Diseno de Periodicos. Sistema y Metodo

Book Description

New Mermaids are modernized and fully-annotated editions of classic English plays. Each volume includes:

• The playtext, in modern spelling, edited to the highest bibliographical and textual standards
• Textual notes recording significant changes to the copytext and variant readings
• Glossing notes explaining obscure words and word-play
• Critical, contextual and staging notes
• Photographs of productions where applicable
• A full introduction which provides a critical account of the play, the staging conventions of the time and recent stage history; discusses authorship, date, sources and the text; and gives guidance for further reading.

Edited and updated by leading scholars and printed in a clear, easy-to-use format, New Mermaids offer invaluable guidance for actor, student, and theatre-goer alike.

Customer Reviews:

Easy to Read - Great Comedy More Than Two Centuries Later.......2003-08-21

The School for Scandal was a pleasant surprise. We meet devious and unscrupulous characters, not the ragtag pickpockets found in later stories by Dickens, but self-centered members of the leisure class in London. The cast includes the appropriately named Lady Sneerwell, Mr. Snake, Mr. Crabtree, Sir Benjamin Backbite, Mrs. Candour, and the superficial Mr. Surface - individuals all too capable of undermining the most refined and honest reputations with innuendoes and ingenious fabrications.

Unlike the literature and poetry of the preceding centuries, footnotes are not needed for this late eighteenth century play. I read the entire play in a single session, and clearly this is a comedy to be relished, one whose enjoyment comes as naturally today as when it was first staged at Drury Lane theater in London in 1777.

Why does Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play still resonate with today's audience? Sheridan offers a deliciously humorous look at that fascinating and seemingly unchanging human characteristic, the propensity to gossip, to tell tales about others with only limited concern for the truth. Like Mrs. Candour, we all claim to abhor gossip, and would not ourselves consider creating fictitious tales, but are we immune from conveying stories about others, even stories which are suspect?

Lady Sneerwell rationalizes: Wounded myself in the early part of my life by the envenomed tongue of slander, I have since known no pleasure equal to the reducing others to the level of my own injured reputation.

Mr. Snake, another memorable villain, explains: I beg your ladyship ten thousand pardons: you paid me extremely liberally for the lie in question, but I unfortunately have been offered double to speak the truth.

The School for Scandal is a classic example of an English comedy of manners. The dialogue is witty and entertaining. The plot is elaborate and contrived, but always maintains interest and momentum as Sheridan brings his intertwined subplots to an entertaining and satisfactory conclusion. Along the way we encounter devious plots and counterplots, disguised identities, and outrageous behavior. It is great fun.

Good satire of gabby society.......2002-09-13

Sheridan's phrase "school for scandal" is a grand metaphor for the gossipy London society of the late 1770's, and the longevity of the play that bears it as its title attests to its relevance in any place and time. Sheridan captures the inherent drama and humor in the truism that people are always talking about other people behind their backs and uses it as a foundation on which to devise a plot of intrigue.

The school's "principals" are Lady Sneerwell and a man named Snake, who like to collect gossip about their neighbors and others in London society; one of their cohorts is the brilliantly ironic character Mrs. Candour, who openly reprehends idle gossip but blithely participates in it anyway. One of their favorite subjects of gossip is the Surface brothers, Joseph and Charles. The popular perception is that Joseph is responsible and respectable, while Charles is a wastrel and a miscreant.

The Surface brothers' uncle, Sir Oliver Surface, returns to London after spending many years in India, hears the rumors about his nephews, and decides to verify them for the purpose of choosing an heir between the two. Since he has been gone so long that his nephews would not recognize him, he visits them incognito. Posing as a moneylender to Charles, and as a poor relative to Joseph, he discovers that his nephews are not quite of the natures he has been led to believe.

Sheridan employs some typical comedic devices like love triangles and hiding characters, but for the most part this is an inventive play that picks its targets well and hits the bullseye every time. Considering it was written at such a turbulent time in England's history, it's interesting that social satire still managed to break through greater national concerns and be successful and appreciated.

Delightfully Scandalous.......2002-01-02

This book made it fun and delightful to follow how rumors and scandals are started. Anyone who wants a ligth hearted read in the style of a Shakespearean comedy, "School for Scandal" by Richard Sheridan is for you. It has the most entertaining characters, who anyone could recognize as being people they know and are friends with, and it pokes fun at soap-opera-like dramas that have forbidden loves and misleading coincidences. The situations that arise seem so unthinkable and impossible, and then you realize that you or someone you know has been there right down to the last detail. "School for Scandal" is a entertaining read for anyone who has ever passed on a rumor.

Comedy of Manners.......2001-08-04

The aptly named Sir Oliver Surface would like to know which of his nephews is the more worthy, and, well, nothing is ever simple. This comedy of manners is one of the best ever written, and it rings true 225 years after its first performance thanks to its snide comments on English aristocrats and one-liners such as "I'm called away by particular business. But I leave my character behind me."

Book Description

"The Rivals" was Richard Brinsley Sheridan's first play and while at first it was not well received it would go on to prove to be a great success and establish Sheridan as a major talent. "The Rivals" satirizes the pretentiousness of English society in the late 18th century. As witty and accessible today as when it was first written, "The Rivals" sparkles with the humor that Sheridan and his writing are known for.

Download Description

Mrs. Mal. You thought, Miss!--I don't know any business you have to think at all--thought does not become a young woman; the point we would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow--to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory. (Note: all the webmaster's mis-typings on own message board have just been explained by genetics.)

Customer Reviews:

A Classic Comedy of Manners - Gentle, Humorous Satire.......2003-10-30

The editor, Alan Downer, cautions the reader (as opposed to a spectator of the play) "not to allow himself to be troubled by the labyrinthine mechanics of the plot". Enjoy the comic aspects of the moment; the play will take care of itself. Downer argues that Sheridan envisioned The Rivals as a series of comic scenes, not necessarily a tightly woven plot.

In his preface Richard Brinsley Sheridan reminds the readers that this play was not initially well received and, in fact, he had to withdraw the play to remove imperfections. His later version was more successful and today The Rivals is one of the few English comedies from that period that continues to interest modern audiences.

I found the beginning slow. The author's wordy preface was followed by a prologue in which two lawyers plead with the audience to give this play fair consideration. On the tenth night a new prologue replaced the pleading as it was now obvious that the revised play was indeed successful. In Act 1 I had some difficulty keeping track of the characters and I chose to reread the first act before proceeding. Thereafter, the going was much smoother and I began to appreciate the foibles of the characters and their confused machinations.

The protagonist, the young Captain Absolute, was sensible for the most part, although his plan to woo the capricious Lydia Languish was obviously destined for trouble. The other characters included his excitable father Sir Anthony Absolute, his father's patient ward Julia, the silly Mrs. Malaprop, the comic gentleman wooers Faulkland, Acres, and Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and the conniving servants Fag, David, Thomas, and Lucy. While Sheridan does encourage us to laugh at his characters, his satire is gentle. His characters are not at all unlikable, just a little eccentric and possibly not overly intelligent.

I recently read and reviewed Sheridan's enjoyable The School for Scandal and I recommend that the reader new to Sheridan begin with it rather than The Rivals. Both plays are short and can be read with little difficulty with the help of an occasional footnote. For my reading of The Rivals I used the Crofts Classics edition in which Alan Downer provides a useful introduction, a list of key dates in Sheridan's life, footnotes, and a bibliography. I give four stars to The Rivals. I previously rated The School for Scandal as five stars.

Ageless comedy.......2000-10-26

This is the first major comedy by Sheridan, a radical Irish actor and politician in George III's England. Not quite as complex and astute as his later She Stoops to Conquer, the Rivals remains a warm, unforgettable, and very, very funny play.

Amazon.com

Richard Sheridan is primarily remembered for three brilliant plays: The Rivals, The School for Scandal, and The Critic. With these elegant comedies of manners, he almost single-handedly revived the comic spirit of the Restoration, deemed too coarse by the more refined society of the latter 18th century. In Sheridan's work, the clichés of traditional melodrama are turned on their heads (The Rivals, for example, features a man who forces his son to marry the woman he himself is in love with), and romantic intrigues become a forum for discussing political issues and the nature of theater itself. Sheridan's major plays were all written by the time he was 28. While melodramas, adaptations, and pantomimes followed, his career as a playwright was just a prelude to a long involvement in other fields, most notably managing London's Drury Lane theater and a political career that eventually led to a seat in the House of Commons. Little has been written about his later political and business life.

There are romantic intrigues, political battles, and dodges from the debt collectors aplenty in Sheridan's later life, though they seem but a lengthy epilogue to the wit and creativity of his early years. O'Toole is wonderfully lucid, however, in explaining the struggles for Irish autonomy in this period (Sheridan would all his life, to the detriment of his social standing, identify himself as Irish), and he offers an in-depth analysis of the elaborate political and social arena of the time. Particularly well drawn are Sheridan's complex romantic relationships with his wives, involving infidelities and duels. But when compared to the brilliance of his early plays, the historical details of his later life seem somewhat lackluster. --John Longenbaugh

Book Description

The great Irish-English playwright--his politics, his impassioned life.

A tale of stunning literary success, political celebrity and intrigue, early death, murder, treason, and revolution, this extraordinary book takes as its subject one of the most exciting and enigmatic figures in Irish and English history.

Dramatist, politician, entrepreneur, philanderer, duelist, and revolutionary (or traitor), Richard Brinsley Sheridan was a man of many contradictions: a Protestant gentleman who cared about the rights of the Irish Catholic peasantry; a creative writer who was best known as a politician; a believer in sincerity yet a role-playing chameleon; a radical who masterminded the crisis following the madness of King George; a member of Parliament who associated with insurrectionists against the Crown.

His unusual and still-relevant life has been captured superbly by the masterful young scholar Fintan O'Toole, in an innovative work that opens up a radical new perspective on a great writer. O'Toole shows that Sheridan must be understood as an Irish writer and dissident, a complicated man who walked a thin line between success in London and extreme danger as a supporter of democratic reform and Irish independence.

Customer Reviews:

A wit, poet and a gentleman........2004-09-16

This is a wonderful biography of a fascinating and engaging personality. Sheridan is a fine poet and an honorable politician (a nearly impossible achievement in the eighteenth-century as it is today), a genuine wit, he was also one of the greatest playwrights in the London theater of his day.

Sheridan was a man of fashion and society, but not a fop. He wrote clever, romantic comedies, liked to live on the edge and yet always held fast to his principles -- supporting the American colonists, for instance, in their struggle for independence -- while refusing to be bought at any price.

He lived in grand style from the first moment that he arrived in London (despite having nothing but his wife's dowry), spending all of the money that he made as quickly as he earned it -- sometimes MORE quickly than he earned it. He was passionate about few women but appreciative of the beauty of many, and he was a devoted and caring father. (His poem "If a Daughter You Have" is a small gem.)

When he came home one night to find his theater burning as a result of a fire (probably set by his enemies in parliament), he calmly sat and sipped some wine, explaining to shocked witnesses: "Surely a man can have a glass of wine by his own fire."

Toward the end of his life, although he was burdened by crippling debts, he refused an offer of a large sum of money in compensation for his support offered by the American colonists. He explained that his support had been a matter of principle.

Read this biography and anything by Sheridan himself.

What an excellent book!.......2002-07-24

It's enough to say that a major artist has met with a superb biographer and this happy marriage has produced a very moving and absorbing account of this great man's life. Thank you Mr O' Toole!

a terrific book.......1999-04-25

I was familiar with Sheridan from his theatrical comedies, plays that have become standard in the repertoire. I was dimly aware of his service in Parliament. I wasn't aware of his extensive involvement in the great political questions of the day, particularly the Irish questions, nor of his centrality in the great debates of the late 18th century--the American war for independence, the expanding power of the East India Company, and many others.

The book covers all of this, but what elevates this bio from the typical is the author's focus on Sheridan's rhetoric--his use of language. The richness of wordplay, situation, and satire in his plays turns out to be just a special case of a characteristic lifestyle of thought and interaction. It's just splendid to read this sort of thing from an intelligent writer. The book gets you thinking, and there are points at which you may challenge the author's conclusions, but you're not going to find many biographies of this depth, thoroughness, and thoughtfulness. A great read!

a really good biography that could have been much better.......1999-03-17

Sheridan (1751-1816) is best known for a few plays, superficially comedies of manners and morals, mainly The Rivals and The School for Scandal. O'Toole's work explores beneath the surface of these and other literary works, showing them as the products of Sheridan's personal and political life.

