The special theme of this volume of The Shakespearean International Yearbook, edited by Bradshaw (English, Chuo U., Japan) and Bishop (English, U. of Auckland, New Zealand), is "European
Shakespeares," which is concerned with receptions of Shakespeare in Europe, Shakespeare in European politics, and similar issues. Topics covered by the seven papers specifically addressing this
theme include receptions of Shakespeare at Portugal's U. of Coimbra from the early 1940 to the late 1960s, the politics of Greek stagings of Henry V during World War II, European-Asian cultural
cross-currents connected to Shakespeare's works, director Peter Brook's stagings of Shakespeare as critical engagement with the "New" Europe, BBC television adaptations of Shakespeare and
British self-image as a European nation, and European Shakespeare as a form of anti-Americanism. The volume also includes five papers not connected to the European Shakespeare theme. These
contributions discuss the Shakespearean character as evaluator; folly, femininimity, and sexuality in Renaissance discourses and Shakespeare's plays; Janus-faced romance in Pericles; cultural
memory in As You Like It; and defining Shakespearean romance through structural combination of the melodramatic trope of shipwreck and modern ecological thinking. Also included are a pair of
review essays, one dealing with the issues of Shakespearean collaboration arising from the Oxford edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the other critiquing Harold Bloom's
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Annotation 穢2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
