Much Ado about Nothing (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series)

by William Shakespeare, Claire McEachern (Editor), Ann Thompson (Editor), David Scott Kastan (Editor), H. R. Woudhuysen (Editor)

Overview

Much Ado About Nothing boasts one of Shakespeare's most delightful heroines, most dancing wordplay, and the endearing spectacle of intellectual and social self-importance bested by the desire to love and be loved in returban. It offers both the dancing wit of the "merry war" between the sexes, and a sobering vision of the costs of that combat for both men and women. Shakespeare dramatizes a social world in all of its vibrant particulars, in which characters are shaped by the relations between social convention and individual choice.This edition of the play offers in its introduction and commentary an extensive discussion of the materials that informed Shakespeare's compositional choices, both those conventional sources and other contexts, from cuckold jokes to conduct books, which inform the ideas and identities of this play. Particular attention is devoted to Renaissance understandings of gender identity and social rank, as well as to the social valences of Shakespeare's stylistic choices. A treatment of staging possibilities offers illustrations drawn from the earliest and recent theatrical practices, and a critical history examines the fate of the play in the changing trends of academic scholarship. "The text is superb... the critical introduction is predictably smart and engaging, exactly the sort of essay one would recommend to students."Eric Rasmussen, Shakespeare Survey

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781903436820
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/26/2005
Series:	The Arden Shakespeare Third Series
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English dramatist, poet, and actor, generally regarded as the greatest playwright of all time.

ANN THOMPSON is Emeritus Professor in English at King' s College London UK.

David Scott Kastan is the George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University, USA.

Henry Woudhuysen is Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, UK.

Professor Richard Proudfoot served as Senior General Editor of the Arden Shakespeare for 35 years, until his retirement from King's in 1999. In 2001 The Arden Shakespeare published Proudfoot's Shakespeare: Text, Stage and Canon a critical overview of the scholarly achievements made in the field of Shakespeare studies by the end of the twentieth century.

Date of Death:

2018

Place of Birth:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Place of Death:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Editorial Reviews

“The text is superb . . . the critical introduction is predictably smart and engaging, exactly the sort of essay one would recommend to students.” —Eric Rasmussen, Shakespeare Survey

“The notes are a pleasure to read; glosses are adept and concise, without windy disquisitions on alternative meanings. Many longer entries are fascinating...Graceful concision also marks the notes on performance and theatrical history...Deftly deploys a combination of linguistic and literary analysis, theater history, and textual commentary...give[s] the reader a sense of the whole play as alive and ever changing, with many intriguing possibilities for interpretation, capably set out within the frame she has created.” —Shakespeare Quarterly

From the Publisher

The notes are a pleasure to read; glosses are adept and concise, without windy disquisitions on alternative meanings. Many longer entries are fascinating...Graceful concision also marks the notes on performance and theatrical history...Deftly deploys a combination of linguistic and literary analysis, theater history, and textual commentary...give[s] the reader a sense of the whole play as alive and ever changing, with many intriguing possibilities for interpretation, capably set out within the frame she has created.

Shakespeare Quarterly

The text is superb . . . the critical introduction is predictably smart and engaging, exactly the sort of essay one would recommend to students.

Shakespeare Survey Eric Rasmussen