Addresses attitudes to Shakespeare's English history plays in Britain and abroad from the early seventeenth century to the present day.

This volume, with a foreword by Dennis Kennedy, addresses a range of attitudes to Shakespeare's English history plays in Britain and abroad from the early seventeenth century to the present day. It concentrates on the play texts as well as productions, translations and adaptations of them. The essays explore the multiple points of intersection between the English history they recount and the experience of British and other national cultures, establishing the plays as genres not only relevant to the political and cultural history of Britain but also to the history of nearly every nation worldwide. The plays have had a rich international reception tradition but critics and theatre historians abroad, those practising 'foreign' Shakespeare, have tended to ignore these plays in favour of the comedies and tragedies. By presenting the British and foreign Shakespeare traditions side by side, this volume seeks to promote a more finely integrated world Shakespeare.

Acknowledgements
List of illustrations
List of contributors
Foreword: histories and nations Dennis Kennedy
Introduction: Shakespeare's history plays in Britain and abroad Ton Hoenselaars
Part I: Introduction: alienating histories Ton Hoenselaars
1. Ireland as foreign and familiar in Shakespeare's histories Andrew Murphy
2. Welshness in Shakespeare's English histories Lisa Hopkins
3. A French history of Henry V Jean-Michel Deprats
4. Shakespeare's history plays in Japan Daniel Gallimore
Part II: Introduction: the appropriated past Ton Hoenselaars
5. Rent-a-past: Italian responses to Shakespeare's histories (1800-1950) Mariangela Tempera
6. Brecht and the rediscovery of Henry VI James N. Loehlin
7. Shakespeare's histories in cycles Edward Burns
8. Shakespeare's history plays in Bulgaria Alexander Shurbanov and Boika Sokolova
Part III: Introduction: stage adaptations of the histories Ton Hoenselaars
9. Shakespeare's English histories at the Vienna Burgtheater Manfred Draudt
10. The Spanish premiere of Richard II Keith Gregor
11. Shakespearean history at the Avignon Festival Dominique Goy-Blanquet
12. Two Flemings at war with Shakespeare Ton Hoenselaars
Select bibliography
Index.