Much Ado About Nothing (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series)
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Bibliographic Note: For a stage history somewhat longer than the present one, but still fairly short, see A. R. Humphreys's Arden edition of the play. The ways of delivering one episode, the "Kill Claudio" passage (4.2.297ff), have been examined at length by J. F. Cox, in Shakespeare Survey 32 (1979). Biographies and autobiographies of actors who have performed the roles usually include helpful material; for reviews of productions staged during the second half of the twentieth century, consult Shakespeare Survey (an annual) and especially Shakespeare Quarterly. For the text of Branagh's screenplay, with some pictures and a short introduction, see Kenneth Branagh, "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare (1993).
Suggested References
The number of possible references is vast and grows alarmingly. (The Shakespeare Quarterly devotes one issue each year to a list of the previous year's work, and Shakespeare Survey--an annual publication--includes a substantial review of biographical, critical, and textual studies, as well as a survey of performances.) The vast bibliography is best approached through James Harner, The World Shakespeare Bibliography on CD-Rom: 1900-Present. The first release, in 1996, included more than 12,000 annotated items from 1990-93, plus references to several thousand book reviews, productions, films, and audio recordings. The plan is to update the publication annually, moving forward one year and backward three years. Thus, the second issue (1997), with 24,700 entries, and another 35,000 or so references to reviews, newspaper pieces, and so on, covered 1987-94.
Though no works are indispensable, those listed below have been found especially helpful. The arrangement is as follows: 1. Shakespeare's Times
2. Shakespeare's Life
3. Shakespeare's Theater
4. Shakespeare on Stage and Screen
5. Miscellaneous Reference Works
6. Shakespeare's Plays: General Studies
7. The Comedies
8. The Romances
9. The Tragedies
10. The Histories
11. Much Ado About Nothing
The titles in the first five sections are accompanied by brief explanatory annotations.
1. Shakespeare's Times
Andrews, John F., ed. William Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His Influence, 3 vols. (1985). Sixty articles, dealing not only with such subjects as "The State," "The Church," "Law," "Science, Magic, and Folklore," but also with the plays and poems themselves and Shakespeare's influence (e.g., translations, films, reputation)
Byrne, Muriel St. Clare. Elizabethan Life in Town and Country (8th ed., 1970). Chapters on manners, beliefs, education, etc., with illustrations.
Dollimore, John, and Alan Sinfield, eds. Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultutal Materialism (1985). Essays on such topics as the subordination of women and colonialism, presented in connection with some of Shakespeare's plays.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Representing the English Renaissance (1988). New Historicist essays, especially on connections between political and aesthetic matters, statecraft and stagecraft.
Joseph, B. L. Shakespeare's Eden: the Commonwealth of England 1558-1629 (1971). An account of the social, political, economic, and cultural life of England.
Kernan, Alvin. Shakespeare, the King's Playwright : Theater in the Stuart Court 1603-1613 (1995). The social setting and the politics of the court of James I, in relation to Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Macbeth, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and The Tempest.
Montrose, Louis. The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre (1996). A poststructuralist view, discussing the professional theater "within the ideological and material frameworks of Elizabethan culture and society," with an extended analysis of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Mullaney, Steven. The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and Power in Renaissance England (1988). New Historicist analysis, arguing that popular drama became a cultural institution "only by ... taking up a place on the margins of society."
Schoenbaum, S. Shakespeare: The Globe and the World (1979). A readable, abundantly illustrated introductory book on the world of the Elizabethans.
Shakespeare's England, 2 vols. (1916). A large collection of scholarly essays on a wide variety of topics, e.g., astrology, costume, gardening, horsemanship, with special attention to Shakespeare's references to these topics.
2. Shakespeare's Life
Andrews, John F., ed. William Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His Influence, 3 vols. (1985). See the description above.
Bentley, Gerald E. Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook (1961). The facts about Shakespeare, with virtually no conjecture intermingled.
Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols. (1930). The fullest collection of data.
Fraser, Russell. Young Shakespeare (1988). A highly readable account that simultaneously considers Shakespeare's life and Shakespeare's art.
------, Shakespeare: The Later Years (1992).
Schoenbaum, S. Shakespeare's Lives (1970). A review of the evidence and an examination of many biographies, including those of Baconians and other heretics.
--. William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (1977). An abbreviated version, in a smaller format, of the next title. The compact version reproduces some fifty documents in reduced form. A readable presentation of all that the documents tell us about Shakespeare.
------. William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (1975). A large-format book setting forth the biography with facsimiles of more than two hundred documents, and with transcriptions and commentaries.
3. Shakespeare's Theater
Astington, John H., ed. The Development of Shakespeare's Theater (1992). Eight specialized essays on theatrical companies, playing spaces, and performance.
Beckerman, Bernard. Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599-1609 (1962). On the playhouse and on Elizabethan dramaturgy, acting, and staging.
