Description: This new volume in Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition increases our knowledge of how Shakespeare's plays were received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. Updated with a new introduction providing a survey of critical responses to the plays since the late 1930s to the present day, the volume offers, in separate sections, both critical opinions about the play across the centuries and an evaluation of their positions within and their impact on the reception of the play. The chronological arrangement of the text-excerpts engages the readers in a direct and unbiased dialogue, whereas the introduction offers a critical evaluation from a current stance, including modern theories and methods. Thus the volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the play and of the traditions of Shakespearean criticism surrounding it as they have developed from century to century.
Brief description: Joseph Candido is Professor of English at the University of Arkansas, USA. He has published extensively on Shakespeare and Renaissance drama, particularly the Elizabethan and Jacobean history play. He is the editor of King John in the series Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition, and is editor of The Text, the Play, and the Globe: Essays on Literary Influence in Shakespeare's World and His Work in Honor of Charles R. Forker (2016).