Shakespeare, national poet-playwright / Patrick Cheney.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cheney, Patrick, 1949-

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Poetic works.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Criticism and interpretation.

Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 A.D. or 18 A.D.

Criticism and interpretation.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Knowledge and learning--Literature.

Literature.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Contemporaries.

Contemporaries.

Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 A.D. or 18 A.D--Influence.

Ovid.

Authorship--History--16th century.

Authorship.

English poetry--Roman influences.

English poetry.

Renaissance--England.

Renaissance.

History.

England.

Physical Description:

xv, 319 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, U.K. ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Summary:

Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright is an important new book which reassesses Shakespeare as a poet and dramatist. Patrick Cheney contests critical preoccupation with Shakespeare as "a man of the theatre" by recovering his original standing as an early modern author: he is a working dramatist who composes some of the most extraordinary poems in English. The book accounts for this form of authorship by reconstructing the historical preconditions for its emergence, in England as in Europe, including the building of the commercial theatres and the consolidation of the printing press. Cheney traces the literary origin to Shakespeare's favourite author, Ovid, who wrote the Amores and Metamorphoses alongside the tragedy Medea. Cheney also examines Shakespeare's literary relations with his contemporary authors Edmund Spenser and Christopher Marlowe. The book concentrates on Shakespeare's freestanding poems, but makes frequent reference to the plays, and ranges widely through the work of other Renaissance writers.

Contents:

Proem: Shakespeare's "Plaies and Poems" 1

Part 1 The Imprint of Shakespearean Authorship: Prelude: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Petrarch 13

1 The sixteenth-century poet-playwright 17

2 Francis Meres, the Ovidian poet-playwright, and Shakespeare criticism 49

Part 2 1593-1594: The Print Author Presents Himself: Play scene: "Two Gentlemen" to "Richard III" 75

3 Authorship and acting: plotting Venus and Adonis along the Virgilian path 81

4 Publishing the show: The Rape of Lucrece as Lucanian counter-epic of empire 108

Part 3 1599-1601: The Author Brought Into Print: Play scene: "Love's Labor's Lost" to "Troilus and Cressida" 143

5 "Tales...coined": "W. Shakespeare" in Jaggard's The Passionate Pilgrim 151

6 "Threne" and "Scene": the author's relics of immortality in "The Phoenix and Turtle" 173

Part 4 1609: Imprinting the Question of Authorship: Play scene: "Measure for Measure" to "Coriolanus" 199

7 "O, let my books be ... dumb presagers": poetry and theatre in the Sonnets 207

8 "Deep-brain'd sonnets" and "tragic shows": Shakespeare's late Ovidian art in A Lover's Complaint 239

Epilogue: Ariel and Autolycus: Shakespeare's counter-laureate authorship 267.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-308) and index.

ISBN:

0521839238

OCLC:

54529261

Online:

Publisher description