The four writers featured in this volume represent different aspects of the modernist response to Shakespeare. James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Samuel Beckett were all exceptionally learned and their art takes a delight in difficulty. But the scurrility, irreverence and playfulness they found in Shakespeare are essential features of what they themselves were to do with him. They were particularly drawn to Shakespeare's outcasts, and to the experiences of marginality, estrangement, indigence and craziness. In return they have helped to shape the ways in which we now read Shakespeare himself.

A comprehensive critical analysis of the most important Shakespearean critics, editors, actors and directors. This volume focuses on Shakespeare's reception by modernist writers.

About the Author
Adrian Poole is Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge, UK and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His books include Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction (2005) and Shakespeare and the Victorians (2003). Contributors: Maud Ellmann (University of Chicago, USA), Daniel Gunn (American University of Paris, France), Jeremy Noel-Tod (University of East Anglia, UK), Adrian Poole (University of Cambridge, UK) and Anne Stillman (University of Cambridge, UK).


Book Information
ISBN 9781472518507
Author Adrian Poole
Format Paperback
Page Count 248
Imprint The Arden Shakespeare
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 387g