‘Original, engaging, highly innovative and richly researched, this book makes a valuable contribution to the field as the first interdisciplinary study which provides a concentrated and sustained focus on the use of physical \u201cpictures\u201d in Shakespeare\u2019s drama. The readings of the individual plays are breath takingly deft, a tour de force interweaving of image theory, material culture, performance practice and textual analysis. The depth of the research, the illuminating illustrations and a handy glossary of \u201cShakespeare\u2019s Iconographic Lexicon\u201d, make this book a bejewelled cabinet of wonders for the discerning reader, from undergraduate level upwards.\u2019
\nDR CHRIS LAOUTARIS, author of Shakespeare and the Countess:
\nThe Battle that Gave Birth to the Globe and Lecturer at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK
\nShakespeare\u2019 Pictures is the first full-length study of visual objects in Shakespearean drama. In several plays (Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, among others) pictures are brought on stage – in the form of portraits or other images \u2014 as part of the dramatic action. Shakespeare\u2019s characters show, exchange and describe them. The pictures arouse in their beholders strong feelings, of desire, nostalgia or contempt, and sometimes even taking the place of the people they depict.
\nThe pictures presented in Shakespeare\u2019s work are part of the language of the drama, and they have a significant impact on theatrical performance, from Shakespeare\u2019s time to our own. Keir Elam pays close attention to the iconographic and literary contexts of Shakespeare\u2019s pictures while also exploring their role in performance history. Highly illustrated with 46 images, this volume examines the conflicted cooperation between the visual and the verbal.
\nKEIR ELAM is Professor of English Literature at the University of Bologna, Italy. He is the editor of the Arden Third Series edition of Twelfth Night (2008).<\/p>\n