Shakespeare - As You Like It

Dana E. Aspinall

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781137470492
• eBook ISBN: 9781137470508
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This essential guide provides a comprehensive survey of the most important criticism surrounding As You Like It, one of Shakespeare's most popular and engaging comedies, from the earliest appraisals through to 21st century scholarship. Dana Aspinall outlines, assesses and explores the key critical issues, including As You Like It and the genre of comedy; Shakespeare's adaptation of sources; gender, love and marriage; and interrogations of power. Highlighting how critical and scholarly studies of As You Like It continue to enrich our understanding of this complex and popular play, this guide is an invaluable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of English literature, teachers, researchers, scholars, and lovers of Shakespeare everywhere.

Table of contents

• COVER
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• NOTE
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER ONE 1709–1800: “To Breed Me Well”: Determinations of Genre and Character
• CHAPTER TWO 1800–1900: “Dancing Measures”: Arriving at Critical Consensus
• CHAPTER THREE 1906–72: “A Great Reckoning”: New Criticism
• CHAPTER FOUR 1948–83: “Not for All Markets”: Movements Away from New Criticism and the Authority of the Text
• CHAPTER FIVE 1978–Present: “All the World’s a Stage”: Cultural Studies
• CHAPTER SIX 1980–Present: “To Mutiny Against this Servitude”: New Historicism
• CHAPTER SEVEN 1965–Present: “If I Were a Woman”: Feminism and Gender
• CHAPTER EIGHT 1981–Present: “She Phebes Me”: Homoerotics, Queer Theory and Identity
• CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX