The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music showcases the latest international research into the captivating and vast subject of the many uses of music in relation to Shakespeare’s plays and poems, extending from the Bard’s own time to the present day. The coverage is truly global in its scope, with ground-breaking studies of Shakespeare-related music in countries as diverse as China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, and the Soviet Union, as well as the Anglophone musical and theatrical traditions of the UK and USA. The range of genres surveyed is equally extensive, embracing music for theatre, opera, ballet, musicals, the concert hall, and film, in addition to Shakespeare’s ongoing afterlives in folk music, jazz, and popular music. The authors take a range of diverse approaches in tackling their remits: some chapters investigate the evidence for performative practices in the Early Modern and later eras, while others offer detailed accounts of representative case studies, situating these firmly in their cultural contexts, or reflecting on the fascinating political and sociological ramifications of the music. As a whole, the Handbook provides a unique and impressively wide-ranging compendium of cutting-edge scholarship engaging with an extraordinarily rich body of music.