The Merchant of Venice

From the Royal Shakespeare Company – a fresh new edition of Shakespeare's bittersweet comedy of courtship and ethnic tension

THIS EDITION INCLUDES:

* An introduction to The Merchant of Venice by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate

* The play – with clear an [...]
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From the Royal Shakespeare Company – a fresh new edition of Shakespeare's bittersweet comedy of courtship and ethnic tension

THIS EDITION INCLUDES:

* An introduction to The Merchant of Venice by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate

* The play – with clear and authoritative explanatory notes on each page

* A helpful scene-by-scene analysis and key facts about the play

* An introduction to Shakespeare's career and the Elizabethan theatre

* A rich exploration of approaches to staging the play featuring photographs of key productions

The most enjoyable way to understand a Shakespeare play is to see it or participate in it. This unique edition presents a historical overview of The Merchant of Venice in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with two leading directors and two actors – Darko Tresnjak, David Thacker, Anthony Sher and Henry Goodman - so that we may get a sense of the extraordinary variety of interpretations that are possible, a variety that gives Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made 'our contemporary' four centuries after his death.

'The glossary includes much that has been ignored in the past, enlightening the new student...as well as adding to the vocabulary of those who have been enjoying his plays all their lives... an invaluable resource.' - Word Matters

Introduction

About the Text

Key Facts

The Merchant of Venice

Textual Notes

Scene-by-scene Analysis

The Merchant of Venice in Performance: the RSC and Beyond

Four Centuries of The Merchant: An Overview

At the RSC

The Director's Cut: interviews with David Thacker and Darko Tresjnak

Playing Shylock: interviews with Antony Sher and Henry Goodman

Shakespeare's Career in the Theatre

Shakespeare's Works: a Chronology

Further Reading and Viewing

References

Acknowledgements and Picture Credits

JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as 'the best modern book on Shakespeare.' In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'.

ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.