This four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works, compiled as a single entity, offers a uniquely comprehensive snapshot of current Shakespeare criticism. Brings together new essays from a mixture of younger and more established scholars from around the world - Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Examines each of Shakespeare s plays and major poems, using all the resources of contemporary criticism, from performance studies to feminist, historicist, and textual analysis. Volumes are organized in relation to generic categories: namely the histories, the tragedies, the romantic comedies, and the late plays, problem plays and poems. Each volume contains individual essays on all texts in the relevant category, as well as more general essays looking at critical issues and approaches more widely relevant to the genre. Offers a provocative roadmap to Shakespeare studies at the dawning of the twenty-first century. This companion to Shakespeare's histories contains original essays on every history play from Henry VI to Henry V as well as fourteen additional articles on such topics as censorship in Shakespeare's histories, the relation of Shakespeare's plays to other dramatic histories of the period, Shakespeare's histories on film, the homoerotics of Shakespeare's history plays, and nation formation in Shakespeare's histories.

This four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works, compiled as a single entity, offers a uniquely comprehensive snapshot of current Shakespeare criticism.* Brings together new essays from a mixture of younger and more established scholars from around the world - Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.* Examines each of Shakespeare's plays and major poems, using all the resources of contemporary criticism, from performance studies to feminist, historicist, and textual analysis.* Volumes are organized in relation to generic categories: namely the histories, the tragedies, the romantic comedies, and the late plays, problem plays and poems.* Each volume contains individual essays on all texts in the relevant category, as well as more general essays looking at critical issues and approaches more widely relevant to the genre.* Offers a provocative roadmap to Shakespeare studies at the dawning of the twenty-first century.This companion to Shakespeare's histories contains original essays on every history play from Henry VI to Henry V as well as fourteen additional articles on such topics as censorship in Shakespeare's histories, the relation of Shakespeare's plays to other dramatic histories of the period, Shakespeare's histories on film, the homoerotics of Shakespeare's history plays, and nation formation in Shakespeare's histories.

Notes on Contributors.Introduction.1. The Writing of History in Shakespeare's England (IvoKamps).2. Shakespeare and Contemporary Dramatists of History (RichardHelgerson).3. Censorship and the Problems with History inShakespeare's England (Cyndia Susan Clegg).4. Nation Formation and the English History Plays (Patricia A.Cahill).5. The Irish Text and Subtext of Shakespeare's EnglishHistories (Willy Maley).6. Theories of Kingship in Shakespeare's England (WilliamC. Carroll).7. "To beguile the time, look like the time": Contemporary FilmVersions of Shakespeare's Histories (Peter J. Smith).8. The Elizabethan History Play: A True Genre (PaulinaKewes).9. Damned Commotion: Riot and Rebellion in Shakespeare'sHistories (James Holstun).10. Manliness Before Individualism: Masculinity, Effeminacy, andHomoerotics in Shakespeare's History Plays (Rebecca AnnBach).11. French Marriages and the Protestant Nation inShakespeare's History Plays (Linda Gregerson).12. The First Tetralogy in Performance (Ric Knowles).13. The Second Tetralogy: Performance as Interpretation (LoisPotter).14. 1 Henry VI (David Bevington).15. Suffolk and the Pirates: Disordered Relations inShakespeare's 2 Henry VI (Thomas Cartelli).16. Vexed Relations: Family, State, and the Uses of Women in3 Henry VI (Kathryn Schwarz).17. "The power of hope?" An Early Modern Reader of RichardIII (James Siemon).18. King John (Virginia Mason Vaughan).19. The King's Melting Body: Richard II (LisaHopkins).20. 1 Henry IV (James Knowles).21. Henry IV, Part 2: A Critical History (Jonathan Crewe).22. Henry V (Andrew Hadfield).Index.