The Necessary Shakespeare

David Bevington is an American literary scholar. He is Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus. He taught drama at the University of Chicago, focusing on Shakespeare and his contemporaries (Jonson, Marlowe, Webster, Middleton, Dekker, etc.), as well as medieval drama and then the entire sweep of Western drama from Aeschylus and Sophocles down to Caryl Churchill and Tom Stoppard. In addition to courses on Shakespeare, Renaissance drama, and medieval drama, he co-taught in Theater and Performance Studies ((variously with Heidi Coleman, Director of University Theater, John Muse, English  Department, and Drew Dir, resident dramaturg at Court Theatre) a two-quarter sequence called The History and Theory of Drama from the 5th century B.C. down to the present day. "One of the most learned and devoted of Shakespeareans," so called by Harold Bloom, he specializes in British drama of the Renaissance, and has edited and introduced the complete works of William Shakespeare in both the 29-volume, Bantam Classics paperback editions and the single-volume Longman edition. He also edits the Norton Anthology of Renaissance Drama and an important anthology of Medieval English Drama. Bevington's editorial scholarship is so extensive that Richard Strier, an early modern colleague at the University of Chicago, was moved to comment: "Every time I turn around, he has edited a new Renaissance text. Bevington has endless energy for editorial projects." In addition to his work as an editor, he has published studies of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and the Stuart Court Masque, among others, though it is for his work as an editor that he is primarily known.  

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

Life in Shakespeare's England.

 

The Drama Before Shakespeare.

 

London Theatres and Dramatic Companies.

 

Shakespeare's Life and Work.

 

Shakespeare's Language: His Development as Poet and Dramatist.

 

Editions and Editors of Shakespeare.

 

Shakespeare Criticism.

 

COMEDIES.

The Taming of the Shrew.

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream.

 

The Merchant of Venice.

 

Much Ado About Nothing.

 

As You Like It.

 

Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will.

 

Measure for Measure.

 

HISTORIES.

The Tragedy of King Richard the Third.

 

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second.

 

The First Part of King Henry the Fourth.

 

The Life of King Henry the Fifth.

 

TRAGEDIES.

Romeo and Juliet.

 

Julius Caesar.

 

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

 

Othello, the Moor of Venice.

 

King Lear.

 

Macbeth.

 

Antonyand Cleopatra.

 

ROMANCES.

The Winter's Tale.

 

The Tempest.

 

POEMS.

Sonnets.

 

 

 

Appendix 1. Canon, Dates, and Early Texts

 

Appendix 2. Sources.

 

Appendix 3. Shakespeare in Performance.

 

Appendix 4. Films and Videos as a Guide to the Study of Shakespeare.

 

The Royal Genealogy of England.

 

Maps.

 

Bibliography.

 

Textual Notes.

 

Glossary of Shakespearean Words.

 

Index.