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Aeschylus: Libation Bearers (Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy)
by C. W. MarshallLibation Bearers is the 'middle' play in the only extant tragic trilogy to survive from antiquity, Aeschylus' Oresteia, first produced in 458 BCE. This introduction to the play will be useful for anyone reading it in Greek or in translation. Drawing on his wide experience teaching about performance in the ancient world, C. W. Marshall helps readers understand how the play was experienced by its ancient audience. His discussion explores the impact of the chorus, the characters, theology, and the play's apparent affinities with comedy. The architecture of choral songs is described in detail. The book also investigates the role of revenge in Athenian society and the problematic nature of Orestes' matricide. Libation Bearers immediately entered the Athenian visual imagination, influencing artistic depictions on red-figured vases, and inspiring plays by Euripides and Sophocles. This study looks to the later plays to show how 5th-century audiences understood Libation Bearers. Modern reception of the play is integrated into the analysis. The volume includes a full range of ancillary material, providing a list of relevant red-figure vase illustrations, a glossary of technical terms, and a chronology of ancient and modern theatrical versions.
Greek to GCSE: Revised edition for OCR GCSE Classical Greek (9–1)
by John TaylorFirst written in response to a JACT survey of over 100 schools, and now endorsed by OCR, this textbook has become a standard resource for students in the UK and for readers across the world who are looking for a clear and thorough introduction to the language of the ancient Greeks. Revised throughout and enhanced by coloured artwork and text features, this edition will support the new OCR specification for Classical Greek (first teaching 2016).Part 1 covers the basics and is self-contained, with its own reference section. It covers the main declensions, a range of active tenses and a vocabulary of 250 Greek words to be learned. Pupil confidence is built up by constant consolidation of the material covered. After the preliminaries, each chapter concentrates on stories with one source or subject: Aesop, Homer's Odyssey and Alexander the Great, providing an excellent introduction to Greek culture alongside the language study. Written by a long-time school teacher and examiner, this two-part course is based on experience of what pupils find difficult, concentrating on the essentials and on the understanding of principles in both accidence and syntax: minor irregularities are postponed and subordinated so that the need for rote learning is reduced. It aims to be user-friendly, but also to give pupils a firm foundation for further study.
Greek to GCSE: Revised edition for OCR GCSE Classical Greek (9–1)
by John TaylorFirst written in response to a JACT survey of over 100 schools, and now endorsed by OCR, this textbook has become a standard resource for students in the UK and for readers across the world who are looking for a clear and thorough introduction to the language of the ancient Greeks. Revised throughout and enhanced by coloured artwork and text features, this edition will support the new OCR specification for Classical Greek (first teaching 2016).Part 1 covers the basics, whilst Part 2 introduces a wider range of grammatical forms and constructions, with a vocabulary of 435 words and reading material from Socrates and the Sophists to the world of myth, and finally to extended passages of lightly adapted Herodotus. Practice passages, exam papers and revision sentences for GCSE complete Part 2, which has a reference section covering the whole course. Written by a long-time school teacher and examiner, this two-part course is based on experience of what pupils find difficult, concentrating on the essentials and on the understanding of principles in both accidence and syntax: minor irregularities are postponed and subordinated so that the need for rote learning is reduced. It aims to be user-friendly, but also to give pupils a firm foundation for further study.
Lovesong of the Electric Bear (Modern Plays)
by Snoo WilsonNothing is stronger than this love, for I am nothing indeed without you, MasterAwoken from his deathbed by his favourite childhood teddy bear, Turing is led by the hand through the journey of his life, from glowing academia to New York drag bars, from triumph to disgrace. Snoo Wilson's Lovesong of the Electric Bear is an epic, psychedelic and electrifying trip through the life of Alan Turing, the computer visionary and maths genius whose gifts made him the code-breaking hero of World War II, but whose homosexuality led him to betrayal and vilification by the very establishment who had depended on him for victory. Lovesong of the Electric Bear is a wonderfully imaginative, comic and moving play from one of British theatre's great voices. The edition publishes to coincide with the European premiere at the Hope Theatre, London, on 24 February 2015.
Beyond Caring (Modern Plays)
by Alexander ZeldinI'm a hard worker. I don't push him to the . . . You know I don't go out for breaks when I'm not supposed to. I don't stay in the loo when I'm not supposed to. If I was that kind of person I could have him done for discrimination . . . I just get on with things you know.Four people arrive to work the night shift in a meat factory. They meet for the first time. They are employed as cleaners by a temp agency. They are all on zero-hours contracts.Every shift, they clean. Every four hours, they take a break. They drink tea or coffee together. They read magazines. They chat. As it gets light, they go home or to another job. The cycle goes on. And on. Strangers. Until something stirs, until isolated people get too close to one another, too fast.Alexander Zeldin's brutally honest and darkly humorous play, written through devising with the ensemble of the premiere production, exposes stories of an invisible class. It received its world premiere at The Yard on 1 July 2014 and transferred to the National Theatre's Temporary Theatre on 28 April 2015.
