The Child In Shakespeare

This book examines the child on Shakespeare's stage. As a life force, an impassioned plea for justice, a legacy, history, memory or image of love or violence, children are everywhere in Shakespeare's plays. Focusing on Shakespeare's unique interest in the young body, the life stage, and the parental and social dynamic, this book offers the first sustained account of the role and representation of the child in Shakespeare's dramatic imagination. Drawing on a vast range of contemporary texts, including parenting manuals and household and pedagogic texts, as well as books on nursing and maternity, child birth, and child rearing, The Child in Shakespeare explores the contexts in which the idea of the child is mobilised as a body and image on the early modern stage. Understanding the child, not only as a specific life stage, but also as a role and an abstraction of feeling, this book examines why Shakespeare, who showed little interest in writing for children in the playing companies, wrote so powerfully about them on his stage.

Outlines an engaging way to instill an understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's classic works in children, outlining a family-friendly method that incorporates the history of Shakespearean theater and society.

This book examines the child on Shakespeare's stage. As a life force, an impassioned plea for justice, a legacy, history, memory, or image of love or violence, children are everywhere in Shakespeare's plays. Focusing on Shakespeare's unique interest in the young body, the life stage, the parental and social dynamic, this book offers the first sustained account of the role and representation of the child in Shakespeare's dramatic imagination. Drawing on a vast range of contemporary texts, including parenting manuals, household and pedagogic texts, as well as books on nursing and maternity, childbirth and child rearing, Shakespeare's Children explores the contexts in which the idea of the child is mobilized as a body and image on the early modern stage. Understanding the child, not only as a specific life stage, but also as a role and an abstraction of feeling, this book examines why Shakespeare, who showed little interest in writing for children in the playing companies, wrote so powerfully about them on his stage.

Biography of Shakespeare told through the eyes of a chlld.

This 2007 collection offered the first definitive study of a surprisingly underdeveloped area of scholarly investigation, namely the relationship between Shakespeare, children and childhood from Shakespeare's time to the present. It offers a thorough mapping of the domain in which Shakespearean childhoods need to be studied, in order to show how studying Shakespearean childhoods makes significant contributions both to Shakespearean scholarship, and to the history of childhood and its representations. The book is divided into two sections, each with a substantial introduction outlining relevant critical debates and contextualizing the rich combination of fresh research and readings of familiar Shakespearean texts that characterize the individual essays. The first part of the book examines the significance of the figure of the child in the Shakespearean canon. The second part traces the rich histories of negotiation, exchange and appropriation that have characterised Shakespeare's subsequent relations to the cultures of childhood in literary realms.

An edited version of the Shakespeare play. Also includes discussion questions.

Adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, written especially for children.