Great Shakespeareans offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Grigori Kozintsev and Franco Zeffirelli to the afterlife and reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution assesses the double impact of Shakespeare on the figure covered and of the figure on the understanding, interpretation and appreciation of Shakespeare, provide a sketch of their subject's intellectual and professional biography and an account of the wider cultural context, including comparison with other figures or works within the same field.

Product Description: No literary figure has proved so elusive as Shakespeare. How, Courtney Lehmann asks, can the controversies surrounding the Bard's authorship be resolved when his works precede the historical birth of that modern concept? And how is it that Shakespeare remains such a powerful presence today, years after poststructuralists hailed the "death of the author"? In her cogent book, Lehmann reexamines these issues through a new lens: film theory...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Spectacular Shakespeare includes an introduction, nine essays, and an afterword that all address the spectacle of Shakespeare in recent Hollywood films. The essays approach the Shakespeare-as-star phenomenon from various perspectives, some applauding the popularization of the Bard, others critically questioning the appropriation of Shakespeare in contemporary mass culture...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)