"Dark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies. Indeed, for 250 years it was performed with grand operatic additions set to baroque music. In his introduction Nicholas Brooke relates the play's changing fortunes to changes within society and the theatre and investigates the sources of its enduring appeal. He examines its many layers of illusion and interprets its linguistic turns and echoes, arguing...

Presents the annotated text of Shakespeare's tragedy in which Cassius, fearing Julius Caesar's ambition, forms a conspiracy among Roman republicans, including Caesar's trusted friend Brutus, to assassinate him on the Ides of March; includes supplemental materials.

Critical and historical notes accompany Shakespeare's play about two knights, Palamon and Arcite, who fall in love with the same girl, Emelye, turning their previous close friendship into bitter rivalry.

Braunmuller offers a wide-ranging critical introduction, which focuses on the play's political relevance in Elizabethan England, its relationship to legal issues of the day, its treatment of women and families, and its overall aesthetic importance in Shakespeare's early career. He also provides a richly detailed stage history, full annotations that are especially sensitive to the play's language and staging, and an ample bibliographical study of the...

"For this updated critical edition of King Lear, Lois Potter has written a completely new introduction, taking account of recent productions and reinterpretations of the play, with particular emphasis on its afterlife in global performance and adaptation. The edition retains the Textual Analysis of the previous editor, Jay L. Halio, shortened and with a new preface by Brian Gibbons. Professor Halio, accepting that we have two versions of equal authority,...

Contains the text of the play, information about Shakespeare and his theater, explanatory notes, and assesses the play in light of today's interests.

Presents Shakespeare's tragedy in which an English king foolishly splits his kingdom between the two daughters plotting his doom and disinherits his favorite for speaking out against him.

A team of six eminent scholars who have, along with the general editors themselves, prepared new introductions and notes to all of Shakespeare's plays and poems. Redesigned in an easy-to-read format that preserves the favorite features of the original--and including an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare, and introduction to the individual play, and a note on the text used--the new Pelican Shakespeare will be an excellent resource for students,...