SELECTED CRITICISM: SHAKESPEARE

General to Specific Criticism on Plays in Order of Our Syllabus (refer to source for full bibliographic information, most of these books are available through UI Library Reserve, under English 345--see that list for additional critical works)

Stephan Flores

McEvoy, Sean. Shakespeare: The Basics. Second edition. Routledge, 2006. [excellent overall introduction]

Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Olin, eds. Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide. (2003)--to be placed on library reserve.

Garber, Marjorie. Shakespeare After All. Pantheon, 2004. [Garber writes a separate essay on each of Sh's plays]

McDonald, Russ. The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.[very useful, wide-ranging scope, see esp. Chs. 8-9 on cultural and historical contexts]

Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, 2nd ed. Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. Cornell UP, 1994. [Highly recommended, esp. Dollimore's first introductory chapter "Shakespeare, cultural materialism and the new historicism"]

Montrose, Louis. "The Purpose of Playing: Reflections on a Shakespearean Anthropology." Helios (Winter 1980):51-74.

Jankowski, Theodora A. Women in Power in the Early Modern Drama. Illinois UP, 1992. [esp. ch. 2 on condition of women]

Thompson, Ann. "Shakespeare and Sexuality." Shakespeare Survey 46. Ed. Stanley Wells. Cambridge UP, 1994. 1-8.

The Matter of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Valerie Wayne. Cornell UP, 1991.

Traub, Valerie. Desire & Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakepearean Drama. Routledge, 1992. [recommended, esp. ch. 2 on Henry IV/V, ch. 5 on AYLI and TN]

Belsey, Catherine. "Disrupting sexual difference: meaning and gender in the comedies." Alternative Shakespeares. Ed. John Drakakis. Methuen, 1985. 166-90. [useful]

Belsey, Catherine. Shakespeare and the Loss of Eden: The Construction of Family Values in Early Modern Culture. Rutgers UP, 2000. [sophisticated cultural and historical criticism that attends to the problems and processes of representation]

Jardine, Lisa. Reading Shakespeare Historically. Routledge, 1996. [includes chapters on Othello, Twelfth Night, on heroines, and more]

Saccio, Peter. Shakespeare's English Kings: history, chronicle, and drama. Oxford UP, 2000. Second edition. [first edition, 1977--recommend highly]

Marxist Shakespeares. Eds. Jean E. Howard and Scott Cutler Shershow. Routledge, 2001. [includes essays on Othello, Measure for Measure, and more]

Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without Women: Representing gender and race on the Renaissance stage. Routledge, 2000. [includes essays on Twelfth Night, Othello, The Tempest, and more]

Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. Oxford, 2005.

Smith, Bruce. Shakespeare and Masculinity. Oxford UP, 2000.

Hillman, Richard. William Shakespeare: The Problem Plays. Twayne, 1993. [including Measure for Measure]

Adelman, Janet. Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare's Plays, Hamlet to The Tempest. Routledge, 1992. [provocative]

Neely, Carol Thomas. Broken Nuptials in Shakespeare's Plays. Yale UP, 1985.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations. Esp. Ch. 2 "Invisible Bullets" (includes HIV& HV), Ch. 4 "Sh. and the Exorcists", and Ch. 5 "Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne."

Holderness, Graham, ed. The Shakespeare Myth.

Williamson, Marilyn. The Patriarchy of Shakespeare's Comedies [recommended]

The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare [range of essays]

Schwartz, Murray and Coppelia Kahn. Representing Shakespeare: New Psychoanalytic Essays.

Garvin, Harry. Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Approaches. Esp. Tempest.

Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy, 2nd ed. [recommended]

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays. Ed. James Schiffer. Garland, 1999.

The Taming of the Shrew: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Frances E. Dolan. Bedford/St. Martin's, 1996.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Texts and Contexts. Eds. Gail Kern Paster and Skiles Howard. Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.

Spectacular Shakespeare: Critical Theory and Popular Cinema. Eds. Courtney Lehmann and Lisa S. Starks. Madison: Fairleigh
Dickinson UP, 2002.  Includes Laurie Osborne, "Cutting Up Characters: The Erotics Politics of Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night." 89-109.


Howard, Jean E. The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England. see esp. pp. 112-20 that includes discussion of Twelfth Night
London: Routledge, 1994.


Shakespeare, Theory, and Performance. Ed. James C. Bulman. London: Routledge, 1996.

Maus, Katherine Eisaman. "Shakespearean Comedy." The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition. Second Edition. Essential Plays -The Sonnets. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. 103-118.

