Books by R. S. White

Dr White examines the ways in which Shakespeare uses formal conventions from romance throughout his writing career, especially in giving formal completion to a play without forfeiting the 'open-ended' sense of life's complexity. In his romantic comedies these conventions are modified to imply that the cosy womb of marriage is not the end of lovers' lives; in the 'problem' comedies they are used to challenge the artifice of the comic ending; in some tragedies they are used to provide an ideal of fulfilment which has been destroyed by the tragic events - and in the last plays or 'romances' they are used to invoke the full sense of life's continuing comprehensiveness.

In this book White "traces the influence of both the comedies and tragedies [of Shakespeare] on Keats's work." (Choice)

This engaging and stimulating book argues that Shakespeare's plays significantly influenced movie genres in the twentieth century, particularly in films concerning love in the classic Hollywood period. Shakespeare's 'green world' has a close functional equivalent in 'tinseltown' and on 'the silver screen', as well as in hybrid genres in Bollywood cinema. Meanwhile, Romeo and Juliet continues to be an enduring source for romantic tragedy on screen. The nature of generic indebtedness has not gained recognition because it is elusive and not always easy to recognise. The book traces generic links between Shakespeare's comedies of love and screen genres such as romantic comedy, 'screwball' comedy and musicals, as well as clarifying the use of common conventions defining the genres, such as mistaken identity, 'errors', disguise and 'shrew-taming'. Speculative, challenging and entertaining, the book will appeal to those interested in Shakespeare, movies and the representation of love in narratives.

Hamlet stands as a high water mark of canonical art, yet it has equally attracted rebels and experimenters, those avant-garde writers, dramatists, performers, and filmmakers who, in their adaptations and appropriations, seek new ways of expressing innovative and challenging thoughts in the hope that they can change perceptions of their own world. One reason for this, as the book argues, is that the source text that is their inspiration was written in the same spirit. Hamlet as a work of art exhibits many aspects of the ';vanguard' movements in every society and artistic milieux, an avant-garde vision of struggle against conformity, which retains an edge of provocative novelty. Accordingly, it has always inspired unorthodox adaptations and can be known by a neglected portion of the company it keeps, the avant-garde in every age. After placing Hamlet alongside ';cutting edge' works in Shakespeare's time, such as Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, chapters deal with the ways in which experimental writers, theatre practitioners, and film-makers have used the play down to the present day to develop their own avant-garde visions. This is a part of the uncanny ability of Shakespeare's Hamlet to be ';ever-now, ever-new.'