Shakespeare: The Last Plays (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781138154759)

This is the first collection of criticism on Shakespeare's romances to register the impact of modern literary theory on interpretations of these plays. Kiernan Ryan brings together the most important recent essays on Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, the greatest of the 'last plays', staging a dynamic debate between feminist, poststructuralist, psycho-analytic and new historicist views of the masterpieces Shakespeare wrote at the close of his career. The book aims not only to anthologise accounts of the last plays by leading Shakespearean critics, including Stephen Greenblatt, Janet Adelman, Leah Marcus, Howard Felperin and Steven Mullaney, but also to dramatise what is at stake in the choice of a particular critical approach. It allows the student to compare the strengths and limitations of a deconstructive and a feminist reading of the same romance, or to test the plausibility of one psychoanalytic angle on the last plays against another. A comprehensive, fully annotated bibliography provides an unrivalled guide to further reading on all four plays.

Author: Kiernan Ryan
ISBN-10: 113815475X
ISBN-13: 9781138154759
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 12/14/2016
Pages: 312
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.12lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.75d