Widely praised in the English and American press, this biography portrays Sheridan as a passionate (and compassionate) politician. He was a major player in a struggle for various complicated and sometimes seemingly contradictory causes and parliamentary power in the era of the American Revolution, King George III's intermittent madness, the French Revolution, and troubles in the British empire.

Sheridan is shown to be a humanitarian, and, less convincingly, an Irish patriot in the guise of an English politician who happened to be Irish by birth at a time when Ireland was at times openly rebellious toward England. The family heritage in Ireland was actually Protestant, but tolerant of Catholicism to the point of having Jacobite tendencies, i.e. favoring the return of the Stuart monarchy that had ended with James II in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. Sheridan's father, Thomas, was a man of the theatre, and also a scholar, concerned particularly with propriety in matters of language and spoken discourse. Richard was not his father's favorite and his mother, herself a writer, died while Richard was still a young boy.

O'Toole's biography manages to relate the playwright's works to his family circumstances without indulging in psychological speculation. For example, the memorable character Mrs. Malaprop, in The Rivals, (immortalized by our word "malaprop" or "malapropism") is shown to be in part based on Thomas, who had pedantic tendencies. (Malaprops are best when they come from pretenders to perfection in language. An especially good one appeared a few years ago in The Smithsonian magazine when James J. Kilpatrick, a conservative political commentator and sometimes word policeman, referred to a mistake in diction as a "solipsism" instead of a "solecism".)

The many portrayals of hypocrisy and venality in Sheridan's plays are well explained by reference to the politics and society of the period, but are timeless in their effectiveness. The book is most interesting in describing the realities of theatrical performances, whether the particulars are staging details, audience characteristics, or financial exigencies. But this is a political biography of a character whose political accomplishments and enlightened ideals outshine his well known literary works.

Many of Sheridan's Irish contacts and English partisans in the intrigues within England in the years after 1789 were openly sympathetic to, or even allied with the French revolutionaries. Yet Sheridan was during this time a prominent member of the House of Commons and close to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. Some of his personal and political friends were tried as traitors during the peak of Sheridan's political prominence; he survived primarily because of his political acumen, eloquence, and insight.

To the general reader, not well acquainted with the intricacies of English history, the work will nevertheless be interesting and convincing in portraying Sheridan as a politically adroit and ingenious man, even an Enlightenment figure. Sheridan's speeches and writings were well known to the American revolutionaries, and remained popular even after his death. He eloquently advocated religious toleration, freedom from colonial oppression, even feminism, and opposed slavery so effectively as to influence the young Frederick Douglass.

Sheridan's personal flaws (he was a drunk and an adulterer), theatre life in London, political intrigues, the struggle for religious and political freedom in Ireland, and the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings for mismanagement of affairs in British colonial India, all well explained, make this book accessible and interesting. I offer three points of criticism.

First, and most importantly, characters, terms, or events not known to the general reader or history reader, should be explained briefly. The English reader may know what a "rotten" borough was, and what a "pocket" borough was, in the days before parliamentary reform, but a sentence or two would explain this and give the reader a better understanding of the electoral politics involved.

Second, an attempt at a definitive biography, published by a prestigious house such as Farar, should include illustrations. It is frustrating to read descriptions of presumably extant political cartoons of the day, some involving Sheridan's Drury Lane theatre, or major political figures, and not be able to see reproductions-surely the private collection or library would give permission. (In fact, the New York Review of Books included one cartoon in its review of this book.)

Finally, O'Toole's prose is afflicted with some of the unfortunate mannerisms of academic style. He repeatedly uses the awkward, almost always disruptive "former...latter" construction, and equally often uses the term "context" when referring to real relationships or circumstances-the term should be reserved for relationships between words. These usages may be epidemic in doctoral dissertations or in the "scholarly" journals no one reads, but that does not excuse their appearance in a work like this-the author is the drama critic of the New York Daily News. In the age of word processing, surely an editor at Farar should have caught these irritating errors of style, possibly in preparation of the American edition. Then again, a careful editor might have noticed that at the end of the "Preface to the American Edition" the date is incorrectly listed as May 1988.

