Alden T. Vaughan – författare

OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject.This book traces Shakespeare's contributions to America's cultural history from the colonial era to the present, with substantial attention to theatre history, publishing history, and criticism. It identifies four broad themes that distinguish Shakespeare in the United States from the dramatist's reception in other countries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Americans in search of self-improvement took a utilitarian approach to the plays, mining them for moral insights and everyday wisdom; beginning in the nineteenth century, American entrepreneurs collected, edited, and adapted Shakespeare for their own pleasure and profit; while America's public schools and theatre practitioners sought to make the works widely accessible; and throughout American history, Americans have had fun with Shakespeare in spoofs, parodies, and other appropriations and the collection of Shakespeare kitsch. Shakespeare in America also examines America's evolving awareness of Shakespeare, initially through the importation of his writings in the early eighteenth century, the staging a few decades later of English adaptations of the plays, and in the nineteenth century and beyond, through the promotion of Shakespeare and his works at Lyceums, Chautauquas, Shakespeare Clubs (both scholarly men's associations and more socially-oriented women's clubs), and America's literary 'renaissance' as championed by Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman, and others. The nineteenth century also witnessed growing attention to Shakespeare in schools, especially in William H McGuffey's Readers, and later in colleges, while simultaneously American familiarity with Shakespeare encouraged burlesques on stage, including the popular 'black' minstrel shows of the 1840s through 1870s. The twentieth century witnessed new organizations for promoting Shakespeare, such as the Shakespeare Association of America, and new venues for amateur and professional performances, such as Shakespeare summer festivals beginning in the 1930s and still going strong; and in new media for enjoying Shakespeare, such as feature films, Broadway musicals, and, toward the end of the twentieth century, radical adaptations of the plays on stage, on film, and in fiction, often aimed at persuading American youth that Shakespeare speaks to them. The story of Shakespeare in America is ever-changing.

OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject.This book traces Shakespeare's contributions to America's cultural history from the colonial era to the present, with substantial attention to theatre history, publishing history, and criticism. It identifies four broad themes that distinguish Shakespeare in the United States from the dramatist's reception in other countries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Americans in search of self-improvement took a utilitarian approach to the plays, mining them for moral insights and everyday wisdom; beginning in the nineteenth century, American entrepreneurs collected, edited, and adapted Shakespeare for their own pleasure and profit; while America's public schools and theatre practitioners sought to make the works widely accessible; and throughout American history, Americans have had fun with Shakespeare in spoofs, parodies, and other appropriations and the collection of Shakespeare kitsch. Shakespeare in America also examines America's evolving awareness of Shakespeare, initially through the importation of his writings in the early eighteenth century, the staging a few decades later of English adaptations of the plays, and in the nineteenth century and beyond, through the promotion of Shakespeare and his works at Lyceums, Chautauquas, Shakespeare Clubs (both scholarly men's associations and more socially-oriented women's clubs), and America's literary 'renaissance' as championed by Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman, and others. The nineteenth century also witnessed growing attention to Shakespeare in schools, especially in William H McGuffey's Readers, and later in colleges, while simultaneously American familiarity with Shakespeare encouraged burlesques on stage, including the popular 'black' minstrel shows of the 1840s through 1870s. The twentieth century witnessed new organizations for promoting Shakespeare, such as the Shakespeare Association of America, and new venues for amateur and professional performances, such as Shakespeare summer festivals beginning in the 1930s and still going strong; and in new media for enjoying Shakespeare, such as feature films, Broadway musicals, and, toward the end of the twentieth century, radical adaptations of the plays on stage, on film, and in fiction, often aimed at persuading American youth that Shakespeare speaks to them. The story of Shakespeare in America is ever-changing.

Among Shakespeare's numerous stage characters, probably none has been so variously interpreted as the 'savage and deformed slave' Caliban in The Tempest. For nearly four centuries, widely diverse writers and artists from around the world have found the rebellious monster an intriguing and useful signifier. He has been portrayed in the theatre and in literary criticism as - among other things - a fish, a tortoise, the missing link, an American Indian, and an African slave. He has also appeared extensively and diversely in poems by Browning, Auden, and Brathwaite among others, and in illustrations by Hogarth, Fuseli, Walter Crane, and other major artists. In the twentieth century, he has been widely adopted as a cultural icon, especially in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa: first as a symbol of imperialist North Americans, more recently as an emblem of colonised native populations. Shakespeare's Caliban looks first at the historical, etymological, literary, and folklore contexts in which Shakespeare created Caliban. The authors weigh the plausible intellectual influences of early Jacobean England and reach a tentative conclusion about what Shakespeare may have had in mind. The rest (and far larger part) of the book traces Caliban's evolution from his first appearance in 1611 to the present, with chapters on the major artistic genres in which Caliban has been interpreted, appropriated, and adapted: criticism, stage, painting, poetry, film, and sociopolitical literature. Shakespeare's Caliban relates the monster's changing incarnations to the cultural and intellectual forces that allowed him to reflect major trends - including romanticism, Darwinism, the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American rapproachment, and the Third World liberation movements after World War II.

Transatlantic Encounters examines the diverse origins and experiences of approximately 175 American Indians and Inuits who traveled to the British Isles before the American Revolution. Their homelands ranged from northern Canada to Brazil, their ages from infant to nonagenarian, their statuses from slave (the largest category) to 'emperor', their occupations from warrior to missionary. Some American natives died soon after arrival, but others remained as long as fourteen years and returned home; still others, their arrival and death dates undocumented, may have endured long lives abroad. And always, Indians and Inuits fascinated the British people, whether the Americans were captives or on commercial display, interpreters-in-training, or voluntary voyagers to petition the monarch and tour Britain's famous sites. British artists painted their portraits and eminent writers invoked them in plays and essays. In the imperial crisis of 1776, Indian diplomats who had been to London would staunchly support the British Empire.

Transatlantic Encounters examines the diverse origins and experiences of approximately 175 American Indians and Inuits who traveled to the British Isles before the American Revolution. Their homelands ranged from northern Canada to Brazil, their ages from infant to nonagenarian, their statuses from slave (the largest category) to 'emperor', their occupations from warrior to missionary. Some American natives died soon after arrival, but others remained as long as fourteen years and returned home; still others, their arrival and death dates undocumented, may have endured long lives abroad. And always, Indians and Inuits fascinated the British people, whether the Americans were captives or on commercial display, interpreters-in-training, or voluntary voyagers to petition the monarch and tour Britain's famous sites. British artists painted their portraits and eminent writers invoked them in plays and essays. In the imperial crisis of 1776, Indian diplomats who had been to London would staunchly support the British Empire.

These eight reports by white settlers held captive by Indians gripped the imagination not only of early settlers but also of American writers through our history. Puritans among the Indians presents, in modern spelling, the best of the New England narratives. These both delineate the social and ideological struggle between the captors and the settlers, and constitute a dramatic rendition of the Puritans’ spiritual struggle for redemption.

This study argues that the first two generations of Puritan settlers in New England were not hostile toward their Indian neighbours but sought peaceful and equitable relations as a first step to moulding the Indians into neo-Englishman.

The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both in the classroom and in the theatre, and this revision brings the Arden 3 edition right up-to-date. A completely new section of the introduction discusses new thinking about Shakespeare's sources for the play and examines his treatment of colonial themes, as well as covering key productions since this edition was first published in 1999. Most importantly it looks at Julie Taymor's ground-breaking 2010 film starring Helen Mirren as "Prospera." Alden and Virginia Vaughan's edition of The Tempest is much valued for its authority and originality and their revision brings it up-to-date, making it even more relevant and useful to students and theatre practitioners.

The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both in the classroom and in the theatre, and this revision brings the Arden 3 edition right up-to-date. A completely new section of the introduction discusses new thinking about Shakespeare's sources for the play and examines his treatment of colonial themes, as well as covering key productions since this edition was first published in 1999. Alden and Virginia Vaughan's edition of The Tempest is much valued for its authority and originality and their revision brings it up-to-date, making it even more relevant and useful to students and theatre practitioners.

The Tempest contains sublime poetry and catchy songs, magic and low comedy, while it tackles important contemporary concerns: education, power politics, the effects of colonization, and technology. In this guide, Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan open up new ways into one of Shakespeare’s most popular, malleable and controversial plays.