Howard, Jean E. "Shakespearean History." The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition. Second Edition. Essential Plays -The Sonnets. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. 579-591.

Greenblatt, Stephen. "Shakespearean Tragedy." The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition. Second Edition. Essential Plays -The Sonnets. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. 913-924.

Cohen, Walter. "Shakespearean Romance." The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition. Second Edition. Essential Plays -The Sonnets. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. 1499-1513.

The Merchant of Venice (see via course Bblearn folder)

SonyTeachingGuideMerchantVenice
Marjorie Garber chapter on Merchant of Venice
Kiernan Ryan, excerpt on The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare, third ed.)
Catherine Belsey's Why Shakespeare [excerpt on Merchant of Venice]
Bailey, Amanda. "Shylock and the Slaves: Owing and Owning in The Merchant of Venice." Shakespeare Quarterly 62.1 (2011): 1-24.

Daniel, Drew. 'Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will': Melancholy Epistemology and Masochistic Fantasy in The Merchant of Venice." Shakespeare Quarterly 61.2 (2010): 206-234.
Hammill, Graham. "Converting Cruelty and Constituting Community in Shakespeare's Venice: A Response to Drew Daniel" Shakespeare Quarterly 61.2 (2010): 234-240

As You Like It

Bono, Barbara. "Mixed Gender, Mixed Genre in Shakespeare's As You Like It." William ShakespAs You Likeeare's It. Ed. Harold Bloom. Modern Critical Interpretations. Chelsea House, 1988. 131-48.

Howard, Jean. "Power and Eros: Crossdressing in Dramatic Representation and Theatrical Practice." The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England. Routledge, 1994. 93-128. [recommended]

Smith, Bruce. "The Passionate Shepherd." Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England: A Cultural Poetics. Univ. of Chicago P, 1991. 79-115

Dusinberre, Juliet. "As Who Liked It?" Shakespeare Survey 46. Ed. Stanley Wells. Cambridge UP, 1994. 9-21.

Erickson, Peter. Patriarchal Structures in Shakespeare's Drama [includes chs. on AYLI]. U of Calif. P, 1985 [recommended]

Montrose, Louis Adrian. "'The Place of a Brother' In As You Like It: Social Process and Comic Form." Shakespeare Quarterly 32 (1981): 28-54.[recommended]

Traub, V. see above, first section [recommended]

Hamlet (see via course Bblearn folder)

Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor chapter on Hamlet
Catherine Belsey 'Hamlet and the Reluctant Hero'
Graham Holderness, "Hamlet: The Court in Transition (I)"
Janet Adelman's chapter on Hamlet and the maternal body
Engle, Lars. "Moral Agency in Hamlet." Shakespeare Studies. 40 (2012): 87-97.
Edelman, Lee. "Against Survival: Queerness in a Time That's Out of Joint." Shakespeare Quarterly 62.2 (2011): 148-169.

Twelfth Night

Astington, John. "Malvolio and the Eunuchs: Texts and Revels in Twelfth Night." Shakespeare Survey 46. Ed. Stanley Wells. Cambridge UP, 1994. 23-34.

Gay, Penny. "Twelfth Night: Desire and Its Discontents." As She Likes It: Shakespeare's Unruly Women. Routledge, 1994. 17-47.

Hamilton, Donna. Shakespeare and the Politics of Protestant England. see ch.4, "Twelfth Night: The Errors of Exorcism"

Freedman, Barbara. Staging the Gaze: Postmodernism, Psychoanalysis, and Shakeperean Comedy. see ch. 6, "Naming Loss: Mourning and Representation in Twelfth Night" [challenging]

Coddon, Karin S. "'Slander in an allow'd fool': Twelfth Night's crisis of the aristocracy." Studies in English Literature 33 (1993): 309

Suzuki, Mihoko. "Gender, class, and the social order in late Elizabethan drama." Theatre Journal 44 (1992): 31 [includes discusson of TN]

Traub, V. see above, first section

Twelfth Night: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. [useful range of documentary texts that address a range of cultural and historical contexts]

Jardine, Lisa. Reading Shakespeare Historically. Routledge, 1996.

Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without Women: Representing gender and race on the Renaissance stage. Routledge, 2000.

Measure for Measure

Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Ed. Richard P. Wheeler. G.K.Hall, 1999.[very useful collection, highly recommended, including opening chapter by Wheeler, also reprints essays by Dollimore, Maus, Baines, Haynes, Adelman, and more]

Dollimore, Jonathan. "Transgression and Surveillance in Measure for Measure." Political Shakespeare, 72-87 [recommended]

Baines, Barbara. "Assaying the Power of Chastity in Measure for Measure." Studies in English Literature 30 (1990): 284-98; also reprinted in Wheeler's anthology.

Maus, Katherine Eisaman. "Sexual Secrecy in Measure for Measure." Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance. U of Chicago P, 1995. 157-81; also reprinted in Wheeler's anthology.

Hamilton, Donna B. Shakespeare and the Politics of Protestant England, see ch. 5 on MM: The Transition to Stuart Rule, 111-27.

Hillman, Richard. William Shakespeare: The Problem Plays. Twayne, 1993. [including Measure for Measure]

Williamson, Marilyn L. The Patriarchy of Shakespeare's Comedies (Wayne State, 1986), see ch. 2 on the social regulation of desire

Thomas, Vivian. The Moral Universe of Shakespeare's Problem Plays (Barnes and Noble, 1987), esp. 67-80, 173-209 on MM.

Hayne, Victoria. "Performing Social Practice [in MM]" Shakespeare Q 44 (1993): 1-29; also available in Wheeler's anthology.

Marxist Shakespeares. Eds. Jean E. Howard and Scott Cutler Shershow. Routledge, 2001.

Henry V

Erickson, Peter. Patriarchal Structures in Shakespeare's Drama [includes ch HV]. U of Calif. P, 1985 [recommended]

Leggatt, Alexander. Shakespeare's Political Drama (HIV &HV)

Simmons, J. L. "Masculine Negotiations in Shakespeare's History Plays: Hal, Hotspur, and 'the foolish Mortimer'." Shakespeare Quarterly 44.4. (1993): 440-63.

Newman, Karen. Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama. U Chicago P, 1991. [esp . ch. 6 on Henry V, 95-108]

Dollimore, Jonathan and Alan Sinfield. "History and ideology: the instance of Henry V." In Alternative Shakespeares. [highly recommended]--or see a more recent version of this essay in Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading. U of California P, 1992. 109-42.

Rabkin, Norman. "Rabbits, Ducks, and Henry V." Shakespeare Quarterly 28 (1977): 279-96.

McEachern, Claire. "Henry V and the Paradox of the Body Politic." Shakespeare Q 45 (1994): 33-56. [recommended]

Brennan, Anthony. Twayne's New Critical Introductions to Shakespeare: Henry V.

Donaldson, Peter. S. "Taking on Shakespeare: Kenneth Branagh's Henry V." Shakespeare Quarterly (Spring 1991)

Pearlman, E. William Shakespeare: The History Plays. Twayne, 1992.

Traub, Valerie. see above, first section

Saccio, Peter. Shakespeare's English Kings: history, chronicle, and drama. Oxford UP, 2000. Second edition. [first edition, 1977--recommend highly]

King Henry V, ed. Emma Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. [Shakespeare in production series]

Othello

Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Othello, ed. Barthelemy. [includes essays by Karen Newman, Michael Neill, and others]

Othello: New Perspectives. Eds. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Kent Cartwright. Associated University Presses, 1991.

Jardine, Lisa. Reading Shakespeare Historically. Routledge, 1996.

Marxist Shakespeares. Eds. Jean E. Howard and Scott Cutler Shershow. Routledge, 2001.

Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without Women: Representing gender and race on the Renaissance stage. Routledge, 2000.

More relatively recent articles that can be found in Shakespeare Quarterly, and also probably online:

"Mulattos," "Blacks," and "Indian Moors": Othello and Early Modern Constructions of Human Difference

Michael Neill

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 4. (Winter, 1998), pp. 361-374.

Slaves and Subjects in Othello

Camille Wells Slights

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 4. (Winter, 1997), pp. 377-390.

Iago's Alter Ego: Race as Projection in Othello

Janet Adelman

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 2. (Summer, 1997), pp. 125-144.

Turning Turk in Othello: The Conversion and Damnation of the Moor

Daniel J. Vitkus

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 2. (Summer, 1997), pp. 145-176.

"An Essence that's Not Seen": The Primal Scene of Racism in Othello

Arthur L. Little, Jr.

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 3. (Autumn, 1993), pp. 304-324.

Berry, Edward. "Othello's Alienation." Studies in English Literature 30.2 (1990): 315-34.

Making more of the Moor: Aaron, Othello, and Renaissance Refashionings of Race

Emily C. Bartels

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4. (Winter, 1990), pp. 433-454.

Othello Furens

Robert S. Miola

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1. (Spring, 1990), pp. 49-64.

Unproper Beds: Race, Adultery, and the Hideous in Othello

Michael Neill

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4. (Winter, 1989), pp. 383-412.

Vanita, Ruth. "'Proper' Men and 'Fallen' Women: The Unprotectedness of Wives in Othello." Studies in English Literature 34.2 (1994): 341-56.

De Torres, Olivia Delgado. "Reflections on Patriarchy and the Rebellion of Daughters in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and Othello." Interpretation 21.3 (1994): 333-51.

See also

Shakespeare and Race, eds. Catherine M.S. Alexander and Stanley Wells. Cambridge UP, 2000.

Macbeth

Macbeth: New Casebooks. Ed. Alan Sinfield. St. Martin's, 1992. Esp. Sinfield's "Introduction," and "'Macbeth': History, Ideology, and Intellectuals," also Janet Adelman's "'Born of woman': Fantasies of Maternal Power in Macbeth"

Wintle, Sarah and René Weis. "Macbeth and the Barren Sceptre." Essays in Criticism (April 1991): 128-46.

Coddon, Karin S. "'Unreal Mockery': Unreason and the Problem of Spectacle in Macbeth." ELH 56.3 (1989): 485-501.

Greenblatt, Stephen. "Shakespeare Bewitched." New Historical Literary Study: Essays on Reproducing Texts, Representing History. Ed. Jeffery N. Cox and Larry J. Reynolds. Princeton UP, 1993. 108-35.

Riebling, Barbara. "Virtue's Sacrifice: A Machiavellian Reading of Macbeth." SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 31.2 (1991): 273-86.

Asp, Carolyn. "'Be bloody, bold, and resolute': Tragic Action and Sexual Stereotypes in Macbeth." in Macbeth: Critical Essays, ed. Schoenbaum

Chordas, Nina. "'Nothing Is But What Is Not': Macbeth and the Hybridization of Antithesis." [excellent UI Master's thesis]

Klein, Joan Larsen. "Lady Macbeth: 'Infirm of purpose." The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare

Hawkins, Michael. "History, politics, and Macbeth." in Focus on Macbeth, ed. John Russell Brown. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.

Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. Ed. William C. Carroll. Bedford/St.Martin's, 1999.

Antony and Cleopatra

Marshall, Cynthia. "Man of Steel Done Got the Blues: Melancholic Subversion of Presence in Antony and Cleopatra." Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993): 385-408. [recommended]

Drakakis, John, ed. "Antony and Cleopatra": William Shakespeare. New Casebooks. St. Martin's, 1994.

See also above, Erickson (123-47), Adelman (174-92), Neely (136-65).

Harris, Jonathan. "". . . Roman desire in AC" Shakespeare Q 45 (1994):408-26.

Yachnin, Paul. "Shakespeare's Politics of Loyalty . . . AC" SEL 33 (1993): 343-64.

The Tempest

Kahn, Coppélia. "The Providential Tempest and the Shakespearean Family." [includes discussion of TN and The Tempest, recommended] in Representing Shakespeare

Breight, Curt. "'Treason doth never prosper': The Tempest and the Discourse of Treason." Shakespeare Quarterly 41.1 (1990): 1-28. [highly recommended]

Brown, Paul. "'This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine': The Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism." Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism. Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. (1985)

Greenblatt, Stephen. "Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne." Shakespearean Negotiations. U of California P, 1988. 129-63.

Leininger, Lorie Jerrell. "The Miranda Trap: Sexism and Racism in Shakespeare's Tempest." The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare.

Orgel, Stephen. "Introduction." The Tempest. Ed. Stephen Orgel. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1987. [highly recommended]

_____. "Prospero's Wife." Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers. Chicago UP, 1986.

Felperin, Howard. "Political Criticism at the Crossroads: The Utopian Historicism of The Tempest." The Tempest. Ed. Nigel Wood. Open UP, 1995. 29-66.

Critical Essays on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Eds. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G.K.Hall, 1998. [very useful collection]

Jordan, Constance. Shakespeare's Monarchies: Ruler and Subject in the Romances. Cornell UP, 1997. [includes two chapters on The Tempest]

The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Eds. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Bedford/St.Martin's, 2000. [very useful, text, contextual sources, critical essays--see, for example, Ann Thompson's essay]

The Tempest: Critical Essays. Ed. Patrick M. Murphy. Routledge, 2001. [very good collection of texts/essays on the history of the play's reception and production]

Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without Women: Representing gender and race on the Renaissance stage. Routledge, 2000


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