Description
CAMBRIDGE As You Like It 2018 Edition by William Shakespeare, Michael Hattaway
The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. In his Introduction to this second edition of As You Like It, its editor, Michael Hattaway accounts for what makes this popular play both innocent and dangerous. In performance it can appear bright or sombre: a feast of language and a delight for comic actors, or a risk-taking exploration of gender roles. This edition includes a new section on recent critical interpretations and dramatic productions of the play as well as an appendix on an early court performance of As You Like It in 1599. Commentary on the play's language, an updated reading list and an account of the play in performance are also included. Table of contents :- Preface; Introduction: Journeys; Plays within the play; Theatrical genres; Pastoral; Counter-pastoral; The condition of the country; Politics; 'Between you and the women the play may please'; Gender; Nuptials; Sources; Date and occasion; Stage history; Screen versions; Recent critical and stage interpretations: Contexts; Recent stage history; A screen version; Note on the text; List of characters; The Play; Textual analysis; Appendix 1. An early court performance?; Appendix 2. Extracts from Shakespeare's principal source, Lodge's Rosalind; Appendix 3. The songs; Reading list.