The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation

by Diana Henderson (Editor)

The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation explores the dynamics of adapted Shakespeare across a range of literary genres and new media forms. This comprehensive reference and research resource maps the field of Shakespeare adaptation studies, identifying theories of adaptation, their application in practice and the methodologies that underpin them. It investigates current research and points towards future lines of enquiry for students, researchers and creative practitioners of Shakespeare adaptation.

The opening section on research methods and problems considers definitions and theories of Shakespeare adaptation and emphasises how Shakespeare is both adaptor and adapted.A central section develops these theoretical concerns through a series of case studies that move across a range of genres, media forms and cultures to ask not only how Shakespeare is variously transfigured, hybridised and valorised through adaptational play, but also how adaptations produce interpretive communities, and within these potentially new literacies, modes of engagement and sensory pleasures. The volume's third section provides the reader with uniquely detailed insights into creative adaptation, with writers and practice-based researchers reflecting on their close collaborations with Shakespeare's works as an aesthetic, ethical and political encounter. The Handbook further establishes the conceptual parameters of the field through detailed, practical resources that will aid the specialist and non-specialist reader alike, including a guide to research resources and an annotated bibliography.

433 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 24, 2022

Reviews

[Colin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

An even denser, longer, academic book on Shakespeare. Much better than “Weathering Shakespeare,” however. A great compendium of chapters on all multitude of Shakespeare adaptations. I’m not particularly interested in the academic implications of said adaptations, so I found a fair amount of the fifty-cent-word-where-a-five-cent-word-would-do academic jargonese laborious and annoying. But there was plenty of strong content underneath the thick skin of needlessly obtuse writing. Many great stories of compelling approaches to Shakespeare. A lot here to be inspired by, a lot here to look further into.

[Daniel Gallimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all such Handbooks and Companions, this one is heavygoing at first, but it is impeccably edited, and taken a sip at a time presents a compelling, richly detailed case for reading Shakespeare adaptations against the diverse contexts of a world of which he would surely have approved rather than his own illusory standards.