Leah S. Marcus - Böcker

"Leah Marcus's The Politics of Mirth: Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes is a fascinating study of why James and Charles promoted some types of rural sport and festival and of how certain literary texts participated in promoting or critiquing royal policy. . . . Marcus provocatively links texts not often studied in conjunction with one another, and she provides strong and detailed readings of those texts."—Jean E. Howard

This long-awaited and masterfully edited volume contains nearly all of the writings of Queen Elizabeth 1: the clumsy letters of childhood, the early speeches of a fledgling queen, and the prayers and poetry of the monarch's later years. The first collection of its kind, Elizabeth I reveals brilliance on two counts; that of the Queen a dazzling writer and a leading intellect of the English Renaissance, and that of the editors, whose copious annotations make the book not only essential to scholars but accessible to general readers as well.

Recently the University of Chicago Press published "Elizabeth I: Collected Works" to considerable critical acclaim. "Collected Works" brought together for the first time in one volume the speeches, poems, prayers and selected letters of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), all in modernized spelling and punctuation. With this new volume, Januel Mueller and Leah S. Marcus give specialists full access to key originals of the Queen's texts presented in "Collected Works". The originals selected for inclusion here are compositions that survive in Elizabeth's own handwriting, in English and in foreign languages, as well as her foreign language compositions perserved by other hands or in printed editions. Presented in transcriptions that reproduce the spelling and punctuation of their 16th-century sources, these texts convey both the expressive and otherwise significant features of Elizabeth's writing.Through the transcriptions of texts in her own hand, readers can track the Queen's language and compositional style - her choices of vocabulary and phrasing; her vagaries of capitalization, spelling and punctuation; her often heavy revisions and redraftings; and her insertions of postscripts and second thoughts. The texts in foreign languages, meanwhile, will allow readers to prepare their own English translations trom these original sources. A unique resources for scholars, this book offers much fuller and more detailed access to Elizabeth and her writings than can be obtained from the modern English versions alone.

This Norton Critical Edition has been carefully edited to make The Merchant of Venice, its surrounding history, and the history of its critical reception and rewritings accessible to readers. The text of this edition is based on the 1600 First Quarto, with light editing and substantial explanatory annotations by Leah S. Marcus."Sources and Contexts" largely focuses on the character of Shylock and the issue of anti-Semitism in the play. Materials included are diverse, and at times contradictory, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Examples include seventeenth-century anti-Semitic literature, an essay from the same period defending Jews and arguing for their repatriation in England, an examination of the Christian theology of the play, and readings of The Merchant of Venice as exclusionary for Jews, women, and people of color."Criticism" collects twenty-one diverse interpretations. In addition to Shylock and the question of anti-Semitism, these essays address The Merchant of Venice in the context of postcolonial, feminist, and queer theory and explore relevant issues of economic status and organization."Rewritings and Appropriations" includes excerpts from dramatic, musical, and other literary adaptations of The Merchant of Venice, as well as a selection of poems, most of them from the twentieth century, on the character of Shylock.A Selected Bibliography is also included.

Since its return to the London stage in 1740, As You Like It has delighted theatergoers, readers, and critics. Its heroine, Rosalind, is one of Shakespeare’s greatest characters. The play’s Forest of Arden setting and its focus on the relationship between natural occurrences and things created by humans (Shakespeare collectively termed these “art”) provide us with access to debates in Renaissance England that relate to the ecological issues of our own time. This Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1623 First Folio text. It is accompanied by a note on the text, eight illustrations, six photographs, and explanatory annotations.“Sources and Contexts” includes, in its entirety, Shakespeare’s primary source for the play—Thomas Lodge’s popular prose romance Rosalynde (1590). Reading Shakespeare’s play with (and against) Lodge’s romance reveals striking similarities and fascinating differences, both large and small. An array of other readings focuses on the central areas of gender and ecology and includes works by Michel de Montaigne, Sir Thomas More, Thomas Bastard, George Gascoygne, and William Prynne.A rich “Criticism” section includes twenty-one commentaries on As You Like It spanning four centuries. Contributors include, among others, Mrs. Anna Jameson, Clara Claiborne Park, Jean E. Howard, Marjorie Garber, James Shapiro, Valerie Traub, Jeffrey Masten, and Robert Smallwood.A Selected Bibliography is also included.

In this fascinating book, Leah S. Marcus argues that the colonial context in which Shakespeare was edited and disseminated during the heyday of the British Empire has left a mark on Shakespeare’s texts to the present day. How Shakespeare Became Colonial offers a unique and engaging argument, including: A brief history of the colonial importance of editing Shakespeare; The colonially inflected racism that hides behind the editing of Othello; The editing of female characters – colonization as sexual conquest; The significance of editions that were specifically created for schools in India during British colonial rule.Marcus traces important ways in which the colonial enterprise of setting forth the best possible Shakespeare for world consumption has continued to be visible in the recent treatment of his playtexts today, despite our belief that we are global or postcolonial in approach.