Shakespeare by David Bevington
What makes Shakespeare great? Why do we still read and perform his works? In this deft, witty, and unpretentiously short book, David Bevington argues that Shakespeare continues to live among us today because his representations of the human condition are believable, endearing and touchingly human. The book is structured around Shakespeare's arc of human life from infancy and childhood to adulthood, advancing age and eventual death, as set out by Jaques in the so-called 'Seven Ages of Man' speech from As You Like It. Each stage in the life cycle acts as a lens through which the reader can view Shakespeare's major works. The result is a dazzling series of explorations on childhood, sibling rivalry, courtship, the competition of sons with their fathers, career choices and ambitions, disillusionment and loss of traditional faith, marriage, jealousy, midlife crisis, ageing fathers worrying about their daughters' marrying, retirement, and so onward to 'second childishness and mere oblivion'. Bevington reveals that Shakespeare wrote not just about human experience, but from human experience. His works represent a deeply humane portrait of humankind, and of the author himself, in a series of compelling dramatic representations. This is a virtuoso performance by an eminent scholar, widely noted for his great gifts of explication and for his mastery of accessible prose.
David Bevington is Professor of English and of Comparative Literature (with a special interest in literature and music), also in the Committee on General Studies, and Phyllis Fay Horton Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago since 1967. His numerous publications include the Arden Shakespeare edition of Troilus and Cressida (1998), a critical edition of John Lyly's Endymion (1588), The Jacobean Court Masque (1998). He has recently published on the motif of characters asleep onstage in medieval and Tudor drama. He is senior editor in a team of four editors preparing The Norton Anthology of Renaissance Drama (2002?) and is one of the three senior editors of an edition of The Complete Works of Ben Jonson, to be published by CUP in 2003 in multiple volumes. He is also a senior editor of the Revels series, and is the senior editor of a relatively new series of Revels student editions.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780631227199 |
| ISBN 10 | 0631227199 |
| Title | Shakespeare |
| Author | David Bevington |
| Series | Blackwell Introductions To Literature |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | John Wiley and Sons Ltd |
| Year published | 2002-08-26 |
| Number of pages | 264 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |