Histories

The Norton Shakespeare

by Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen (Editor), Jean E. Howard (Editor)

A vibrant Shakespeare that brings readers closer than ever before possible to Shakespeare's plays as they were first acted. The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition invites readers to rediscover Shakespeare—the working man of the theater, not the universal bard-and to rediscover his plays as scripts to be performed, not works to be immortalized. Combining the freshly edited texts of the Oxford Edition with lively introductions by Stephen Greenblatt and his co-editors, glossaries and annotations, and an elegant single-column page (that of the Norton Anthologies), this edition of Shakespeare invites contemporary readers to see and read Shakespeare afresh. Greenblatt's full introduction creates a window into Shakespeare world-the culture, demographics, commerce, politics, and religion of early-modern England—Shakespeare's family background and professional life, the Elizabethan industries of theater and printing, and the subsequent centuries of Shakespeare textual editing.

Genres: Classics, Shakespeare, Drama, Plays, Fiction, Theatre, Literature

1068 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1621

About the author

Stephen Greenblatt (Ph.D. Yale) is Cogan University Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University. Also General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Eighth Edition, he is the author of nine books, including Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Hamlet in Purgatory; Practicing New Historicism; Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World; Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture; and The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. He has edited six collections of criticism, is the co-author (with Charles Mee) of a play, Cardenio, and is a founding coeditor of the journal Representations. He honors include the MLA's James Russell Lowell Prize, for Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, the Distinguished Humanist Award from the Mellon Foundation, the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Vermont.

Stephen Jay Greenblatt is a Pulitzer Prize winning American literary critic, theorist and scholar.

Greenblatt is regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics"; his works have been influential since the early 1980s when he introduced the term. Greenblatt has written and edited numerous books and articles relevant to new historicism, the study of culture, Renaissance studies and Shakespeare studies and is considered to be an expert in these fields. He is also co-founder of the literary-cultural journal Representations, which often publishes articles by new historicists. His most popular work is Will in the World, a biography of Shakespeare that was on the New York Times Best Seller List for nine weeks.

Reviews

[Rhuddem Gwelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introductions to all the plays. I have worn my copy out, must get a new one.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be reading various plays from this book for the next month or so in no particular order.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It clear Shakespeare is a genius with his very artistic style of writing, but it was also incredibly long and windy at times.

[Megan]

Had this back at home from one of my many university Shakespeare classes. In fact, I can't really remember which one it was. But I've been meaning to (re)read the Histories, so it was well-timed that I found it.

[Kristina Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard III, parts of Richard II, currently reading Henry IV Part 1

[William Herbst · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my thoughts under comedies for my thoughts on the series.