The Complete Works of Shakespeare edited by David Bevington

Bevington's edition of Shakespeare's plays is a popular choice, and not without good reason. But that doesn't make an ideal choice. The introduction to this one volume edition is ample with chapters on life in Shakespeare's England, the drama before Shakespeare, Shakespeare's life and work. These are good, but they tend to rely on older scholarship and they may not be current. For example Bevington repeats Hinman's claim that there were 1200 copies of the 1623 Folio printed. However later scholars think the number was quite a bit lower, around 750. It should be said that we don't know for sure how many copies of the 1623 folio were printed and either number could be correct.

Bevington's edition prints the plays by genre. We get a section of Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, Romances and the Poems. He puts "Troilus and Cressida" with the comedies, though we know the play was slated to appear with the tragedies in the 1623 folio. The play was never meant to appear with the comedies, and all the surviving Folios that have the play have it at the beginning of the tragedies.

Let's get down to brass tacks. You are not going to buy an edition of Shakespeare's works because of good introduction. You're going to buy one because the quality of the editing of the plays. Is it reliable? Is it accurate? For the most part this edition is reliable and accurate, but that does not mean it is accurate and reliable in every instance.

Modernized editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems are norm. Since the 18th century (and even before) editors of Shakespeare have modernized and regularized Shakespeare's plays and poems. There are good reasons for this modernization. There is the reader's ease of use and the correcting misprints and mislination. I have no problem with this regularization of spelling or punctuation. But when an editor goes beyond normalizing and modernizing--when an editor interferes with the text then I have a problem.

Let me give two examples of the editorial interference that I am writing about:

King Lear 2-1-14 (p. 1184)
Bevington has:
Edmund
The Duke be here tonight? The better! Best!
This weaves itself perforce into my business.

The Folio has:
Bast. The Duke be here to night? The better best,
This weaues it selfe perforce into my businesse,

Even allowences made for modernization of punctuation and grammar would not account for Bevington's "The better! Best." Bevington glosses this to mean "so much the better; in fact the best that could happen." Nice try, but "The better best" of the folio is a double comparative, (which is a regular feature of Early Modern English) and not two separate adjectival phrases. Interestingly, the Quarto printing of Lear prints this scene in prose, and there is no punctuation between "better" and "best" in that version either.

A few lines down Lear 2-1-19 Edmund continues
Bevington has:
Brother, a word. Descend. Brother, I say!
Enter Edgar

But Bevington has reversed the order. The Folio has:
Enter Edgar.
Brother, a word, discend; Brother I say,

Bevington does not say why he changed the order, though to be fair other modern editors have done the same thing.

These two changes just a few lines apart go beyond regularization or modernization. They interfere with the text as presented in the 1623 Folio. And Bevington does not explain the changes. So next time you pick up this or any other modernized edition you should ask yourself "am I really sure what I'm reading is what Shakespeare wrote?"

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. Updated Fourth Edition. Edited by David Bevington. 2000 pp. New York : Longman, 1997. ISBN 0-321-01254-2 (hbk.)

As complete Shakespeares go, the Bevington would seem have everything. Its book-length Introduction covers Life in Shakespeare's England; The Drama Before Shakespeare; London Theaters and Dramatic Companies; Shakespeare's Life and Work; Shakespeare's Language : His Development as Poet and Dramatist; Edition and Editors of Shakespeare; Shakespeare Criticism.

The texts follow in groups : Comedies; Histories; Tragedies; Romances (including 'The Two Noble Kinsmen'); Poems. Each play is given a separate Introduction adequate to the needs of a beginner, and the excellent and helpful brief notes at the bottom of each page, besides explaining individual words and lines, provide stage directions to help readers visualize the plays.

One extremely useful feature of the layout is that instead of being given the usual style of line numbering - 10, 20, 30, etc. - numbers occur _only_ at the end of lines which have been given footnotes - e.g., 9, 12, 16, 18, 32. Why no-one seems to have thought of doing this before I don't know, but it's a wonderful innovation that does away entirely with the tedious and time-wasting hassle of line counting, and the equally time-wasting frustration of searching through footnotes only to find that no note exists. If the line has a note you will know at once, and the notes are easy for the eye to locate as the keywords preceeding notes are in bold type.

The book - which is rounded out with three Appendices, a Royal Genealogy of England, Maps, Bibliography, Suggestions for Reading and Research, Textual Notes, Glossary of common words, and Index - also includes a 16-page section of striking color photographs.

The book is excellently printed in a semi-bold font that is exceptionally sharp, clear, and easy to read despite the show-through of its thin paper. It is a large heavy volume of full quarto size, stitched so that it opens flat, and bound, not with cloth, but with a soft decorative paper which wears out quickly at the edges and corners.

If it had been printed on a slightly better paper and bound in cloth, the Bevington would have been perfect. As it is, it's a fine piece of book-making nevertheless, and has been edited in such a way as to make the reading of Shakespeare as hassle-free and enjoyable an experience as possible. Strongly recommended for students and the general reader.

Last year for Christmas I asked my parents for some William Shakespeare's plays.Boy was I suprised!Not only does it have all of the plays,but also his Sonats,poems,and illistrations.Despite the fact that it's a large valuem and will need quite a bit off book space from you're self.You wont regret getting it.You will never need to get another book on William Shakespeare's plays and everything else ever again.It also has a list of dictonary for understanding the words better.

this is shakespeare's most accessible comedy. it's a farce about mistaken identities among identical twins. nothing complicated here. the play has it's funny moments. it's not the bard's best comedy; that's 'much ado about nothing', imho. but this is not a bad place to start.

"Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother."
So says Dromio of Ephesus, one of the members of two sets of estranged twins whose lives become comically intertwined in this delightful, ingenious, & aptly named Comedy of Errors. Being an avid Shakespeare fan and reader, I unequivocally consider The Comdey of Errors to be Shakespeare's finest and funniest comedy. Antipholus of Syracuse and his long lost twin Antipholus of Ephesus along with the two twin servants Dromio of Ephesus and Syracuse become unceasingly mistaken for each other making for a hilarious and entertaining farce of a play.

The Comedy of Errors has been copied many times since in literature, movies, & sitcoms, although it has never been duplicated.

There is no doubt that this comedy of Shakespeare's is delightful, crazy fun. You could call it the father (or mother) of all sit-coms. The play is suitable for middle school production and viewing, with some modifications. For my students and myself I prefer the Folger's edition of Shakespeare's plays for three reasons. First, the footnotes are easy to read and across from the text. 2. The choice of illustrations and 3. The introductory information. When purchasing for my students, though I have tried other publishers, I now always choose Folgers.

Since the age of 12 (I'm in my 30's now), I have tried to absorb everything Shakespeare. Even though I have trepidations about film adaptations of the Bard's work, I had to see this film based on the prodigious talent of Emma Thompson. I'm glad I gave into my gut instinct, for her portrayal of Beatrice is so natural and glorious, you will actually get swept away with her performance and believe that she actually IS Beatrice!

Most of the supporting cast is also wonderful. Hats off to the performances by Denzel Washington (Don Pedro), Richard Briers (Seigneur Leonato), Brian Blessed (Seigneur Antonio), Michael Keaton (Constable Dogberry), and a absolutely stunning performance by Kate Beckinsale (Hero). The exceptions in the casting are Keanu Reeves (Don John), Robert Sean Leonard (Claudio) and...yes...Kenneth Brannagh (Benedick). Fortunately Reeves' role is small. Leonard's performance seems too contrived, to the point of distraction. And even though this is Brannagh's baby, Brannagh himself portrays the role of Benedick with a smugness that is a bit nauseating. If you read the play, Benedick is not smug at all. Though I enjoy Brannagh's other work, he seems to use Shakespeare as a way to show superiority. I have seen this in other actors, and find such action reprehensible. Shakespeare wrote plays for people to enjoy and to indugle in escapism...not to give people an excuse to be a snob.

Having said that, this film is very enjoyable, and I've actually had friends become Shakespeare addicts after seeing this particular film. I, personally, particularly love the Tuscan locations, and the costuming is wonderful! No over-the-top lacey outfits in this film, but rather those that would be suited to the climate. This adds another depth of reality that pulls you into the story.

If you are a fan of Shakespeare, or any of the aforementioned actors, this movie is a must-see. It's actually one of the very few film versions of a Shakespeare play that I own. This particular interpretation allows the viewer to become comfortable with Shakespeare's style, thus creating an interest in his other work. Well worth the purchase. And yes, it's VERY funny!

"Much Ado About Nothing" is a beautifully made, performed, and directed film by the incomparable Kenneth Branaugh. This film includes an all-star cast that give wonderful performances and draw you into the lives of the characters. The plot is somewhat complicated, so I'll give a general version. The film is basically about love, misunderstanding, scandal, revenge, virtue, and bravery. That's a lot for one film, but believe me, it's all in there!

Kenneth Branaugh, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Michael Keaton give excellent performances in this film that you wouldn't want to miss. Although the film is a period piece and the Shakespearean language is used, you will have no difficulty understanding it perfectly.

The scenery and landscape in this film are exquisite as well. I never thought there could be such a beautiful, untouched place like that on earth. I would suggest watching the film just for the beautiful landscape, but it's the performances and the story that you should really pay attention to.

Anyone who loves Shakespeare would absolutely love this film! Anyone who loves Kenneth Branaugh and what he has done for Shakespeare in the past 10 or 15 years will appreciate this film as well! There isn't one bad thing I can say about this film. Definitely watch it, you won't be disappointed!!!

