Shakespeare and Cultural Traditions: The Selected Proceedings of the International Shakespeare Association World Congress, Tokyo, 1991

"The lectures delivered by the four plenary speakers of the congress are published here: Stephen Greenblatt's groundbreaking paper on witchcraft and Macbeth: Germaine Greer's perceptive analysis of the presence of the proletariat in Shakespeare's plays: Ruth Nevo's intriguing exploration of Freudian perspectives on Hamlet; and Takashi Sasayama's important comparative study of tragedy and emotion in Shakespeare and Chikamatsu. This volume also includes papers by other Shakespearean scholars of international reputation, offering fresh insights into many topics of interest. Among them are John Russell Brown on "Shakespeare's Plays and Traditions of Playgoing"; Sukanta Chaudhuri on "Shakespeare and the Ethnic Question"; Werner Habicht on the German Shakespeare tradition; Alexander Leggatt on bearbaiting; Avraham Oz on The Merchant of Venice; Annabel Patterson and Taming of the Shrew; and Gary Taylor on "Bardicide."" "Taken together, the essays collected in Shakespeare and Cultural Traditions constitute a remarkable range of responses to Shakespeare's enduring art and offer a truly international and multicultural assessment of his presence in the world today."--BOOK JACKET.