Berryman's Shakespeare / John Berryman ; edited and introduced by John Haffenden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berryman, John, 1914-1972.

Contributor:

Haffenden, John.

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Standardized Title:

Shakespeare

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Shakespeare, William.

Dramatists, English--Early modern, 1500-1700--Biography.

Dramatists, English.

Dramatists, English--Early modern--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

lxviii, 396 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Shakespeare

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

Summary:

As a critic, John Berryman was called "only one of the most gifted Americans of his time, but also one of the most honorable and responsible". Berryman began as a protege of the Shakespearean scholar Mark Van Doren and developed into a perceptive critic whose advantage was his own experience as a major poet. His voluminous writings on the Bard have now been collected and edited by John Haffenden.

After the opening section on Shakespeare's dramatic early years, the book continues with Berryman's brilliant reconstruction, "Shakespeare at Thirty", and seven other lectures, including "The Tragic Substance" and "Shakespeare's Last Word" (about The Tempest). The next section is devoted to King Lear, to a discussion of the difference between the quarto and folio texts of this masterpiece, and to the absorbing correspondence about the play's problems between Berryman and another of the greatest Shakespeare scholars, W. W. Greg. The fourth section investigates William Haughton as possibly being "Mr. W.H". of the sonnets and a collaborator on The Taming of the Shrew. After a group of essays on various plays, including Henry VI and Macbeth, the book concludes with "Shakespeare's Reality", which Berryman apparently intended to be the end of his unfinished full-length study of Shakespeare.

Contents:

Shakespeare's early comedy

Shakespeare at thirty

Pathos and dream

The world of action

All's well

The crisis

The tragic substance

The end

Shakespeare's last word

Project: an edition of King Lear

Textual introduction [King Lear]

Staging [Lear]

The conceiving of King Lear

Letters on Lear

William Houghton, William Haughton, The Shrew, and the Sonnets

The sonnets

The Comedy of Errors

1590: King John

2 Henry VI

3 Henry VI

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

On Macbeth

Shakespeare's poor relation : 2 Henry IV

Shakespeare's reality.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-396).

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0374112053

OCLC:

40105918