One of the problems with Shakespeare's comedies, an English professor once told me, is that they are not funny. Now, this is not to say that Shakespeare was a bad comedy writer, or that this professor had no sense of humour. In fact, quite the opposite--he had turned his sense of humour and love of humour into an academic career in pursuit of humour.

What he meant by the comment was, humour is most often a culture-specific thing. It is of a time, place, people, and situation--there is very little by way of universal humour in any language construction. Perhaps a pie in the face (or some variant thereof) does have some degree of cross-cultural appeal, but even that has less universality than we would often suppose.

Thus, when I suggested to him that we go see this film when it came out, he was not enthusiastic. He confessed to me afterward that he only did it because he had picked the last film, and intended to require the next two selections when this film turned out to be a bore. He also then confessed that he was wrong.

Brannagh managed in his way to carry much of the humour of this play into the twentieth century in an accessible way -- true, the audience was often silent at word-plays that might have had the Elizabethan audiences roaring, but there was enough in the action, the acting, the nuance and building up of situations to convey the same amount of humour to today's audience that Shakespeare most likely intended for his groups in the balconies and the pit.

The film stars Kenneth Brannagh (who also adapted the play for screen) and Emma Thompson as Benedict and Beatrice, the two central characters. They did their usual good job, with occasional flashes of excellence. Alas, I'll never see Michael Keaton as a Shakespearean actor, but he did a servicable job in the role of the constable (and I shall always remember that 'he is an ass') -- the use of his sidekick as the 'horse' who clomps around has to be a recollection of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where their 'horses' are sidekicks clapping coconut shells together.

I'll also not see Keanu Reeves as a Shakespearean, yet he was perhaps too well known (type-cast, perhaps) in other ways to pull off the brief-appearing villian in this film.

Lavish sets and costumes accentuate the Italianate-yet-very-English feel of this play. This film succeeds in presenting an excellent but lesser-known Shakespeare work to the public in a way that the public can enjoy.

. . . to really achieve its full potential, this play needs to be acted out on stage. Still, highly excellent, involving twins, cross-dressing, love tangles, sword-fighting, secret marriages, music, disguises, mistaken identities, high speech, and lowbrow humour.

The entire play takes place in Illyria. In the main plot, Orsino is in love with Olivia, who unfortunately does not return his feelings. Viola is shipwrecked on the Illyrian coast, and dressed as a boy, comes to serve in Orsino's court, where she of course falls in love with Orsino. Meanwhile, in Olivia's court, some of her courtiers plan a cruel--but funny--practical joke against her pompous steward Malvolio. There is also a third plot later on involving Viola's twin brother Sebastian, who has been shipwrecked likewise. Naturally things get quite confusing, but, true to Shakespeare's comedic style, everything gets worked out in the end.

This is an enjoyable book to read, and the notes are very helpful. However, it is still better as a performance.

"Twelfth Night" is one of the famous romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare. Many critics said, "Twelfth Night" is the masterpiece among his comedy because his fully developed style and insight are in the "Twelfth Night", so it has special value and attractiveness.
There are four main characters in "Twelfth Night" ; Duke Orsino, Olivia, Viola, and
Sebastian. Duke Orsino who lives in Illyria loves Olivia, so every day he send one of
his servant to Olivia's house for proposal of marriage. However, every time Olivia
refuses his proposal for the reason that she lost her brother before long, so she is now
in big sorrow and can not love anyone. One day, Viola comes into Illyria. She and her
twin brother Sebastian are separated in a shipwreck and they are rescued by two
different people in two different place, so they think the other one is dead each other.
Viola disguise as a man and become a servant of Duke Orsino, and then she fall in
love with Duke Orsino. But, Duke Orsino loves Olivia and he send Viola whose new
name as a man is "Cesario" to Olivia for proposal. Unexpectedly, Olivia fall in love with
Cesario!! Therefore, love triangle is formed. In the latter scene, Sebastian also come into
Illyria, so the confusion getting worse. However, in the end, all misunderstandings are
solved and Cesario become Viola, so the four main characters find their love.
There are also four supporting characters in "Twelfth Night" ; Clown, Sir Toby Belch,
Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. They make the readers laugh through their funny
behaviors and comments in subplot.
"Twelfth Night" is very funny story and enjoyable book, so I recommend you.

