Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida, long considered one of Shakespeare’s most problematic plays, is both difficult and fascinating. Largely neglected during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it has recently proved popular and rewarding on the stage as well as in the study. This edition questions certain received ideas about the play’s text, especially the relationship between quarto and folio and offers several new readings of old problems. Dawson’s textual choices are often surprising but at the same time carefully grounded. He views the play from a performance perspective - both in the commentary as well as in the detailed section on stage history in the introduction. The introduction also covers the cultural context in which the play was written, probes the controversy about its early performance and provides extensive analysis of character, language, genre and contemporary significance.

• Textual problems of the play have been completely re-thought and are carefully and clearly analyzed in the section on the text • Thorough and illuminating line-by-line commentary explaining linguistic and theatrical puzzles • Throughout, Dawson pays close attention to the play on the stage, making this an ideal edition for those interested in the performance of Shakespeare’s plays

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations and conventions; Introduction: style and genre: heap of rubbish, salty comedy, or what?; The play in its time; Symmetrical structures; Interpreting the Language; Cressida; Literary identity; Scepticism and Speculation; The Play in performance; The Sources of the play; Note on the Text; The 1609 Epistle to the reader; List of characters; THE PLAY; Textual analysis.

‘I commend this new edition particularly for the introductory sections.’ Shakespeare at the Centre Magazine

‘… fine new edition …Anthony B. Dawson\'s readable and reliable text, together with his excellent explanatory footnotes and his superb discussion of theatrical adaptations of the play, will make this edition a valuable resource for scholars as well as an attractive text for classroom use.’ Shakespeare Quarterly