Pioneer (Modern Plays)
by Curious DirectiveWe have all stared up at the stars and desperately tried to put into words what it is that we are feeling. This mission is an articulation of that wonder. It's 2029: the first human mission to Mars has disappeared without a trace; a reclusive Indian billionaire has funded Ghara I, a new attempt to achieve this dream; in Siberia, two Russian brothers reconnect by driving a Lada Sputnik 1.3 in search of the birth of space travel; at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, Maartje holds on to a secret about her sister;and on Mars, Imke and Oskar, a young Dutch couple, are mysteriously separated.Pioneer shuttles you from the Garden of Eden to mission control, and on to the surface of Mars.A sci-fi thriller, this edition was published to coincide with curious directive's national tour, which opened in March 2015.
The Armour (Modern Plays)
by Ben EllisBecause power is fragile, it requires you naked. That is why the most powerful people in the world have sex in hotels. In fact, having sex in the best hotels makes you powerful. It doesn't matter how good the sex is, only how good the hotel is.Featuring three duologues, set in 2015, 1970 and 1981, all within the walls of London's Langham Hotel, The Armour is a site-specific drama about the lasting and changing effects of empire. The play received its world premiere at The Langham Hotel, in a promenade production, on 3 March 2015.
The Slow Philosophy of J. M. Coetzee
by Jan WilmIn The Slow Philosophy of J.M. Coetzee Jan Wilm analyses Coetzee's singular aesthetic style which, he argues, provokes the reader to read his works slowly. The effected 'slow reading' is developed into a method specifically geared to analyzing Coetzee's singular oeuvre, and it is shown that his works productively decelerate the reading process only to dynamize the reader's reflexion in a way that may be termed philosophical. Drawing on fresh archival material, this is the first study of its kind to explore Coetzee's writing process as already slow; as a program of seemingly relentless revision which brings forth his uniquely dense and crystalline style. Through the incorporation of material from drafts and notebooks, this study is also the first to combine an exploration of the writer's stylistic choices with a rigorous analysis of the reader's responses. The book includes close readings of Coetzee's popular and lesser known work, including Disgrace, Waiting for the Barbarians, Elizabeth Costello, Life and Times of Michael K and Slow Man.
A Director's Guide to Stanislavsky's Active Analysis: Including the Formative Essay on Active Analysis by Maria Knebel
by James ThomasA Director's Guide to Stanislavsky's Active Analysis describes Active Analysis, the innovative rehearsal method Stanislavsky formulated in his final years. By uniting 'mental analysis' and 'études', Active Analysis puts an end to the problem of mind-body dualism and formalized text memorization that traditional rehearsal methods foster. The book describes Active Analysis both practically and conceptually; Part One guides the reader through the entire process of Active Analysis, using A Midsummer Night's Dream as a practical reference point. The inspiration here is the work of the Russian director Anatoly Efros, whose pioneering work led the way for a reawakening of theatre in post-Soviet Russia. Part Two is the first English translation of Maria Knebel's foundational article about Active Analysis. Knebel was hand-selected by Stanislavsky to carry his final work forward in unadulterated form for succeeding generations of directors and actors. A Director's Guide to Stanislavsky's Active Analysis provides the first detailed explanation of Active Analysis from the director's perspective, while also meeting the needs of actors who seek to enhance their creative involvement in the process of play production.
In Place of a Show: What Happens Inside Theatres When Nothing Is Happening
by Augusto CorrieriIn Place of a Show is a compelling account of Western theatre buildings in the 21st century: theatres stripped of their primary purpose, lying empty, preserved as museums, or demolished. Playfully combining first-person narratives, scholarly research and visual documents, Augusto Corrieri explores the material and imaginative potentials of these places, charting interconnections between humans, birds, vegetation, and the beguiling animations of inanimate things, such as walls, curtains and seats. Across four chapters we learn of the uncanny dismantling and reconstitution of a German Baroque auditorium during the Second World War; the phantasmal remains of a demolished music hall in London's East End; a Renaissance Italian theatre, fleetingly transformed into an aviary by the appearance of a swallow; and a lavish opera house emerging from the Amazon rainforest. In these pages we are invited to discover theatres as sites of anomalous encounters and surprising coincidences: places that might reveal the performative entanglement of human and nonhuman worlds.
