Troilus and Cressida

Stephen Purcell

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781526103574
• eBook ISBN: 9781526103598
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

A history of Shakespeare's play in performance, from John Dryden's Restoration adaptation to the rediscovery of the play in the twentieth century. What made this play so relevant to audiences who had lived through the horrors of two world wars and the rise of fascism? Why did it speak so directly to the 'angry young men' of the post-war generation and to the countercultural movements of the 1960s? This book investigates the many ways in which modern directors and actors have found their own world reflected in the play, from anti-war protests and the sexual revolution to feminism and postcolonialism. In doing so, it explores the play's own complexity and its refusal to give easy answers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Series editors’ preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 ‘That heap of rubbish’: Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida and its influence, 1679–1800
• 2 ‘A tract for the times’: the rediscovery of Troilus and Cressida, 1898–1938
• 3 ‘Decadence and disillusion’: Troilus and Cressida after the Second World War, 1946–59
• 4 ‘Amazing and modern’: angry young men and the sexual revolution, 1960–79
• 5 ‘The road to disintegration’: political and postmodernist Shakespeares, 1980–99
• 6 ‘A more authentic experience’: Troilus and Cressida in the twenty-first century
• AppendixMajor actors and staff for productions discussed in detail
• References
• Index