Shakespeare, theory, and performance

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Gerry McCarthy

"In this volume, Gerry McCarthy examines the practice and method of possible the greatest actor-dramatist in the Western tradition. From the rough farces of Moliere's days on the road to the creation of the diverse and spectacular court entertainments on his return to Paris, McCarthy sheds new light on the dramatic intelligence and theatrical understanding of Moliere's writing for the actor." "Drawing on Moliere's own brief discussions of performance and the contemporary evidence of his practice, this is a crucial addition to the debate on style and method in classical acting and on the staging of classical plays on the contemporary stage."--Jacket.

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Gurinder Singh Mann

"Based on a close examination of the extant manuscripts and other early Sikh sources, Gurinder Singh Mann presents a detailed reconstruction of the making of the Adi Granth ("original book"), the primary Sikh scripture. In the process, he traces its origin, expansion, canonization, and place within the institutional development of the Sikh community. His findings on many key issues differ from the traditional Sikh position, as well as the hypotheses of other twentieth-century scholars. Mann's revised and expanded history of the text and institution of Sikh scripture will be of interest to scholars of Sikhism and comparative canon formation."--Jacket.

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Lawrence S. Rainey

A Poem Containing History offers nine essays that examine Pound's major poem from a historical and contextual perspective, in which the work's textual development is brought to center stage. The result is a significant reconsideration not just a Pound's achievement, but of modernist poetics and its relations with history. The contributors, all major scholars, examine The Cantos from their beginnings in the late 1910s to their inconclusive ending with Pound's death in 1972. Together the essays reconstruct the many contexts in which Pound lived and wrote, and how these affected the evolution of his most important work. Several essays offer comprehensive surveys of the text's publication history, while most examine the development of particular groups of cantos that were produced in succeeding decades. Repeatedly the essays show that Pound's poem was an unstable work in process, one that readily accommodated input from a variety of agents other than Pound himself, and one that may ultimately have escaped his control altogether.

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Robert L. Benedetti

Explains the role of a director from his first encounter with a play through casting, rehearsals, staging and shaping the play - A director's approach to Hamlet_