEwan is one of Britain's most established, and controversial, writers. This book introduces students to a range of critical approaches to McEwan's fiction. Criticism is drawn from selections in academic essays and articles, and reviews in newspapers, journals, magazines and websites, with editorial...

In what ways does the opening of a novel relate to the narrative that unfolds from it? What are the different approaches to close reading a page of prose fiction? How does reading a text for a second time affect our understanding of the significance of its opening? In this unique book, Peter...

This revised and updated edition of The Creative Writing Handbook now includes new chapters on writing for stage and radio and on writing screenplays for film and television. Written by professional writers and tutors, it covers all aspects of the writing process, from drafting first thoughts to shaping...

How are hybrid and diasporic identities performed in increasingly diverse societies? How can we begin to think differently about theatrical flow across cultures? Interculturalism is an increasingly urgent topic in the 21st century. As human traffic between nations increases, it becomes imperative...

In his latest book, John Russell Brown offers a new and revealing way of reading and studying Shakespeare's plays, focusing on what a play does for an audience, as well as what its text says. By considering the entire theatrical experience and not only what happens on stage, Brown takes his readers...

Key Concepts in Postcolonial Literature provides an overview of the main themes, issues and critical perspectives that have had the greatest effect on postcolonial literatures. Discussing historical, cultural and contextual background, it contains selected work of some of the major writers from this period.

David Copperfield and Great Expectations are among Charles Dickens's most famous novels. In both books, the hero tells the vivid and absorbing tale of his education by life, presents a rich range of characters and scenes, and tackles profound moral, social and psychological themes. Part I of...