The Bedford Shakespeare

Gathering the 25 most frequently taught Shakespearian plays and augments, Bedford Shakespeare adds in rich historical and contextual materials to give you concrete entry points into the plays , creating opportunities for lively classroom discussion.

Russ McDonald is Professor of English Literature at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Having taught at five American universities, he is the winner of multiple awards for distinguished teaching, including North Carolina Professor of the Year. For a decade he helped to direct the NEH-sponsored Teaching Shakespeare Institute for secondary teachers at the Folger Library, and his pedagogical commitment led to his publishing the widely-adopted Bedford Companion to Shakespeare. A specialist in Shakespeare’s poetic language, he has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Mellon Foundation. His scholarly works include Shakespeare’s Late Style, Shakespeare and the Arts of Language, and other books and articles on Shakespeare and early modern writing and culture. In 2010-11 he served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America. He also writes regularly for Opera magazine.

Lena Cowen Orlin is Professor of English at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Shakespeare Association of America. She serves on the editorial boards of two Shakespeare journals, is co-editor of the Arden Shakespeare Critical Currents Series, and sits on executive committees for the International Shakespeare Association and the International Shakespeare Conference of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. As Executive Director of the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library, she developed many programs for college teachers of Shakespeare. She has co-edited Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide and is editor of A Sourcebook for English Studies: The Renaissance. She also publishes on the social, economic, and architectural history of Shakespeare's times and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the Folger Library, the Huntington Library, and the Yale Center for British Art. Her books include Private Matters and Public Culture in Post-Reformation England and Locating Privacy in Tudor London.

PREFACE

READING SHAKESPEARE

The Comedy of Errors

Biography

Titus Andronicus

Bodies

The Taming of the Shrew

Discovery

Richard III

Empire

Romeo and Juliet

Gender

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Genealogy

Richard II

Genre

The Merchant of Venice

Households

1 Henry IV

Language

Much Ado about Nothing

Law

2 Henry IV

London

As You Like It

Monarchy

Henry V

Nature

Julius Caesar

Players

Hamlet

Playhouses

Twelfth Night

Race

Othello

Religion

Troilus and Cressida

Renaissance

Measure for Measure

SCREENING SHAKESPEARE

King Lear

Society

Macbeth

Sources

Coriolanus

STAGING SHAKESPEARE

Antony and Cleopatra

Texts

The Winter’s Tale

World

The Tempest

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Works Cited

Index