Lena Cowen Orlin – författare

A new biography of William Shakespeare that explores his private life in Stratford-upon-Avon, his personal aspirations, his self-determination, and his relations with the members of his family and his neighbours.The Private Life of William Shakespeare tells the story of Shakespeare in Stratford as a family man. The book offers close readings of key documents associated with Shakespeare and develops a contextual understanding of the genres from which these documents emerge. It reconsiders clusters of evidence that have been held to prove some persistent biographical fables. It also shows how the histories of some of Shakespeare's neighbours illuminate aspects of his own life. Throughout, we encounter a Shakespeare who consciously and with purpose designed his life. Having witnessed the business failures of his merchant father, he determined not to follow his father's model. His early wedding freed him from craft training to pursue a literary career. His wife's work, and probably the assistance of his parents and brothers, enabled him to make the first of the property purchases that grounded his life as a gentleman. With his will, he provided for both his daughters in ways that were suitable to their circumstances; Anne Shakespeare was already protected by dower rights in the houses and lands he had acquired. His funerary monument suggests that the man of 'small Latin and less Greek' in fact had some experience of an Oxford education. Evidences are that he commissioned the monument himself.

The Private Life of William Shakespeare tells the story of Shakespeare as a family man in Stratford-upon-Avon. Cowen Orlin offers close readings of key archival documents associated with Shakespeare and develops a contextual understanding of the genres from which these documents emerge, reconsidering clusters of evidence that have been held to prove some persistent biographical fables. Cowen Orlin argues, too, that the histories of some of Shakespeare's neighbours illuminate aspects of his own life.This new biography explores Shakespeare's private life in Stratford-upon-Avon, from his personal aspirations and self-determination, to his relations with his family members and neighbours. We learn that his early wedding freed him from craft training to pursue a literary career, and that his wife's work enabled him to make the first of the property purchases that grounded his life as a gentleman.Throughout, we encounter a Shakespeare who consciously and purposefully designed his life ^—^ a Shakespeare who, having witnessed the business failures of his merchant father, determined not to follow the same path.

Locating Privacy in Tudor London asks new questions about where private life was lived in the early modern period, about where evidence of it has been preserved, and about how progressive and coherent its history can be said to have been. The Renaissance and the Reformation are generally taken to have produced significant advances in individuality, subjectivity, and interiority, especially among the elite, but this study of middling-sort culture shows privacy to have been an object of suspicion, of competing priorities, and of compulsory betrayals. The institutional archives of civic governance, livery companies, parish churches, and ecclesiastical courts reveal the degree to which society organized itself around principles of preventing privacy, as a condition of order. Also represented in the discussion are such material artefacts as domestic buildings and household furnishings, which were routinely experienced as collective and monitory agents rather than spheres of exclusivity and self-expression. In 'everyday' life, it is argued, economic motivations were of more urgent concern than the political paradigms that have usually informed our understanding of the Renaissance. Locating Privacy pursues the case study of Alice Barnham (1523-1604), a previously unknown merchant-class woman, subject of one of the earliest family group paintings from England. Her story is touched by many of the changes-in social structure, religion, the built environment, the spread of literacy, and the history of privacy-that define the sixteenth century. The book is of interest to literary, social, cultural, and architectural historians, to historians of the Reformation and of London, and to historians of gender and women's studies.

Edited by Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin, Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide provides a practical and stimulating guide to all aspects of Shakespeare studies. The volume comprises over 40 specially commissioned essays by an outstanding team of Shakespeare scholars; each essay is written in an accessible and engaging style, and is followed by annotated suggestions for further reading.The volume is divided into four key parts, which as a whole offer a valuable balance of factual and critical content. In the first Part, chapters provide information about and discuss Shakespeare, the theatres of his time, the society in which he lived, the language of his period, the conventions of playwriting, and his contemporary impact. The second Part offers critical overviews of Shakespeare's achievement in the principal genres, and each overview is followed by a practical reading exploring Shakespeare's use of the traditions, scope and boundaries of that genre in one of his key works. Part Three offers guidance to the principal current critical approaches in the study of Shakespeare: each chapter outlines a particular critical approach, and is followed by a reading applying that approach to one of Shakespeare's works; and Part Four offers chapters on topics relating to Shakespeare's intellectual and cultural impact over the ages.

Locating Privacy in Tudor London asks new questions about where private life was lived in the early modern period, about where evidence of it has been preserved, and about how progressive and coherent its history can be said to have been. The Renaissance and the Reformation are generally taken to have produced significant advances in individuality, subjectivity, and interiority, especially among the elite, but this study of middling-sort culture shows privacy to have been an object of suspicion, of competing priorities, and of compulsory betrayals. The institutional archives of civic governance, livery companies, parish churches, and ecclesiastical courts reveal the degree to which society organized itself around principles of preventing privacy, as a condition of order. Also represented in the discussion are such material artefacts as domestic buildings and household furnishings, which were routinely experienced as collective and monitory agents rather than spheres of exclusivity and self-expression. In 'everyday' life, it is argued, economic motivations were of more urgent concern than the political paradigms that have usually informed our understanding of the Renaissance. Locating Privacy pursues the case study of Alice Barnham (1523-1604), a previously unknown merchant-class woman, subject of one of the earliest family group paintings from England. Her story is touched by many of the changes-in social structure, religion, the built environment, the spread of literacy, and the history of privacy-that define the sixteenth century. The book is of interest to literary, social, cultural, and architectural historians, to historians of the Reformation and of London, and to historians of gender and women's studies.

