Shakespeare's plays have never had a larger audience than they do in our time. This wide viewing is complemented by modern scholarship, which has verified and elucidated the plays' texts. Nevertheless, Shakespeare's plays continue to be revised. In order to find out how and why he has been rewritten, Ruby Cohn examines modern dramatic offshoots in English, French, and German.
Surveying drama intended for the serious theater, the author discusses modern versions of Shakespeare's plays, especiallyMacbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, and The Tempest. Although the focus is always on drama, contrast is supplied by fiction stemming fromHamlet and essays inspired by King Lear. The book concludes with an assessment of the influence of Shakespeare on the creative work of Shaw, Brecht, and Beckett.
Originally published in 1976.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
*Frontmatter, pg. i*Foreword, pg. vii*Contents, pg. xi*Chapter
1. A
Mishmash of Adaptations and Transformations, pg. 3*Chapter
2. Macbeth: Poor
Players That Strut and Fret, pg. 60*Chapter
3. Whole Hamlets of Tragical
Speeches, pg. 106*Chapter
4. Lear Come Lately, pg. 232*Chapter
5. Peopling
the Isle with Calibans, pg. 267*Chapter
6. Triple Action Theatre, pg.
310*Chapter
7. Shaw versus Shakes, pg. 321*Chapter
8. Brecht Changes
Shakespeare, pg. 340*Chapter
9. Shakespearean Embers in Beckett, pg.
375*Afterword, pg. 389*Notes, pg. 395*Appendix A: Published Offshoots in
Dramatic Form, pg. 411*Appendix B: Offshoots Discussed in the Book, pg.
413*Index, pg. 417