Modern Print Artefacts: Textual Materiality and Literary Value in British Print Culture, 1890-1930s (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture)
by Patrick CollierThis study focuses on the close connections between literary value and the materiality of popular print artefacts in Britain from 1890-1930. The book demonstrates that the materiality of print objects—paper quality, typography, spatial layout, use of illustrations, etc.—became uniquely visible and significant in these years, as a result of a widely perceived crisis in literary valuation. In a set of case studies, it analyses the relations between literary value, meaning, and textual materiality in print artefacts such as newspapers, magazines, and book genres—artefacts that gave form to both literary works and the journalistic content (critical essays, book reviews, celebrity profiles, and advertising) through which conflicting conceptions of literature took shape. In the process, it corrects two available misperceptions about reading in the period: that books were the default mode of reading, and that experimental modernism was the sole literary aesthetic that could usefully represent modern life.
The Student's Guide to Shakespeare
by William McKenzieThis book is a ‘one-stop-shop’ for the busy undergraduate studying Shakespeare. Offering detailed guidance to the plays most often taught on undergraduate courses, the volume targets the topics tutors choose for essay questions and is organised to help students find the information they need quickly. Each text discussion contains sections on sources, characters, performance, themes, language, and critical history, helping students identify the different ways of approaching a text. The book’s unique play-based structure and character-centre approach allows students to easily navigate the material. The flexibility of the design allows students to either read cover-to-cover, target a specific play, or explore elements of a narrative unit such as imagery or characterisation. The reader will gain quickly a full grasp of the kind of dramatist William Shakespeare was - and is.
Coleridge: Lectures on Shakespeare (1811-1819)
by Adam Roberts Samuel Taylor ColeridgeThis volume comprises a freshly composed edition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1811-12 Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton and 1818-19 Lectures on Shakespeare. Coleridge is a foundational figure in Shakespeare criticism, and remains to this day one of the most incisive and best. Nobody interested in Coleridge, Shakespeare or Literary Criticism more broadly can afford to be ignorant of Coleridge’s famous lectures.
Beckett Matters: Essays on Beckett's Late Modernism
by S. E. GontarskiRepresenting a profound engagement with the work of Samuel Beckett, this volume gathers the very best of Stan Gontarski’s Beckett criticism on practical, theoretical and critical levels. Such a range suggests a multiplicity of approaches to a body of work itself multiple, produced by an artist who underwent any number of transformations and reinventions over his long writing career. Many of the essays collected here explore Beckett’s debt to his age, Beckett very much a product of a culture in transition, which change he would help foster. But much of Beckett’s creative struggle was to find a new way, his own way. Most of the essays that comprise this volume detail that struggle, toward a way we now call Beckettian.
Doris Lessing and the Forming of History
by Kevin Brazil David SergeantThe death of Nobel Prize-winning Doris Lessing sparked a range of commemorations that cemented her place as one of the major figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century world literature. This volume views Lessing’s writing as a whole and in retrospect, focusing on her innovative attempts to rework literary form to engage with the challenges thrown up by the sweeping historical changes through which she lived. The 12 original chapters provide new readings of Lessing’s work via contexts ranging from post-war youth politics and radical women’s writing to European cinema, analyse her experiments with genres from realism to autobiography and science-fiction, and draw on previously unstudied archive material. The volume also explores how Lessing’s writing can provide insight into some of the issues now shaping twenty-first century scholarship – including trauma, ecocriticism, the post-human, and world literature – as they emerge as defining challenges to our own present moment in history.
Narrative and Becoming (Plateaus - New Directions in Deleuze Studies)
by Ridvan AskinWhat is narrative? Ridvan Askin brings together aesthetics, contemporary North American fiction, Gilles Deleuze, narrative theory and the recent speculative turn to answer this question. Through this process, he develops a transcendental empiricist concept of narrative. Askin argues against the established consensus of narrative theory for an understanding of narrative as fundamentally nonhuman, unconscious and expressive.
Transgender and The Literary Imagination: Changing Gender in Twentieth-Century Writing
by Rachel CarrollA critical exploration of James Benning’s films, the material environments they explore and the perceptual environments they create
Metadrama and the Informer in Shakespeare and Jonson
by Bill AngusHave you ever wondered what was really going on in the inner-plays, secret overhearing, and tacit observations of early modern drama? Taking on the shadowy figure of the early modern informer, this book argues that far more than mere artistic experimentation is happening here. In case studies of metadramatic plays, and the devices which Shakespeare and Jonson constantly revisit, this book offers critical insight into intrinsic connections between informers and authors, discovering an uneasy sense of common practice at the core of the metadrama, which drives both its self-awareness and its paranoia. Drama is most self-revealing at these moments where it reflects upon its own dramatic register: where it is most metadramatic. To understand their metadrama is therefore to understand these most seminal authors in a new way.
