William Shakespeare A Very Short Introduction

Author : Stanley Wells
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 019102869X
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction written by Stanley Wells and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new offering from Stanley Wells, the pre-eminent Shakespearian scholar, comes a Very Short Introduction to the life and writings of the world's greatest and best-known dramatists: William Shakespeare. Looking at his early life and education, Wells explores Shakespeare's social and intellectual background and the literary traditions on which Shakespeare drew. Examining the theatres and theatrical profession of the time, he also considers how Shakespeare experienced this world, both as an actor and as a writer. Examining Shakespeare's narrative poems, sonnets, and all of his plays, Wells outlines their sources, style, and originality over the course of Shakespeare's career, to consider the fundamental impact his work has had for subsequent generations. Written with enthusiasm and flair by a scholar who has devoted a lifetime to the study of Shakespeare and his works, this is an engaging and authoritative introduction. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Stanley Wells
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198785291
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shakespeare's Tragedies written by Stanley Wells and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's tragedies contain an astonishing variety of suffering, from suicides and murders to dismemberments and grief. Stanley Wells considers how the bard's tragic plays drew on the literary and theatrical conventions of his time. Discussing the individual plays, he also explores why tragedy is regarded as a fit subject for entertainment.

Author : Christopher Butler
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192804413
Total Pages : 137 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Modernism: A Very Short Introduction written by Christopher Butler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-29 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compact introduction to modernism--why it began, what it is, and how it hasshaped virtually all aspects of 20th and 21st century life

Author : Jonathan Bate
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191614297
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book English Literature: A Very Short Introduction written by Jonathan Bate and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-10-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sweeping across two millennia and every literary genre, acclaimed scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate provides a dazzling introduction to English Literature. The focus is wide, shifting from the birth of the novel and the brilliance of English comedy to the deep Englishness of landscape poetry and the ethnic diversity of Britain's Nobel literature laureates. It goes on to provide a more in-depth analysis, with close readings from an extraordinary scene in King Lear to a war poem by Carol Ann Duffy, and a series of striking examples of how literary texts change as they are transmitted from writer to reader. The narrative embraces not only the major literary movements such as Romanticism and Modernism, together with the most influential authors including Chaucer, Donne, Johnson, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens and Woolf, but also little-known stories such as the identity of the first English woman poet to be honoured with a collected edition of her works. Written with the flair and passion for which Jonathan Bate has become renowned, this book is the perfect Very Short Introduction for all readers and students of the incomparable literary heritage of these islands. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Bart van Es
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191034959
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shakespeare's Comedies: A Very Short Introduction written by Bart van Es and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-24 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the early 1590s to The Two Noble Kinsmen at the end of his career around 1614, Shakespeare wrote at least eighteen plays that can be called 'comedies': a far higher number than that for any other genre in which he wrote. So what is a Shakespearean comedy? We associate these plays with such themes as mistaken identities, happy marriages, and exuberant cross dressing, but how representative are these of the oeuvre as a whole? In this Very Short Introduction, Bart van Es explores the full range of the playwright's comic writing, from the neat classical plotting of early works like The Comedy of Errors to the corrupt world of the so-called problem plays, written in the middle years of Shakespeare's life. Examining Shakespeare's influences and sources, van Es compares his plays to those of his rivals, and looks at the history of the plays in performance, from the biographies of Shakespeare's original actors to the plays' endless reinvention in modern stage productions and in films. Identifying the key qualities that make Shakespearean comedy distinctive, van Es traces the changing nature of Shakespeare's comic writing over the course of a career that spanned nearly a quarter century of theatrical change. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Bart Van Es
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198723350
Total Pages : 145 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shakespeare's Comedies written by Bart Van Es and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, Bart Van Es analyses Shakespeare's comedic plays, picking out the family resemblances across these works. He considers their shared themes such as confusion and cross dressing, misguided love, twins and substitutions, and explores the bard's verbal artistry and wit.

Author : Germaine Greer
Publisher : Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 9780192802491
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction written by Germaine Greer and published by Oxford Paperbacks. This book was released on 2002-02-21 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germaine Greer examines Shakepeare's plays in detail, showing how he dramatized moral and intellectual issues in such a way that his audience became dazzlingly aware of an imaginative dimension to daily life. She argues that as long as Shakespeare's work remains central to English cultural life, it will retain the values which make it unique in the world.

Author : Christopher Wixson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192590359
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book George Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction written by Christopher Wixson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures seventy years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity. This Very Short Introduction looks at Shaw's life, starting with his upbringing in Ireland, and then takes a chronological approach through his works. Considering Shaw's committed antagonism on behalf of a range of socio-political issues; his use of comedy as a mode for communicating serious ideas; and his rhetorical style that pushes conventional boundaries, Christopher Wixson provides an overview of the creative evolution of core themes throughout Shaw's long career. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Matthew Bevis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199601712
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Comedy: A Very Short Introduction written by Matthew Bevis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a broad scope across the millennia, from high literature to popular culture, between page and stage and screen, this Very Short Introduction considers comedy not only as a literary genre, but also as a broader impulse at work in many other historical and contemporary forms of satire, parody, and play.

Author : Michael Wood
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192803530
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Film: A Very Short Introduction written by Michael Wood and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a wealth of insight into the paradoxical nature of film, considering its role and impact on society in the 20th century as well as its future in the digital age. Original.