I didn't read this particular version of Twelfth Night, so I'm rating the plot, not the editing. This book was the first play by Shakespeare that I read, and I loved it! It starts when Viola and her brother, Sebastian, are seperated in a shipwreck. Viola decides to disguise herself as a boy and work for Orsino, the duke. Orsino sends Viola to tell Olivia that he loves her. Viola does what he says, but she wishes she didn't have to, because she has fallen in love with Orsino! Then Olivia falls in love with Viola, thinking that she is a boy. While all this is going on, Andrew Aguecheek is wooing Olivia, who scorns him. Also, Maria, the maid, Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's uncle, and another servant write a letter and put it where Malvolio, a servant, will see it. The letter says that Olivia is in love with Malvolio. Malvolio immediately starts trying to woo Olivia. Maria and Sir Toby pretend to think that he's mad, and lock him up. Meanwhile, Sebastian comes to town with Antonio, the man who saved him from the shipwreck. Antonio gives him his purse and says that he must stay away from the city because he fought against the duke in a war. A few minutes later, Antonio realizes that he needs money for lodgings and goes to find Sebastian. In the city, Viola is being forced to fight Andrew Aguecheek for the right to marry Olivia. Antonio sees the fight and hurries to intervene. Orsino recognizes him and has him arrested. Antonio asks Viola for his purse so that he can pay bail, thinking that she is Sebastian. Viola denies having had a purse. Then Sebastian comes up. Olivia had found him and married him on the spot, and he, deliriously happy, had gone away to give Antonio his purse. On the way, he met Sir Toby and Andrew Aguecheek. When they try to force him to fight, he punches them and goes on. They come up too, bitterly accusing Viola. (No one has seen Sebastian yet.) Then Olivia comes up and speaks to Viola, who denies being her wife. Orsino becomes angry with her, thinking that she has married Olivia, and accuses her of treachery. Just as things are looking bad for Viola, Sebastian reveals himself. Then everyone is happy (since Orsino falls in love with Viola on the spot) except Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio, who is later set free. The plot of this book is a little hard to understand, but it is halariously funny and makes for happy reading.

a good read, but can be confusing for kids. It takes a while to comprehend all of the Shakespearian langauge, but is very interesting. It is boring at parts.

The Winter's Tale is a lot of things: heart-breaking, exhilerating, funny, beautiful, romantic, profound, etc. Yeah, it's all here. This is one of the bard's best plays, and I can't believe they don't teach this in schools. Of course, the ones they teach are excellent, but I can see high school kids enjoying this one a lot more than some of those others (Othello, King Lear).

The story is, of course, brilliant. King Leontes goes into a jealous rage at the beginning against his wife Hermione. Leontes is very mistaken in his actions, and the result is tragic. Shakespeare picks the story back up sixteen years later with the children, and the story works to a really, really surprising end of bittersweet redemption.

This is one of Shakespeare's bests. The first half is a penetrating and devestating, but the second half shows a capacity for salvation from the depths of despair. Also, this being Shakespeare, the blank verse is gorgeous and the characters are well drawn, and the ending is a surprise unparalleled in the rest of his plays. The Winter's Tale is a truly profound and entertaining read.

The Winter's Tale contains some of the most technically difficult solutions to telling a story that have ever appeared in a play. If you think you know all about how a play must be constructed, read The Winter's Tale. It will greatly expand your mind.

The play opens near the end of a long visit by Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, to the court of his childhood friend, Leontes, the king of Sicily. Leontes wants his friend to stay one more day. His friend declines. Leontes prevails upon his wife, Hermione, to persuade Polixenes. Hermione does her husband's bidding, having been silent before then. Rather than be pleased that she has succeeded, Leontes goes into a jealous rage in which he doubts her faithfulness. As his jealousy grows, he takes actions to defend his misconceptions of his "abused" honor that in fact abuse all those who have loved him. Unable to control himself, Leontes continues to pursue his folly even when evidence grows that he is wrong. To his great regret, these impulsive acts cost him dearly.

Three particular aspects of the play deserve special mention. The first is the way that Shakespeare ties together actions set 16 years apart in time. Although that sounds like crossing the Grand Canyon in a motorcycle jump, Shakespeare pulls off the jump rather well so that it is not so big a leap. The second is that Shakespeare captures entirely different moods from hilarious good humor to deep depression and remorse closely adjacent to one another. As a result, the audience is able to experience many more emotions than normally are evoked in a single play. Third, the play's final scene is as remarkable a bit of writing as you can imagine. Read it, and marvel!

After you finish reading this play, think about where your own loss of temper has had bad consequences. How can you give yourself time to get under control before acting rashly? How can you learn to be more open to positive interpretations of events, rather than dark and disturbing ones?

Love first, second, and always!