Feminism and Women’s Writing: An Introduction
by Catherine Riley Lynne PearceExplores the transformative reign of the Catholic King James VII and the revolution that brought about his fall
The Lyric Poem and Aestheticism: Forms of Modernity (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture (PDF))
by Marion ThainThis study explores lyric poetry’s response to a crisis of relevance in Victorian Modernity, offering an analysis of literature usually elided by studies of the modern formation of the genre and uncovering previously unrecognized discourses within it. Setting the focal aestheticist poetry (c. 1860 to 1914) within much broader historical, theoretical and aesthetic frames, it speaks to those interested in Victorian and modernist literature and culture, but also to a burgeoning audience of the ‘new lyric studies’. The six case studies introduce fresh poetic voices as well as giving innovative analyses of canonical writers (such as D. G. Rossetti, Ezra Pound, A. C. Swinburne).
Beckett's Thing: Painting and Theatre (Other Becketts)
by David LloydBeckett was deeply engaged with the visual arts and individual painters, including Jack B. Yeats, Bram van Velde, and Avigdor Arikha. In this monograph, David Lloyd explores what Beckett saw in their paintings. He explains what visual resources Beckett found in these particular painters rather than in the surrealism of Masson or the abstraction of Kandinsky or Mondrian. The analysis of Beckett’s visual imagination is based on his criticism and on close analysis of the paintings he viewed. Lloyd shows how Beckett’s fascination with these painters illuminates the ‘painterly’ qualities of his theatre and the philosophical, political and aesthetic implications of Beckett’s highly visual dramatic work.
May Sinclair: Re-Thinking Bodies and Minds
by Rebecca Bowler Claire DreweryMay Sinclair was a bestselling author of her day whose versatile literary output, including criticism, philosophy, poetry, psychoanalysis and experimental fiction, now frequently falls between the established categories of literary modernism. In terms of her contribution to dominant modernist paradigms she was, until recently, best remembered for recasting the psychological novel as ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative in a 1918 review of Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage. This book brings together the most recent research on Sinclair and re-contextualises her work both within and against dominant Modernist narratives. It explores Sinclair’s negotiations between the public and private, the cerebral and the corporeal and the spiritual and the profane in both her fiction and non-fiction.
Chicken Dust (Modern Plays)
by Ben WeatherillOh this ain't a farm. This is a loading dock. No such things as farms anymore, not around here.A chicken farm in rural England. New boy Tim has just arrived for his first shift. The job is pretty simple: grab chickens seven at a time by their legs and ram them into cages for shipping. All of this in the dark, stomping around in ankle-deep chicken shit, muck and mud. Tim's teammates are old-timers, with cigarettes dangling from their lips and pantyhose up their arms to protect their skin. Feathers cling to clothes. This band of survivors doesn't want much: just to stay in the countryside, catch the chickens, and earn the best living they can.But the chickens are dying, rotting from the inside-out like hot fruit just hours after they arrive. As disease spreads and pressure mounts, enter Oscar, the meticulous poultry inspector . . .A hard-hitting exploration of the human cost of our enormous appetite for cheap meat.Winner of the Curve Leicester's Playwriting Competition and first seen as a staged reading at the Finborough Theatre's annual Vibrant: A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, Chicken Dust marks the full-length debut of a new playwright. It received its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre on 1 March 2015.
Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre
by Gillian Woods Sarah DustagheerWhat do 'stage directions' do in early modern drama? Who or what are they directing: action on the stage, or imagination via the page? Is the label 'stage direction' helpful or misleading? Do these 'directions' provide evidence of Renaissance playhouse practice? What happens when we put them at the centre of literary close readings of early modern plays? Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre investigates these problems through innovative research by a range of international experts. This collection of essays examines the creative possibilities of stage directions and and their implications for actors and audiences, readers and editors, historians and contemporary critics. Looking at the different ways stage directions make meaning, this volume provides new insights into a range of Renaissance plays.
Literary Cynics: Borges, Beckett, Coetzee
by Arthur RoseFocusing on work by Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett and J.M. Coetzee, Literary Cynics explores the relationship between literature and cynicism to consider what happens when authors write themselves into their art, against the rhetoric of authority. Rose takes as his starting point three moments of aesthetic crisis in the careers of these literary cynics: Borges's parables of the 1950s, Beckett's plays of the 1980s, and Coetzee's pedagogic novels of the 2000s. In their transition to 'late style', the works reflect their writers' abiding concern with particular conceptions of rhetoric and aesthetic form. Literary Cynics combines accounts of these 'late' works with classic, lesser known, and archival texts by the three writers, from Coetzee's Disgrace to Beckett's letters, as well as detailed analysis of cynicism, both ancient and modern, as a philosophical and political movement.