Bentley, Gerald E. The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time (1971). An account of the dramatist's status in the Elizabethan period.
------. The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time, 1590-1642 (1984). An account of the status of members of London companies (sharers, hired men, apprentices, managers) and a discussion of conditions when they toured.
Berry, Herbert. Shakespeare's Playhouses (1987). Usefully emphasizes how little we know about the construction of Elizabethan theaters.
Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare's Plays in Performance (1966). A speculative and practical analysis relevant to all of the plays, but with emphasis on The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night.
--------. William Shakespeare: Writing for Performance (1996). A discussion aimed at helping readers to develop theatrically conscious habits of reading.
Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols. (1945). A major reference work on theaters, theatrical companies, and staging at court.
Cook, Ann Jennalie. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare's London, 1576-1642 (1981). Sees Shakespeare's audience as wealthier, more middle-class, and more intellectual than Harbage (below) does.
Dessen, Alan C. Elizabethan Drama and the Viewer's Eye (1977). On how certain scenes may have looked to spectators in an Elizabethan theater.
Gurr, Andrew. Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (1987). Something of a middle ground between Cook (above) and Harbage (below).
------.The Shakespearean Stage, 1579-1642 (2nd ed., 1980). On the acting companies, the actors, the playhouses, the stages, and the audiences.
Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare's Audience (1941). A study of the size and nature of the theatrical public, emphasizing the representativeness of its working class and middle-class audience.
Hodges, C. Walter. The Globe Restored (1968). A conjectural restoration, with lucid drawings.
Hosley, Richard. "The Playhouses," in The Revels History of Drama in English, vol. 3, general editors Clifford Leech and T. W. Craik (1975). An essay of a hundred pages on the physical aspects of the playhouses.
Howard, Jane E. "Crossdressing, the Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modem England," Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988): 418-40. Judicious comments on the effects of boys playing female roles.
Orrell, John. The Human Stage: English Theatre Design, 1567-1640 (1988). Argues that the public, private, and court playhouses are less indebted to popular structures (e.g., innyards and bear-baiting pits) than to banqueting halls and to Renaissance conceptions of Roman amphitheaters.
Slater, Ann Pasternak. Shakespeare the Director (1982). An analysis of theatrical effects (e.g., kissing, kneeling) in stage directions and dialogue.
Styan, J. L. Shakespeare's Stagecraft (1967). An introduction to Shakespeare's visual and aural stagecraft, with chapters on such topics as acting conventions, stage groupings, and speech.
Thompson, Peter. Shakespeare's Professional Career (1992). An examination of patronage and related theatrical conditions.
------. Shakespeare's Theatre (1983). A discussion of how plays were staged in Shakespeare's time.
4. Shakespeare on Stage and Screen
Bate, Jonathan, and Russell Jackson, eds. Shakespeare: An Illustrated Stage History (1996). Highly readable essays on stage productions from the Renaissance to the present.
Berry, Ralph. Changing Styles in Shakespeare (1981). Discusses productions of six plays (Coriolanus, Hamlet, Henry V, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night) on the English stage, chiefly 1950-1980.
------. On Directing Shakespeare: Interviews with Contemporary Directors (1989). An enlarged edition of a book first published in 1977, this version includes the seven interviews from the early 1970s and adds five interviews conducted in 1988.
Brockbank, Philip, ed. Players of Shakespeare: Essays in Shakespearean Performance (1985). Comments by twelve actors, reporting their experiences with roles. See also the entry for Russell Jackson (below).
Bulman, J. C., and H. R. Coursen, eds. Shakespeare on Television (1988). An anthology of general and theoretical essays, essays on individual productions, and shorter reviews, with a bibliography and a videography listing cassettes that may be rented.
Coursen, H. P. Watching Shakespeare on Television (1993). Analyses not only of TV versions but also of films and videotapes of stage presentations that are shown on television.
Davies, Anthony, and Stanley Wells, eds. Shakespeare and the Moving Image: The Plays on Film and Television (1994). General essays (e.g., on the comedies) as well as essays devoted entirely to Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth.
Dawson, Anthony B. Watching Shakespeare: A Playgoer's Guide (1988). About half of the plays are discussed, chiefly in terms of decisions that actors and directors make in putting the works onto the stage.
Dessen, Alan. Elizabethan Stage Conventions and Modern Interpretations (1984). On interpreting conventions such as the representation of light and darkness and stage violence (duels, battles).
Donaldson, Peter. Shakespearean Films/Shakespearean Directors (1990). Postmodemist analyses, drawing on Freudianism, Feminism, Deconstruction, and Queer Theory.
Jackson, Russell, and Robert Smallwood, eds. Players of Shakespeare 2: Further Essays in Shakespearean Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company (1988). Fourteen actors discuss their roles in productions between 1982 and 1987.
------Players of Shakespeare 3: Further Essays in Shakespearean Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company (1993). Comments by thirteen performers.
