Wolf Heinrich Baudissin Graf von Livres

This edition of Much Ado About Nothing, one of Shakespeare's most delightful and theatrically successful comedies, offers, along with a freshly edited text, an exceptionally helpful and critically aware Introduction and commentary. Paying particular attention in his Introduction to analysis of the play's minor characters, Sheldon P. Zitner discusses Shakespeare's social transformation of his source material, rethinking the attitudes to gender relations that underlie the comedy and determine its ruefully optimistic view of marriage. Interpretations are advanced less because they are arguable than because they are actable. Allowing for the play's openness to re-interpretation by successive generations of readers and performers, the editor provides a socially analytic stage history. Full notes and commentary continue previous editors' work of clarifying textual and performance problems of interest to both readers and actors.

Molière (eigentlich Jean-Baptiste Poquelin; 1622-1673) war ein französischer Schauspieler, Theaterdirektor und Dramatiker. Er ist einer der großen Klassiker und machte die Komödie zu einer der Tragödie potenziell gleichwertigen Gattung. Vor allem erhob er das Theater seiner Zeit zum Diskussionsforum über allgemeine menschliche Verhaltensweisen in der Gesellschaft. • Der Geizige • Die Schule der Frauen • Die Schule der Ehemänner • George Dandin • Der eingebildete Kranke • Der Misanthrop • Die Zierpuppen • Tartuffe • Die erzwungene Heirath