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Reading List for PhD Candidates in English
English and American Drama
Part One: Theory and History
Braunmuller, A. R. and Michael Hattaway, eds. The Cambridge Companion to
English Renaissance Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Brown, John Russell, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Carlson, Marvin. Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the
Greeks to the Present, rev. ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Fisk, Deborah Payne, ed. The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Hendricks, Margo, and Patricia Parker, eds. Women, “Race”, and Writing in the Early
Modern Period. London: Routledge, 1994.
Smart, John. Twentieth Century British Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001.
Wells, Stanley and Sarah Stanton, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on
Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Wilmeth, Don B., and Christopher Bigsby, eds. The Cambridge History of American
Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Part Two: Texts
16th century and early 17th century
William Shakespeare: Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
The Tempest
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
Julius Caesar
Richard the Third
Henry the Fourth, Part One
Christopher Marlowe: Dr Faustus
Tamburlaine the Great
Edward the Second
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John Webster: The White Devil
The Duchess of Malfi
Ben Jonson: Volpone
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman
Bartholomew Fair
John Marston: The Malcontent
Cyril Tourneur: The Revenger’s Tragedy
Middleton/Dekker: The Roaring Girl
Middleton/Rowley: The Changeling
John Ford: ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore
Restoration and 18th century
Aphra Behn: The Rover
Sir George Etherege: The Man of Mode
William Wycherley: The Country Wife
William Congreve: The Way of the World
George Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer
Richard Brinsley Sheridan: The School for Scandal
20th century: Ireland
George Bernard Shaw:
Major Barbara
Heartbreak House
Saint Joan
W. B. Yeats: On Baile’s Strand
Sean O’Casey: Juno and the Paycock
J. M. Synge: The Playboy of the Western World
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
Endgame
Krapp’s Last Tape
Brian Friel: Translations
20th century: England
John Arden: Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance
Edward Bond: Early Morning
Lear
John Osborne: The Entertainer
Harold Pinter: The Homecoming
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Tom Stoppard: Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Travesties
Caryl Churchill: Cloud Nine
Serious Money
Brenton/Hare: Pravda
20th century: the United States
Eugene O’Neill: The Emperor Jones
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman
The Crucible
Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire
August Wilson: Fences
Sam Shepard: True West
David Mamet: Glengarry Glen Ross
Marsha Norman: ’Night Mother
Tony Kushner: Angels in America, Part One: The Millennium Approaches