William Shakespeare

Alfred Harbage

The Complete Works

Here is a book to hearten playgoers, stimulate young actors, lead theatrical executives to reconsider methods of management, and encourage benefactors to open their wallets. In this new book (containing the Alexander Lectures for 1954-55), Mr. Harbage, distinguished critic and scholar, advocates a movement to give Shakespeare back to the audiences. He complains that, in greater or less degree, Shakespearean audiences are in constant danger of being bored, or more precisely of being "reverently unreceptive," of being gratified that they have come to the play and gratified that they then may go. In his opinion there is no theatre in the world today that can present Shakespeare with full adequacy. Mr. Harbage feels that Shakespearean production is at present lacking in a sense of direction, and needs some form of exemplary leadership. Counsels of perfection are required. There should be at least one company to set a standard, one not dependent upon immediate financial success, and one committed only to realizing artistic ideals worthy of the plays. The wholesome tendency to return to the original methods of production for guidance would be more effectual if a distinction were made between what is still applicable in those original methods and what is not. The author's argument is provocative and amusing throughout; it begins with detailed complaints and ends with detailed remedies. A generous amount of information about Elizabethan precedents and traditions is included. Alfred Harbage has published numerous books which have become cornerstones in Shakespearean scholarship: Annals of English Drama, 975-1700; Shakespeare's Audience; As They Liked It; and Shakespeare and the Rival Traditions. He has prepared new editions of The Tempest and As You Like it, is General Editor of the American Pelican Shakespeare, had published articles in learned journals, and has held editorial and advisory posts.

Theatre for Shakespeare

The life and work of a Restoration playwright whose name has been overshadowed by his reputation as a roué.

Cavalier Dramatist, 1612-83

Thomas Killigrew

The Complete Pelican Shakespeare brings together the thirty-eight volumes of the acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series with many additional editorial and textual features: A General Introduction presents five essays on important aspects of Shakespeare's life and art, as well as a Shakespeare canon and a comparative analysis. The works themselves are grouped in five sections-Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, Romances, and Non-Dramatic poetry. Each section is preceded by a Foreword, and the plays and poems are accompanied by individual Introductions. Full Bibliographies and Notes help the reader understand the works without intruding upon the enjoyment of them, and five drawings by C. Walter Hodges are included, along with nineteen pages of the First Folio in reduced facsimile.

Blood on the bosom devine

First thorough biography of the colorful and gifted seventeenth-century playwright who was also the father of English opera, the first to use English actresses in his plays, and the creator of modern stage construction.

Poet Venturer, 1606-1668

Sir William Davenant

Elizabethan and Seventeenth-century Play Manuscripts

Sylvia S. Wagonheim

'The Annals of English Drama, 975-1700' is an analytical record of all plays, extant or lost, from this time period. It takes into account the large amount of material that has subsequently appeared since the original Alfred Harbage publication. Containing nearly one thousand entries, clarifications, corrections and deletions.

Alfred Harbage

About

Books

Join the club