"Titus Andronicus" is the most notorious and least performed play of Shakespeare's. T.S. Eliot once called it the worst play written in the English language and not even the loyalist Shakespeare scholars have stood by it. Not until the movie "Titus" came out, have I heard anyone mention it. All I knew before I finally saw it was that it was extremely over the top violent. In fact, when the rare times it had been performed to modern audiences, many audience members started laughing at how absurd and over the top violent it was. I am a very serious moody theater person but even I couldn't help laugh at some of these scenes. However, I am very curious to suspect, as Harold Bloom did, that Shakespeare might've wrote "Titus Andronicus" as a spoof on his contemporaries. The play's content, plot, and characters are exactly equal to Seneca's plays. Seneca's plays however were never performed and we have no evidence that Shakespeare read Seneca's plays. So perhaps it was a jab at Kyd or Marlowe. The movie "Titus" seemed to use a lot of parody at many times. When I saw it the audience was laughing. I think it is safe to say that that theory may be correct. Although even if it was a parody, the play is still flat and doesn't do much for the audience. There are moments though where we can see Shakespeare developing as a dramatist. I couldn't help but think of "Macbeth" and "King Lear" during parts of Titus' monologues. Actually "Titus Andronicus" at best is a great study on the audience. 'Titus' was well received and performed in Shakespeare's day. Shakespeare was delivering to the audience, giving them a bloody Revenge tragedy that was popular in Elizabethan times. I am very surprise in an age when we make films that can depict a man cutting his face off and feeding it to his dogs("Hannibal"), that 'Titus' wouldn't be more popular. I imagine that Shakespeare was trying to shift from comedian to tragedian and wrote a little experiment called "Titus Andronicus." 'Titus' is worth reading for those who want to read all of Shakespeare but to the average reader, I would say pass and read "KIng Lear" or "Macbeth." To give this play more than three stars would be an insult to Shakespeare's masterpieces.

For my fellow reviewers who choose to simply pass this play over because of the prevelant violence, I must point out the complex, witty character of Aaron the Moor. Shakespeare either intended for this play to be a parody of Marlowe/Kyd, or he wanted to experiment with a character, Aaron, to evoke every possible feeling from his audience. And, in my humble opinion, Shakespeare succeeded at this. Aaron is, at the same time, evil and cunny, witty and horrifying, and compassionate and stoic. His final lines, as he is buried up to his neck, left to starve, are some of the best confessions ever produced by the bard. It takes a truly cruel and uncaring individual to not feel for Aaron, who gives up his life for his child's, and who hopelessly and blindly loves a cruel witch of a woman. This play is worth reading, or seeing if you should be so lucky, simply to indulge yourself in the character of Aaron the Moor.

On a superficial first reading, 'Titus Andronicus' is lesser Shakespeare - the language is generally simple and direct, with few convoluted similes and a lot of cliches. The plot, as with many contemporary plays, is so gruesome and bloody as to be comic - the hero, a Roman general, before the play has started has lost a wife and 21 sons; he kills another at their funeral, having dismembered and burnt the heroine's son as a 'sacrifice'; after her husband is murdered, his daughter is doubly raped and has her tongue and hands lopped off; Titus sacrifices his own hand to bail out two wrongfully accused sons - it is returned along with their heads. Et cetera. The play concludes with a grisly finale Peter Greenaway might have been proud of. The plot is basically a rehash of Kyd, Marlowe, Seneca and Ovid, although there are some striking stage effects.

Jonathan Bate in his exhaustive introduction almost convinces you of the play's greatness, as he discusses it theoretically, its sexual metaphors, obsessive misogyny, analysis of signs and reading etc. His introduction is exemplary and systematic - interpretation of content and staging; history of performance; origin and soures; textual history. Sometimes, as is often the case with Arden, the annotation is frustratingly pedantic, as you get caught in a web of previous editors' fetishistic analysing of punctuation and grammar. Mostly, though, it facilitates a smooth, enjoyable read.

'As you like it' is one of those Shakespearean plays that is considered 'great' by critics, but never really found true popular acclaim, perhaps due to the absence of charismatic characters (the romantic hero is particularly wet) or compelling dilemmas.

It shares many features with the great comedies - the notion of the forest as a magic or transformative space away from tyrannical society ('A Midsummer night's dream'); the theme of unrequited love and gender switching from 'Twelfth night'; the exiled Duke and his playful daughter from 'The Tempest'. But these comparisons only point to 'AYLI''s comparative failure (as a reading experience anyway) - it lacks the magical sense of play of the first; the yearning melancholy of the second; or the elegiac complexity of the third.

It starts off brilliantly with a first act dominated by tyrants: an heir who neglects his younger brother, and a Duke who resents the popularity of his exiled brother's daughter (Rosalind). there is an eccentric wrestling sequence in which a callow youth (Orlando) overthrows a giant. Then the good characters are exiled to Arden searching for relatives and loved ones.

Theoretically, this should be good fun, and you can see why post-modernist critics enjoy it, with its courtiers arriving to civilise the forest in the language of contemporary explorers, and the gender fluidity and role-play; but, in truth, plot is minimal, with tiresomely pedantic 'wit' to the fore, especially when the melancholy scholar-courtier Jacques and Fool Touchstone are around, with the latter's travesties of classical learning presumably hilarious if you're an expert on Theocritus and the like.

