This companion to Shakespeare's poems, problem comedies, and late plays contains original essays on Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and The Sonnets, as well as Pericles, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Henry VIII, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. In addition, it includes eleven essays on such topics as the reception history of the sonnets, collaboration in Shakespeare's middle and late plays, the generic classification of Shakespeare's late plays, The Tempest in performance, and the relation of Shakespeare's "problem plays" to the work of contemporary dramatists.

Jean E. Howard is William E. Ransford Professor of English at Columbia University and a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America. She is an editor of The Norton Shakespeare, and author of, among other works The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England (1994) and, with Phyllis Rackin, of Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare's English Histories (1997).

Richard Dutton is currently Professor of English at Ohio State University. He is author of Mastering the Revels: the Regulation and Censorship of Renaissance Drama(1991) and Licensing, Censorship and Authorship in Early Modern England:Buggeswords(2000), and editor of the Palgrave Literary Lives series.

Notes on Contributors.

Introduction.

1. Shakespeare s Sonnets and the History of Sexuality: A Reception Hisotry: Bruce R. Smith.

2. The Book of Changes in a Time of Change: Ovid s Metamorphoses in Post-Reformation England and Venus and Adonis: Dympna Callaghan.

3. Shakespeare s Problem Plays and the Drama of His Time: Troilus and Cressida, Alls Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure: Paul Yachnin.

4. The Privy and Its Double: Scatology and Satire in Shakespeares Theatre: Bruce Boehrer.

5. Hymeneal Blood, Interchangeable Women, and the Early Modern Marriage Economy in Measure for Measure and Alls Well That Ends Well: Theodora A. Jankowski.

6. Varieties of Collaboration in Shakespeares Problem Plays and Late Plays: John Jowett.

7. What s in a Name? Tragicomedy, Romance, or Late Comedy: Barbara A. Mowat.

8. Fashion: Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher: Russ McDonald.

9. Place and Space in Three Late Plays: John Gillies.

10. The Politics and Technology of Spectacle in the Late Plays: David M. Bergeron.

11. The Tempest in Performance: Diana E. Henderson.

12. What It Feels Like For a Boy: Shakespeare s Venus and Adonis: Richard Rambuss.

13. Publishing Shame: The Rape of Lucrece: Copplia Kahn.

14. The Sonnets: Sequence, Sexuality, and Shakespeares Two Loves: Valerie Traub.

15. The Two-Party System in Troilus and Cressida: Linda Charnes.

16. Opening Doubts Upon the Law: Measure for Measure: Karen Cunningham.

17. Doctor She. Healing and Sex in All s Well That Ends Well: Barbara Howard Traister.

18. You not your child well loving . Text and Family Structure in Pericles: Suzanne Gossett.

19. Imagine Me, Gentle Spectators . Iconomachy and The Winters Tale: Marion O Connor.

20. Cymbeline: Patriotism and Performance: Valerie Wayne.

21. Meaner Ministers : Mastery, Bondage, and Theatrical Labor in The Tempest: Daniel Vitkus.

22. Queens and the Structure of History in Henry VIII: Susan Frye.

23. Mixed Messages: The Aesthetics of The Two Noble Kinsmen: Julie Sanders.

Index.