MACMILLAN Reconsidering National Plays in Europe

Product Description This volume frames the concept of a national play. By analysing a number of European case studies, it addresses the following question: Which play could be regarded as a country's national play, and how does it represent its national identity? The chapters provide an in-depth look at plays in eight different countries: Germany ( Die Räuber, Friedrich Schiller), Switzerland ( Wilhelm Tell, Friedrich Schiller), Hungary ( Bánk Bán, József Katona), Sweden ( Gustav Vasa, August Strindberg), Norway ( Peer Gynt, Henrik Ibsen), the Netherlands ( The Good Hope, Herman Heijermans), France ( Tartuffe, Molière), and Ireland. This collection is especially relevant at a time of socio-political flux, when national identity and the future of the nation state is being reconsidered. From the Back Cover This volume frames the concept of a national play. By analysing a number of European case studies, it addresses the following question: Which play could be regarded as a country's national play, and how does it represent its national identity? The chapters provide an in-depth look at plays in eight different countries: Germany ( Die Räuber, Friedrich Schiller), Switzerland ( Wilhelm Tell, Friedrich Schiller), Hungary ( Bánk Bán, József Katona), Sweden ( Gustav Vasa, August Strindberg), Norway ( Peer Gynt, Henrik Ibsen), the Netherlands ( The Good Hope, Herman Heijermans), France ( Tartuffe, Molière), and Ireland. This collection is especially relevant at a time of socio-political flux, when national identity and the future of the nation state is being reconsidered. About the Author Suze van der Poll is Assistant Professor in the Department of Scandinavian Studies and the Department of Modern European Literature at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has published on Henrik Ibsen and on contemporary Norwegian literature. She has recently published The Return of the Narrative: the Call for the Novel (co-edited with Sabine van Wesemael, 2015). Rob van der Zalm is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has published extensively on Dutch theatre history, and written several biographies of Dutch directors and actors. He was affiliated with the Dutch Theatre Museum from 1994 until 2013, where he curated several exhibitions.