The Re-imagined Text: Shakespeare, Adaptation, & Eighteenth-century Literary TheoryUniversity Press of Kentucky, 1995 - 193 pages Shakespeare's plays were not always the inviolable texts they are almost universally considered to be today. The Restoration and eighteenth century committed what many critics view as one of the most subversive acts in literary history - the rewriting and restructuring of Shakespeare's plays. Many of us are familiar with Nahum Tate's "audacious" adaptation of King Lear with its resoundingly happy ending, but Tate was only one of a score of playwrights who adapted Shakespeare's plays. Between 1660 and 1777, more than fifty adaptations appeared in print and on the stage, works in which playwrights augmented, substantially cut, or completely rewrote the original plays. The plays were staged with new characters, new scenes, new endings, and, underlying all this novelty, new words. Why did this happen? And why, in the later eighteenth century, did it stop? These questions have serious implications regarding both the aesthetics of the literary text and its treatment, for the adaptations manifest the period's perceptions of Shakespeare. As such, they demonstrate an important evolution in the definition of poetic language, and in the idea of what constitutes a literary work. In The Re-Imagined Text, Jean I. Marsden examines both the adaptations and the network of literary theory that surrounds them thereby exploring the problems of textual sanctity and of the author's relationship to the text. As she demonstrates, Shakespeare's works, and English literature in general, came to be defined by their words rather than by the plots and morality on which the older aesthetic theory focused - a clear step toward our modern concern for the word and its varying levels of signification |
From inside the book
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... Restoration and eigh- teenth century committed what many critics view as one of the most subversive acts in lit- erary history — the rewriting and restructuring of Shakespeare's plays . Many of us are familiar with Nahum Tate's ...
... Restoration and eigh- teenth century committed what many critics view as one of the most subversive acts in lit- erary history — the rewriting and restructuring of Shakespeare's plays . Many of us are familiar with Nahum Tate's ...
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... Johnson " in Eighteenth - Century Life 17 ( 1993 ) : ! . I am grateful to these publications for permission to reprint this material . The Re - Imagined Text Introduction The Restoration and eighteenth X The Re - Imagined Text.
... Johnson " in Eighteenth - Century Life 17 ( 1993 ) : ! . I am grateful to these publications for permission to reprint this material . The Re - Imagined Text Introduction The Restoration and eighteenth X The Re - Imagined Text.
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Shakespeare, Adaptation, & Eighteenth-century Literary Theory Jean I. Marsden. The Re - Imagined Text Introduction The Restoration and eighteenth century produced one of the.
Shakespeare, Adaptation, & Eighteenth-century Literary Theory Jean I. Marsden. The Re - Imagined Text Introduction The Restoration and eighteenth century produced one of the.
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... Restoration play- wrights . What differentiates us from the Restoration is that while we feel free to alter Shakespeare's context , we do not change his text . Our sense of textual sanctity and its antithesis as exemplified by the ...
... Restoration play- wrights . What differentiates us from the Restoration is that while we feel free to alter Shakespeare's context , we do not change his text . Our sense of textual sanctity and its antithesis as exemplified by the ...
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... Restoration audiences flocked to see his plays — albeit the performances they saw were frequently al- tered versions of his works . To attribute the canonization of Shakespeare solely to the age of Garrick and the Shakespeare Jubilee is ...
... Restoration audiences flocked to see his plays — albeit the performances they saw were frequently al- tered versions of his works . To attribute the canonization of Shakespeare solely to the age of Garrick and the Shakespeare Jubilee is ...
Other editions - View all
The Re-Imagined Text: Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Eighteenth-Century ... Jean I. Marsden Limited preview - 2021 |
The Re-Imagined Text: Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Eighteenth-Century ... Jean I. Marsden Limited preview - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
acts Adaptations of Shakespeare appeared attack attempt audience becomes changes character Cibber Colley Cibber Colman comedy contemporaries Cordelia Cressida Cumberland's D'Avenant daughter David Garrick Dennis diction drama Dryden Edgar edition emotional emphasis English Essay Evanthe evil example fable father faults figurative language focus focuses Garrick's Gerard Guthrie Hamlet John John Dryden Johnson King Lear Lady later eighteenth century Leontes Lewis Theobald literary literature Macbeth metaphor mid-century critics moral Morgann Nahum Tate nature passages passion Perdita performed Petruchio play's playwrights plot poet poetic justice poetry political popular praise Preface Restoration adaptations Restoration and early reverence rewriting Richard Richard III role Romeo and Juliet rules Rymer Samuel Johnson scene sentiments Shake Shakespeare's genius Shakespeare's language Shakespeare's plays Shakespeare's text speare speare's stage sublime taste Tate's King Lear textual theater Theobald Theophilus Cibber theory Thomas Timon of Athens tion tragedy Troilus and Cressida Univ virtue Whiter's William women writing