As an English pastoral, 'AYLI' doesn't approach Sidney's 'Arcadia' - maybe it soars on stage. (Latham's Arden edition is as frustrating as ever, with scholarly cavilling creating a stumbling read, and an introduction which characteristically neuters everything that makes Shakespeare so exciting and challenging)

Anyone with a working knowledge of Shakespeare's plays knows that As You Like It is a light, airy comedy. It is clearly not one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. As You Like It is more obscure than famous. Even amongst the comedies it comes nowhere close to the popularity of plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, or Twelfth Night. That said, it is a treasure in its own right. This is so, if for nothing else, because it contains one of the greatest pictures of a woman to be found in Shakespeare's works, excluding the Sonnets.

Ah, sweet Rosalind. In her are encapsulated so many ideas about the nature of woman. She is first pictured in a rather faux-Petrarchan manner. This quickly fades as an intelligent woman comes to the fore. While the intelligence remains, she is also torn by the savage winds of romantic love. Rosalind, in all her complexity and self-contradiction, is a truly modern female character.

Most of the women in Shakespeare's tragedies and historical plays are either window dressing (as in Julius Caesar) or woefully one-sided (Ophelia, Lady Macbeth). This is not the case with Rosalind. Rather than being marginalized, she is the focus of a good chunk of the play. Instead of being static and [standard], she is a complex evolving character.

When Rosalind first appears, she outwardly looks much like any other lady of the court. She is a stunning beauty. She is much praised for her virtue. Both of these elements factor in the Duke's decision to banish or [do away with] her.

Rosalind falls in love immediately upon seeing Orlando. In this way she at first seems to back up a typically courtly idea of "love at first sight." Also, she initially seems quite unattainable to Orlando. These are echoes of Petrarchan notions that proclaim love to be a painful thing. This dynamic is stood on its head following her banishment.

Rosalind begins to question the certainty of Orlando's affection. She criticizes his doggerel when she finds it nailed to a tree. Rather than wilting like some medieval flower, she puts into effect a plan. She seeks to test the validity of her pretty-boy's love. In the guise of a boy herself, she questions the deceived Orlando about his love.

Yet Rosalind is not always so assured. Her steadfastness is not cut and dried. Composed in his presence, Rosalind melts the second Orlando goes away. She starts spouting romantic drivel worthy of Judith Krantz. Even her best friend Celia seems to tire of her love talk. This hesitating, yet consuming passion is thrown into stark relief with her crystal clear dealings with the unwanted advances of the shepherdess Phebe.

Rosalind contradicts herself in taking the side of Silvius in his pursuit of Phebe. She seeks to help Silvius win the love of Phebe because of his endearing constancy. Yet the whole reason she tests Orlando is the supposed inconstancy of men's affections.

This idea of Male inconstancy has made its way down to the present day. Men are seen, in many circles, as basically incapable of fidelity. Though a contradiction to her treatment of Silvius' cause, Rosalind's knowing subscription to pessimistic views on the constancy of a man's love places her on the same playing field as many modern women.

Rosalind takes charge of her own fate. Until and even during Shakespeare's own time women largely were at the mercy of the men around them. This is satirized in Rosalind's assuming the appearance of a man. Yet she had taken charge of her life even before taking on the dress and likeness of a man. She gives her token to Orlando. She decides to go to the Forest. She makes the choice of appearing like a man to ensure her safety and the safety of Celia.

Rosalind finally finds balance and happiness when she comes to love not as a test or game, but as an equal partnership. Shakespeare is clearly critiquing the contemporary notions of love in his day. His play also condemns society's underestimation and marginalization of women. However, the Bard's main point is more profound.

As You Like It makes it clear that the world is never picture perfect, even when there are fairy-tale endings. Men and women both fail. Love is the most important thing. With love all things are possible.

"As You Like It" is bar none, one of Shakespeare's VERY best works. It is probably the most poetic of the comedies and contains perhaps as many famous quotations as any other of his plays. Rosalind is perhaps his greatest female character and this work, along with the equally (or even more) brilliant "Midsummer Night's Dream," is the best example of Shakespeare's theme of the "dream world" vs. the "real" world. This play, especially the scenes in the forest, is a celebration of language and the power of the freedom of the imagination. It consequently can be read as a criticism of the "real world," here represented by Duke Ferdinand's court. Like many of the other comedies, Shakespeare is mocking the "ideal" which many in his society would have praised. Though this play deals with some pretty dark themes (which of his plays doesn't?) it is a light-hearted and fully enjoyable read!

When rating Shakespeare, I am rating it against other Shakespeare; otherwise, the consistent 4-5 stars wouldn't tell you much. So if you want to know how this book rates against the general selection of books in the world, I suppose it might rate four stars; it certainly rates three. The language, as usual in Shakespeare, is beautiful. Still, it's far from Shakespeare's best.

For one thing, this is one of those cases, not uncommon in Shakespeare's comedies, in which the play has suffered a great deal by the changes in the language since Shakespeare's time; it loses a great deal of the humor inherent in a play when the reader needs to keep checking the footnotes to see what's happening, and this play, particularly the first half of it, virtually can't be read without constant reference to the notes; even with them, there's frequently a question as to what's being said. At least in the edition that I read (the Dover Thrift edition) the notes frequently admit that there's some question as to the meaning of the lines, and there is mention of different changes in them in different folios.

But beyond this, as an overweight, balding, middle-aged libertine, I object to the concept that Falstaff is ridiculous just because he is in fact unwilling to concede that it is impossible that a woman could want him. Granted, he's NOT particularly attractive, but that has more to do with his greed, his callousness, and his perfect willingness to use people for his own ends, to say nothing of his utter lack of subtlety.

Is it truly so funny that an older, overweight man might attempt to find a dalliance? So funny that the very fact that he does so leaves him open to being played for the fool? Remember, it isn't as though he refused to take "no" for an answer; he never GOT a "no". He was consistently led on, only to be tormented for his audacity. Nor is he making passes at a nubile young girl; the target of his amorous approaches is clearly herself middle-aged; after all, she is the MOTHER of a nubile young marriageable girl. And given the fact that she is married to an obnoxious, possessive, bullying and suspicious husband, it is not at all unreasonable for Falstaff to think that she might be unhappy enough in her marriage to accept a dalliance with someone else.

If laughing at fat old men who have the audacity not to spend the last twenty years of their lives with sufficient dignity to make it seem as if they were dead already is your idea of a good time, you should love this play. I'll pass.

i've just finished reading/watching all of shakespeare's comedies and mww is one of the funnier ones. it is a lighthearted look at marital jealousy and features one of shakespeare's great fools, falstaff (of henry iv fame). the out-and-out funniest shakepearean play is still "taming of the shrew", imho, but mwv runs well ahead of the laggards, and certainly well ahead of such better known plays as "twelfth night" and "as you like it".

Shakespeare, considering he wrote this little gem of a comedy in a mere 14 days for the Virgin Queen, pulls off a play that proves both witty and fun. Unequivocally, The Merry Wives of Windsor makes for a more enjoyable play if seen live. Nonetheless, reading it is the 2nd best thing.

Sir John Falstaff is once again such a fool - but a lovable and hilarious one at that. Having read Henry V - where Falstaff ostensibly had met his end - I was pleased to see him so alive(pardon the pun) in this short, albeit clever play. It is no surprise that The Merry Wives of Windsor enjoyed such a long and successful stage run during Shakespeare's day and continues to be one of his most popularly staged plays. Recommended as a fun break from the more serious and murderous Shakespearean tragedies.

"Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open." - Pistol

This is Shakespeare's 2nd last play. Yet, nothing indicates that he was running out of steam. The images are beautiful. Stephano, Caliban, and Trinculo are memorable as the bumbling conspirators. Miranda and Ferdinand are fine as the two young lovers. Ariel is striking as Prospero's loyal servant. Prospero is a magnificent creation. Not only does he offer several beautiful and memorable passages, but he is well drawn as a character who was unfairly forced into exile. He also makes his prison his paradise. In addition, he is a fine representation of Shakespeare himself: "Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me / From mine own library with volumes that / I prize above my dukedom" (1.2.166-168). His speeches in 4.1 and 5.1 also reflect how Shakespeare himself was contemplating the end of his career. The story itself is very well drawn. Shakespeare grabs our attention with a storm at sea. He offers us a reflection of himself, comical touches, beautiful images, profound passages, beautiful language, young lovers, comical villains, and deep messages. If you like this, be sure to read his final play "Henry VIII."

Comedy, in the strictest sense, is concerned with ultimate forgiveness and reconciliation. In Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest," the protagonist, Prospero, must come to terms with his brother Antonio, who conspired to have him driven from his duchy in Milan, and with the world of social interaction in general.

Magic, Power, and Conspiracy are the foundational thematic elements through which Shakespeare effects Prospero's reintegration into human society. Thrown into a boat with his infant daughter Miranda, Prospero comes to live on a nearly deserted island in the Mediterranean Sea. Prospero's concentration on developing his proficiency in Magic caused him to become alienated from his political and social responsibilities in Milan, leading to his expulsion. His brother Antonio conspired with Alonso, king of Naples, and seized the power Prospero forsook for book-learning.

Prospero hears of a sea voyage undertaken by his enemies, and, using his Magic, whips up a storm, a great tempest, which causes his enemies to be shipwrecked on his island. On the island, Prospero exercises total power - over the education of his daughter, his slave, the deformed Caliban, and now over his enemies. He engages Ariel, a sprite, to orchestrate the division of the traveling party, and to put them through various trials to exact vengeance and ultimately, submission from them.

"The Tempest" is a fine effort from Shakespeare, but the power relations in the play are problematic. Prospero's insistent dominance over the action of the play is extremely troubling. Although he is presented as a benevolent character, Prospero's relationships with Miranda, Caliban, and Ferdinand, King Alonso's son, complicate his overall worth as a man and an authority figure. The dynamic between the slave Caliban and the drunks, Trinculo and Stephano, is also very unsettling.

Overall, "The Tempest" remains a whimsical flight of imagination, while exploring intriguing themes of education, political intrigue, and romance. Certainly, it is still a well-constructed and entertaining play after nearly four hundred years.

One of the best works by Shakespeare and also his final full play (most likely), The Tempest draws on many elements that Shakespeare used in his earlier works and adds a comic twist. Shakespeare doesn't spend much time on character development in the Tempest, other than Prospero and possibly Caliban (e.g. Miranda is the ideal chaste woman, Trinculo & Stephano are lowly schemers). However, Prospero is extremely well developed and the simple aspects of the other characters do not detract from the story at all. There are many different levels of meaning at work in the play...some see it as a pro-colonialist diatribe, others see it as Shakespeare's own swan song, where Prospero himself is based on the Bard, and Prospero's surrendering of his magical powers is representative of Shakespeare giving up his craft. I read it as both, and a million other things, and that is one of the great things about the play...it can be read in so many different ways. The structure of the play seems almost chaotic at first, with so many things going on at once. However, if you read the play over again, or read some of the essays contained in the Signet Edition, it becomes much more clear, although still open-ended. The Signet Edition is excellent, and Signets in general are. Buy this over the Folger Library editions...the footnotes here are much easier to work with and make the reading much smoother overall.

Neither the absolute and utter despondency of sheer and impending defeat nor the the deposition of his honor and place in Roman society can deter the once-revered Marc Antony from his insatiable, yet ill-fated longing to be with the sultry and divine demigodess that is Cleopatra.

Having just read the incomparable Julius Caesar and longing for more of the same after Antony & Octavius Caesar's sound defeat of the "noble" Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, I ordered Antony & Cleopatra. Although in some respects it is similar to its predecessor, Antony & Cleopatra, having been written by Shakespeare much later in life after the tragic death of his lone son Hamnet and a turbulent relationship with his wife, brings forth a much more cynical and wily Bard than the young and idealistic one who wrote Caesar. This disillusionment can be witnessed not only in the tragic deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, but moreso subvertly in the incongruity and disingenuousness of their supposed driving impetus - their love for one another. Both Antony & Cleopatra continuously and almost purposefully betray each other throughout the play - undermining their ability to lead and therefore leading to their tragic and untimely demise.

I recommend this to those who adored Julius Caesar as well as those Shakespeare aficionados who simply cannot get enough of The Bard. Antony & Cleopatra proves a lucid, enjoyable, and easy read, although somewhat longer, but with less substance than Julius Caesar. Enjoyable nonetheless.

"Make not your thoughts your prisons." - Octavius Caesar

'Antony and Cleopatra' is a great tragedy about two personalities who were larger than life, and therefore shared a love fitting to their stature. Anthony is torn between the high seriousness & order of the Roman Empire (embodied in Caesar) and the sensuality & licentiousness of Ancient Egypt (embodied in Cleopatra)- worlds which are perfectly evoked by Shakespeare as he chronicles the political wheeling & dealing of the time, which ultimately led to the suicides of the two lovers. I don't think Shakespeare favours one world view over the other, and to read the play moralistically and say Rome = virtue = good and Egypt = vices = bad is to to do it a disservice.

The language in this play is often romantic and lush, a grand language suited to rulers of the world. Cleopatra's "O, my oblivion is a very Anthony,/ And I am all forgotten" has to be some of the most erotic stuff that the Bard ever wrote.

Cleopatra is a very passionate woman and a great role-player, but she is always herself, never inauthentic. What she feels may change from moment to moment, but while she's feeling it, it's REAL. I find her to be the more mature one in her and Anthony's relationship. Notice how she never yells at him for marrying Octavia, which is certainly a terrible betrayal. She accepts that he did what he had to do and is only glad that Anthony is again united with her. Her love for him is beyond judgement.

The relationship between Anthony and Caesar is a very complicated one, and one that fascinated me almost as much as that of Cleopatra and Anthony. Caesar admires Anthony, but he betrays himself as having contempt for him in the way he expresses that admiration. Dodgy man, that little Caesar.

Anthony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's difficult plays, and so I suspect the ratings on the play are low because it's a more mature play than Romeo and Juliet. Here we have two middle age lovers who part of the time are foolish with lust/love and the rest of the time are tough minded heads of state. The "tragedy" is that they can't be both and survive. This is not a play for the young folks, I'm afraid. But if you want some heavy drama where the characters are spared nothing and given no slack, read Anthony and Cleopatra (hint: Cleopatra's suicide is more political statement than a crazy wish to die with Antony). Better yet see it performed by some real actors some time.