The Beggar's Opera

· Bloomsbury Publishing
eBook
160
페이지

eBook 정보

Mr. and Mrs. Peachum are horrified when they learn of their daughter Polly's secret marriage to the rebellious and notorious highwayman, Macheath. However, their fear is soon mitigated when they decide to kill him for his money. When Macheath is in the tavern, surrounded by women of 'ill repute', he discovers that he has been rumbled: two of these women are in cahoots with the Peachums and plan to kill him.

He finds himself in Newgate and, worse than that, in the company of the jailer's daughter, Lucy, to whom he is also betrothed. Although Macheath is captured and destined to be hanged, Gay's action-packed and entertaining play subverts audience expectations by letting Macheath off the hook and not punishing its villains.


John Gay's satirical opera, written in 1728, was revolutionary because it took poverty and corruption as its subject, and paupers and villains as its characters. The lyrics were set to famous songs of the day making it hugely popular with audiences and a radical departure from traditional opera.


The introduction puts the play in its historical and theatrical contexts and details its stage history in modern times too. David Lindley is an expert on theatrical music and the new dramatic form of ballad opera this play created. The music for the songs is included in the text, making this an edition to be used for performance as well as for study.

저자 정보

David Lindley is Professor of Renaissance Literature at Leeds University. He is the author of Shakespeare and Music in the Arden Critical Companions Series and editor of The Tempest for the New Cambridge Shakespeare series.

Vivien Jones is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Gender and Culture at Leeds University. She has edited Evelina and Jane Austen: Selected Letters for Oxford World's Classics and has written widely on women in the eighteenth century.

이 eBook 평가

의견을 알려주세요.

읽기 정보

스마트폰 및 태블릿
AndroidiPad/iPhoneGoogle Play 북 앱을 설치하세요. 계정과 자동으로 동기화되어 어디서나 온라인 또는 오프라인으로 책을 읽을 수 있습니다.
노트북 및 컴퓨터
컴퓨터의 웹브라우저를 사용하여 Google Play에서 구매한 오디오북을 들을 수 있습니다.
eReader 및 기타 기기
Kobo eReader 등의 eBook 리더기에서 읽으려면 파일을 다운로드하여 기기로 전송해야 합니다. 지원되는 eBook 리더기로 파일을 전송하려면 고객센터에서 자세한 안내를 따르세요.