Jorgens, Jack. Shakespeare on Film (1977). Fairly detailed studies of eighteen films, preceded by an introductory chapter addressing such issues as music, and whether to "open" the play by including scenes of landscape.
Kennedy, Dennis. Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance (1993). Lucid descriptions (with 170 photographs) of European, British, and American performances.
Leiter, Samuel L. Shakespeare Around the Globe: A Guide to Notable Postwar Revivals (1986). For each play there are about two pages of introductory comments, then discussions (about five hundred words per production) of ten or so productions, and finally bibliographic references.
McMurty, Jo. Shakespeare Films in the Classroom (1994). Useful evaluations of the chief films most likely to be shown in undergraduate courses.
Rothwell, Kenneth, and Annabelle Henkin Melzer. Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography (1990). A reference guide to several hundred films and videos produced between 1899 and 1989, including spinoffs such as musicals and dance versions.
Sprague, Arthur Colby. Shakespeare and the Actors (1944). Detailed discussions of stage business (gestures, etc.) over the years.
Willis, Susan. The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon (1991). A history of the series, with interviews and production diaries for some plays.
5. Miscellaneous Reference Works
Abbott, E. A. A Shakespearean Grammar (new edition, 1877). An examination of differences between Elizabethan and modem grammar.
Allen, Michael J. B., and Kenneth Muir, eds. Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto (1981). One volume containing facsimiles of the plays issued in small format before they were collected in the First Folio of 1623.
Bevington, David. Shakespeare (1978). A short guide to hundreds of important writings on the subject.
Blake, Norman. Shakespeare's Language: An Introduction (1983). On vocabulary, parts of speech, and word order.
Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 8 vols. (1957-75). A collection of many of the books Shakespeare drew on, with judicious comments.
Campbell, Oscar James, and Edward G. Quinn, eds. The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (1966). Old, but still the most useful single reference work on Shakespeare.
Cercignani, Fausto. Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation (1981). Considered the best work on the topic, but remains controversial.
Dent, R. W. Shakespeare's Proverbial Language: An Index (1981). An index of proverbs, with an introduction concerning a form Shakespeare frequently drew on.
Greg, W. W. The Shakespeare First Folio (1955). A detailed yet readable history of the first collection (1623) of Shakespeare's plays.
Harner, James. The World Shakespeare Bibliography. See headnote to Suggested References.
Hosley, Richard. Shakespeare's Holinshed (1968). Valuable presentation of one of Shakespeare's major sources.
Kokeritz, Helge. Shakespeare's Names (1959). A guide to pronouncing some 1,800 names appearing in Shakespeare.
------Shakespeare's Pronunciation (1953). Contains much information about puns and rhymes, but see Cercignani (above).
Muir, Kenneth. The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays (1978). An account of Shakespeare's use of his reading. It covers all the plays, in chronological order.
Miriam Joseph, Sister. Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language (1947). A study of Shakespeare's use of rhetorical devices, reprinted in part as Rhetoric in Shakespeare's Time (1962).
The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays (1968). A handsome and accurate facsimile of the first collection (1623) of Shakespeare's plays, with a valuable introduction by Charlton Hinman.
Onions, C. T. A Shakespeare Glossary, rev. and enlarged by R. D. Eagleson (1986). Definitions of words (or senses of words) now obsolete.
Partridge, Eric. Shakespeare's Bawdy, rev. ed. (1955). Relatively brief dictionary of bawdy words; useful, but see Williams, below.
Shakespeare Quarterly. See headnote to Suggested References.
Shakespeare Survey. See headnote to Suggested References.
Spevack, Marvin. The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare (1973). An index to Shakespeare's words.
Vickers, Brian. Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels (1993). A survey--chiefly hostile--of recent schools of criticism.
Wells, Stanley, ed. Shakespeare: A Bibliographical Guide (new edition, 1990). Nineteen chapters (some devoted to single plays, others devoted to groups of related plays) on recent scholarship
on the life and all of the works.
Williams, Gordon. A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature, 3 vols. (1994). Extended discussions of words and passages; much fuller than Partridge, cited above.
6. Shakespeare's Plays: General Studies
Bamber, Linda. Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre in Shakespeare (1982).
Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Shakespeare (1974).
Callaghan, Dympna, Lorraine Helms, and Jyotsna Singh. The Weyward Sisters: Shakespeare and Feminist Politics (1994).
Clemen, Wolfgang H. The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery (1951).
Cook, Ann Jennalie. Making a Match: Courtship in Shakespeare and His Society (1991).
Dollimore, Jonathan, and Alan Sinfield. Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism (1985).
Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women (1975).
Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare, 2 vols. (1946-47; volume 1 contains essays on Hamlet, King Lear, Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline; volume 2 contains essays on Othello, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labor's Lost).
------. More Prefaces to Shakespeare (1974; essays on Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth).