Shakespearean Intertextuality: Studies in Selected Sources and Plays

(Hardback)

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Description

Though one of the greatest dramatists to have written in English, Shakespeare was not entirely original. He borrowed his plots from various sources, reworked his material and infused it with his keen sense of humanity and unusual gift of language. This book looks at four of Shakespeare's plays - "As You Like It", "King Lear", "Pericles" and "The Winter's Tale" - and the primary source texts on which they are based, to show how the dramatist refashioned earlier works. Each chapter examines one play in relation to its major source and to the historical and cultural contexts in which both the play and source were written. Shakespeare's sources thus emerge not merely as raw material for plot and character, but as dynamic and often inconsistent texts involving layers of subtextual and intertextual suggestions and assumptions. The volume demonstrates that in his revisionary practices, Shakespeare does not simply borrow selectively from his sources but appropriates, reimagines and reacts against them, often by developing and expanding upon contrary suggestions already present in his source texts.

Reviews

[A] very readable book for students.-Shakespeare Quarterly
Lynch's is the only book-length study of the dramatist's intertextual practice offering a clearly written example of the virtues of this critical approach.-Choice
[A] very readable book for students.Shakespeare Quarterly
"A very readable book for students."-Shakespeare Quarterly
"[A] very readable book for students."-Shakespeare Quarterly
"Lynch's is the only book-length study of the dramatist's intertextual practice offering a clearly written example of the virtues of this critical approach."-Choice

Author Bio

STEPHEN J. LYNCH is Professor of English at Providence College. He has published articles on Shakespeare in scholarly journals such as Shakespeare Studies, Philological Quarterly, Mediaevalia, The Upstart Crow, and South Atlantic Review. He has also taught at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and at the University of Georgia.