Troilus and Cressida (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)

by William Shakespeare (Author), William Shakespeare (Author), Anthony B. Dawson (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.24

  Troilus and Cressida, long considered one of Shakespeare's most problematic plays, is both difficult and fascinating. Largely neglected during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it has recently proved popular and rewarding on the stage as well as in the study. This edition questions certain received ideas about the play's text, especially the relationship between quarto and folio and offers several new readings of old problems. Dawson's textual choices are often surprising but at the same time carefully grounded. He views the play from a performance perspective - both in the commentary as well as in the detailed section on stage history in the introduction. The introduction also covers the cultural context in which the play was written, probes the controversy about its early performance and provides extensive analysis of character, language, genre and contemporary significance.

• Used

  Paperback
  1969

  $3.24

  John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work is available both individually and as a set, and each contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary printed at the back. The edition, which began with The Tempest and ended with The Sonnets, put into practice the techniques and theories that had evolved under the 'New Bibliography'. Remarkably by today's standards, although it took the best part of half a century to produce, the New Shakespeare involved only a small band of editors besides Dover Wilson himself. As the volumes took shape, many of Dover Wilson's textual methods acquired general acceptance and became an established part of later editorial practice, for example in the Arden and New Cambridge Shakespeares.

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $35.24

  This edition is the first to offer a detailed account of the theatrical treatment of Troilus and Cressida on the British and North American stages from its first revivals at the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. As social turmoil increased, audiences grew more in tune with the play's cynical undercutting of the Homeric tale of Greeks and Trojans, and less dismissive of Shakepeare's dark comedic treatment of the Medieval tale of Troilus and Cressida. This edition of this problematic and fascinating play traces its theatrical history, drawing upon critical responses, photographic archives, promptbooks, and video tapes of more recent productions to trace changes in production styles and emphases. Stage history is placed against a broader background of social change including shifting attitudes towards war, politics, sexual issues, and the rise of feminism that has increased understanding of Cressida's actions in a wartime man's world.