This collection of rare and classic documents provides student with rich source material and context for studying the literature of Shakespeare's age. The documents are supported by substantial editorial matter, including an authoritative introduction which outlines key historical events, movements, and literary and cultural issues of the time.

This collection of rare and classic documents provides student with rich source material and context for studying the literature of Shakespeare's age. The documents are supported by substantial editorial matter, including an authoritative introduction which outlines key historical events, movements, and literary and cultural issues of the time.

With its focus on gender, power, race, sexuality, and violence, Othello is an important site for new critical approaches to the study of Shakespeare's works. Both criticism and culture are represented in this collection of recent essays which provides readers with examples of feminist, new-historicist, cultural materialist, deconstructive, and post-colonial perspectives on Othello. With discussions of recent stage and screen productions, and analysis of the use of the play in such contemporary events as the O.J. Simpson murder trial, this compelling critical volume presents a wide variety of ways of understanding the continuing significance of Shakespeare's play both in his own time and in ours.

Between 1500 and 1700, London grew from a minor national capital to the largest city in Europe. The defining period of growth was the period from 1550 to 1650, the midpoint of which coincided with the end of Elizabeth I's reign and the height of Shakespeare's theatrical career.In Material London, ca. 1600, Lena Cowen Orlin and a distinguished group of social, intellectual, urban, architectural, and agrarian historians, archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and literary critics explore the ideas, structures, and practices that distinguished London before the Great Fire, basing their investigations on the material traces in artifacts, playtexts, documents, graphic arts, and archaeological remains.In order to evoke "material London, ca. 1600," each scholar examines a different aspect of one of the great world cities at a critical moment in Western history. Several chapters give broad panoramic and authoritative views: what architectural forms characterized the built city around 1600; how the public theatre established its claim on the city; how London's citizens incorporated the new commercialism of their culture into their moral views. Other essays offer sharply focused studies: how Irish mantles were adopted as elite fashions in the hybrid culture of the court; how the city authorities clashed with the church hierarchy over the building of a small bookshop; how London figured in Ben Jonson's exploration of the role of the poet.Although all the authors situate the material world of early modern London-its objects, products, literatures, built environment, and economic practices-in its broader political and cultural contexts, provocative debates and exchanges remain both within and between the essays as to what constitutes "material London, ca. 1600."

The recent discovery of two Latin books that once belonged to the Quiney family of Stratford-upon-Avon expands our understanding of Shakespeare’s grammar school education and of the social, material, and learned networks that operated in his hometown. One of these books, the Apophthegmata of Erasmus, belonged to Shakespeare’s friend and neighbour, Richard Quiney, while the other, a commentary on Aristotelian logic, was owned by a different Richard Quiney, who was Shakespeare’s grandson.Building from a simple account of these findings, Book Culture in Shakespeare’s Stratford: The Quiney Connections sheds new light on the use of Latin in the market town that produced the world’s most famous playwright. The story it tells weaves together analysis of letters, sermons, wills, public monuments and other printed books owned by local residents. Complementing these cultural explorations, biographical studies of Quiney family members and influential clergymen and teachers in Stratford evoke the impact of this learned culture on the lived experience of individual people. This study breaks new ground in our understanding of the rich educational environment that would enliven the plays and poems of William Shakespeare.

Othello has a long history of provoking profound emotion in its audiences and readers. This ‘freeze frame’ volume showcases current debates and ideas about the play’s provocative effects. Each chapter has been carefully selected for its originality and relevance to the needs of students, teachers, and researchers. Key issues and themes include:- Gender, Love, and Desire- Race, Ethnicity, and Difference- Social Relations, Status, and Ambition- Tragedy, Comedy, and Parody- Language, Expression, and CharacterizationAll the essays offer new perspectives and combine to give readers an up-to-date understanding of what’s exciting and challenging about Othello. The approach based on an individual play, unlike that of topic-based series, reflects how Shakespeare is most commonly studied and taught.

Othello has a long history of provoking profound emotion in its audiences and readers. This ‘freeze frame’ volume showcases current debates and ideas about the play’s provocative effects. Each chapter has been carefully selected for its originality and relevance to the needs of students, teachers, and researchers. Key issues and themes include:- Gender, Love, and Desire- Race, Ethnicity, and Difference- Social Relations, Status, and Ambition- Tragedy, Comedy, and Parody- Language, Expression, and CharacterizationAll the essays offer new perspectives and combine to give readers an up-to-date understanding of what’s exciting and challenging about Othello. The approach based on an individual play, unlike that of topic-based series, reflects how Shakespeare is most commonly studied and taught.

Women Making Shakespeare presents a series of 20-25 short essays that draw on a variety of resources, including interviews with directors, actors, and other performance practitioners, to explore the place (or constitutive absence) of women in the Shakespearean text and in the history of Shakespearean reception - the many ways women, working individually or in communities, have shaped and transformed the reception, performance, and teaching of Shakespeare from the 17th century to the present. The book highlights the essential role Shakespeare's texts have played in the historical development of feminism. Rather than a traditional collection of essays, Women Making Shakespeare brings together materials from diverse resources and uses diverse research methods to create something new and transformative. Among the many women's interactions with Shakespeare to be considered are acting (whether on the professional stage, in film, on lecture tours, or in staged readings), editing, teaching, academic writing, and recycling through adaptations and appropriations (film, novels, poems, plays, visual arts).