Constructing a world : Shakespeare's England and the new historical fiction / Martha Tuck Rozett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rozett, Martha Tuck, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603--In literature.

Elizabeth.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--In literature.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Adaptations.

Historical fiction, English--History and criticism.

Historical fiction, English.

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

English fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Historical fiction, American--History and criticism.

Historical fiction, American.

Great Britain--History--Elizabeth, 1558-1603--Historiography.

Great Britain.

England--In literature.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : SUNY Press, 2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Taking its title from Umberto Eco's postscript to The Name of the Rose, the novel that inaugurated the New Historical Fiction in the early 1980s, Constructing the World provides a guide to the genre's defining characteristics. It also serves as a lively account of the way Shakespeare, Marlowe, Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I, and their contemporaries have been depicted by such writers as Anthony Burgess, George Garrett, Patricia Finney, Barry Unsworth, and Rosalind Miles. Innovative historical novels written during the past two or three decades have transformed the genre, producing some extraordinary bestsellers as well as less widely read serious fiction. Shakespearean scholar Martha Tuck Rozett engages in an ongoing conversation about the genre of historical fiction, drawing attention to the metacommentary contained in "Afterwords" or "Historical Notes"; the imaginative reconstruction of the diction and mentality of the past; the way Shakespearean phrases, names, and themes are appropriated; and the counterfactual scenarios writers invent as they reinvent the past.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Of Narrators; or How the Teller Tells the Tale

Historical Novelists at Work

Barry Unsworth’s Morality Play and the Origins of English Secular Drama

Fictional Queen Elizabeths and Women-Centered Historical Fiction

Rewriting Shakespeare

Teaching Shakespeare’s England through Historical Fiction

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-198) and index.

ISBN:

0-7914-8773-3

1-4175-2399-9

OCLC:

61367668