If this clever and talented author had made his entertaining book more accessible, he would be open to the charge of "popularizing", anathema in academic and some literary circles. But it is a measure of his success in eliciting the nature of Sheridan that one wishes he had done so. After all, the political and religious difficulties in Ireland persist, and one could as well look beyond the Emerald Isle and argue that we too live in an age of comparably flawed, but ultimately noble political actors and causes, in need of better understanding of their human qualities.

Average customer rating:

Hilarious!

The School for Scandal and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | British & Irish | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Rover and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)

She Stoops to Conquer (Dover Thrift Editions)

The Man of Feeling (Oxford World's Classics)

Joseph Andrews/Shamela (Penguin Classics)

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (Penguin Classics)

ASIN: 0192825674

Book Description

Richly exploited comic situations, effervescent wit, and intricate plots combine to make Sheridan's work among the best of of all English comedy. The School for Scandal (1777) is his masterpiece, a brilliantly crafted comedy of contrasts in which brothers Joseph and Charles Surface contend for Maria, with hilariously differing intentions and results. Also a work of acute comic irony, The Rivals satirizes the romantic posturing of Lydia Languish while her disguised suitor Captain Absolute's resourceful contrivances advance an ever inventive and skilfully wrought plot. Included in this edition are the opera play The Duenna and the rarely printed musical play A Trip to Scarborough, adapted from Vanbrugh's The Relapse. Sheridan's last play, The Critic, is an exuberant parody of the modish tragic drama of the day. Lampooning Sir Fretful Plagiary's absurdly bombastic historical drama during its confused stages of production, its satire never fails to delight. The texts of the plays have been newly edited by the General Editor of the Oxford World's Classics English Drama series. A fine introduction and notes on Sheridan's playhouses and critical inheritance make this an invaluable edition for study and performance alike.

Customer Reviews:

Hilarious!.......2000-05-18

This edition includes three of Sheridan's most famous works. "The Rivals" and "The Critic" are both fine plays, but the best by far is "The School for Scandal", a droll farce which lampoons gossip-mongers. The high point of the play is the famous "screen scene", in which one character after another takes refuge behind a screen to eavesdrop. The humor is sharp but never bitter, and the characters are wholly believable. It is easy to see why this play is still being performed after two hundred years.

The comedy of manners from Sheridan to Maugham,

Average customer rating:

The comedy of manners from Sheridan to Maugham,
Newell W Sawyer
Manufacturer: Russell & Russell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Average customer rating:

The School for Scandal
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Manufacturer: Digireads.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Old School

ASIN: 1420927159

Book Description

"The School for Scandal" is Richard Brinsley Sheridan's classic comedy that pokes fun at London upper class society in the late 1700s. Often referred to as a "comedy of manners", "The School for Scandal" is one Sheridan's most performed plays and a classic of English comedic drama.

Sheridan's Plays : The Rivals, The School for Scandal, The Critic

Average customer rating:

Sheridan's Plays : The Rivals, The School for Scandal, The Critic
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Manufacturer: Paul Elder and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000KW4E64

Average customer rating:

The School for Scandal and The Rivals
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Manufacturer: Digireads.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1420927191

Book Description

Combined in this volume are two of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's most loved works, "The School for Scandal" and "The Rivals". "The School for Scandal" is Richard Brinsley Sheridan's classic comedy that pokes fun at London upper class society in the late 1700s. Often referred to as a "comedy of manners", "The School for Scandal" is one Sheridan's most performed plays and a classic of English comedic drama. "The Rivals" was Richard Brinsley Sheridan's first play and while at first it was not well received it would go on to prove to be a great success and establish Sheridan as a major talent. "The Rivals" satirizes the pretentiousness of English society in the late 18th century. As witty and accessible today as when it was first written, "The Rivals" sparkles with the humor that Sheridan and his writing are known for. Together these works make a great introduction to the works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books