Shakespeare's Blank Verse
An Alternative History
Published on 6. October 2022
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-19-286327-0 (ISBN)
Description
Shakespeare's Blank Verse: An Alternative History is a study both of Shakespeare's versification and of its place in the history of early modern blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). It ranges from the continental precursors of English blank verse in the early sixteenth century through the drama and poetry of Shakespeare's contemporaries to the editing of blank verse in the eighteenth century and beyond.
Alternative in its argumentation as well as its arguments, Shakespeare's Blank Verse tries out fresh ways of thinking about meter--by shunning doctrinaire methods of apprehending a writer's versification, and by reconnecting meter to the fundamental literary, dramatic, historical, and social questions that animate Shakespeare's drama.
Alternative in its argumentation as well as its arguments, Shakespeare's Blank Verse tries out fresh ways of thinking about meter--by shunning doctrinaire methods of apprehending a writer's versification, and by reconnecting meter to the fundamental literary, dramatic, historical, and social questions that animate Shakespeare's drama.
Reviews / Votes
A beautifully articulate, extensively researched and utterly compelling alternative history of blank verse, this book speaks to readers not just of Shakespeare but of English Renaissance writing more generally. This new book revitalizes an old subject with erudition and panache, going far beyond Shakespeare in its ambitions and reach. * Society for Renaissance Studies Book Prize citation * This is a fine and original history of what seems to be an arcane and traditional subject: blank verse, and its relationship to other verse forms, including rhyme. In short, this is deeply researched and adds an element to Shakespeare studies often neglected: estimates of how contemporaries valued, or devalued, metrical variety and through such means how characterisation and thematic stress was communicated. * University English Book Prize citation * a scintillating monograph. * Emanuel Stelzer, Memoria di Shakespeare * fascinating [...] refreshing [...] richly researched. * Molly Clark, The Review of English Studies * The virtues of 'Shakespeare's Blank Verse: An Alternative History' are many [...] thoughtful and provocative analysis peppers the book. * Andrew Moran, Literary Imagination *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 148 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
426 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-286327-0 (9780192863270)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2022
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€15.49
Available for download
E-Book
09/2022
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€15.49
Available for download
Person
Robert Stagg is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, and an Associate Senior Member of St Anne's College, Oxford. He also serves as a Fourth Series Fellow on the Advisory and Editorial Board of the Arden Shakespeare. His work has appeared in The Review of English Studies, Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare, Studies in Philology, and Essays in Criticism, as well as several edited collections.
Content
- Introduction
- 1: Blank Verse
- 2: Not Blank Verse
- 3: Rhyme
- 4: Alternative histories
- Bibliography