If you need a quick and dirty, but highly authoritative low-down on Shakespeare, this book by a traditionally revered Shake academic literary critic is for you.
John Russell Brown is Prof Emeritus on Theatre/Drama and English Language/Literature. Everyone who studies Shakespeare has read some reference to him or one of his articles.
He's old-school so you won't be deluged w/ deconstructionalist or other literary criticism arguments and terms. So, in this sense ANYBODY will understand this book, even if they aren't a navel-gazing graduate student.
Like any good Prof of Drama he throws in several chapters about acting and interpreting the play from an actor's point of view.

This is a wonderful way to become acquainted with the thought of Stanley Cavell--one of the most important living philosophers in America. The essays on Shakespeare are stunning, and one can feel the force of a restless, moral, rigorous mind at work in every turn of the arguments. Some of these essays are collected from earlier publications, but the reprinting of all his essays on Shakespeare, plus some new work, make it very worth owning!

This book transports you to 1602 London and its famous Globe theater, the venue for some of Shakespeare's greatest plays. One of its many strengths is that it is told in first person narrative by multiple characters: A young male character actor playing a woman as well as Richard Burbage, perhaps the most famous Shakespearian actor of the time, an apple seller struggling to make a living during a time of plague, a wealthy theater-goer and a poor one, a pickpocket, and Burbage's brother, Cuthbert, the force being the building of the Globe.

The narratives and sidebars are full of interesting facts and" asides, from the major types of plays and play-goers ("people whose clothes were thought to be too expensive [for their station]...were arrested and fined." There's an excellent section on Richard Burbage and his techniques, along with details on stage production, the history upon which Henry V was based, and the tricks that kept audiences spellbound.

Highlighting both the high and low culture/classes of the period, "Welcome to the Globe" gives a fresh and colorful presentation on a subject many school-age children might otherwise find distant and boring. There's an intimacy to the narratives that complements the panoramic view of the broader culture in which the plays thrived. The book may interest readers into further exploration not only of the theater, but of culture, history, and science. The scope and quality here yields yet another DK hit!

This book raly has all means offocus as in covers the whole content of literature, Hamlet the tragic revelutionary on such certain principls of good and devil on earth. The first happenning of such personality - let us say personality as an alive - that studies the human values , bad or good, under his interesting sololquy as a magic virtue tries to take a stronge place in the life of cnflicts. Mr. Arthur, the author, could by a good command , to reach into the most points of investigation that could draw the large atraction of the reader who find himself introduced to a spring of success on a plate of confedence led led to, and findhimself (the reader) having silent live discussions against Mr. Arthur's flexiblity and leadership to the such exact points on the depth of Eizabithean Hamlet of literature. The most delightfull atraction has been firmly generaed in his introduction as first step that takes reader's hand obying in full concience and serious awareness of the importance to do so - to do so is fully reading of the book. This acually the first step that all authers and writers have to take in such case of producing Humanitarian Literary Historically Awareness. This as few words from the appreciation sea to this book , covering your suggestion with no coming into any certain points or concepts. I am a student studying the English Literature in general , have obtained full programme of courses after university as preparation to MA programme to my thesis on Hamlet Personality and values in general in relation to English literature , practical life of and iequivalents.

Spawning forth from the new breed of cloned critics, Peter Holland IS William Shakespeare. Working alongside the man who gave the world Dolly the Sheep, Holland has altered his genetic code to that of Shakespeare, gleaned from the first folio of one Shakey's toenails. Holland (hereafter known as Shax90) tours around various theatre bars and gives the definitive account of what it is like to be the reborn Bard in fin-de-siecle Nineties Britain. Foreword by Tony Blair.

Booth's 1969 "Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets" is an important and highly useful precursor to his 1977 edition of the sonnets. In it, he examines the various kinds of organization at work in the sonnets: not merely the obvious formal pattern imposed by the rhyme scheme, but additionally the syntactic pattern, patterns of imagery, phonetic structures, and others. In so doing he reveals an inner drama taking place on Shakespeare's sonnets, patterns either consonant with one another or dissonant, the whole working together, moment by moment, to give the reader an experience analogous to what the sonnet itself describes -- conflict, comfort, confusion, and so on.

It is unfortunate that this highly useful book is out of print, for its approach is not only an insightful exploration of the poems it describes, it is an approach one can use with other poets' sonnets, and, indeed, with other forms than the sonnet. One can only hope that Yale UP will resurrect Booth's "Essay" so that teachers and students alike can benefit from its dynamic methods. Meanwhile, anyone able to dig up a used copy will have found a true treasure.

Verdi's two Comedies philosophically, and emotionally, frame his long career. While writing Il Giorno di Regno, his first comedy, and only his second opera, the rather naive young Verdi lost his first wife and their children in a fire. Needless to say, the opera wasn't very funny, and the audience booed it off the stage. Verdi quit Opera...he thought for good. However, his self-imposed exile didn't last long, and Verdi eventually wrote several of Opera's greatest masterpieces. He also loved Giuseppina, first as his paramour, eventually as his second wife, became one of Europe's most generous philanthropists, and admired his great rival Richard Wagner, who referred to Verdi simply as "pig." Arrigo Boito, a genius in his own right (if you don't believe it, get a good recording of Mefistofele), testified in Italian newspapers that Verdi's "old ways" of writing Opera were permanently invalidated by Wagner. Yet one day, eight years after Verdi had retired for the second time, Boito, the great Verdi hater, came to Sant' Agata, hat in hand, to ask Verdi to compose music for two Shakespearean music dramas he had written. The second of those music dramas, Falstaff, was to be Verdi's second comedy, and his last opera. Falstaff is a towering monument to artistic collaboration. In it, Verdi, Boito, and Shakespeare tell us that life is a great cosmic joke, and, since we cannot escape being its brunt, we might as well laugh along. Dover republished an early Ricordi edition of Falstaff. Ricordi is, simply put, the most useful publisher of late romantic Italian opera, especially of Verdi and Puccini. The scholarship is top notch, making this Dover edition quite a useful volume. The book itself is, as always, well crafted and easy to read. The score may be too large, and the book too small, to make this volume useful for the podium, but at home, in front of the stereo, it's invaluable. Falstaff is one of the west's great example's of existentialism expressed in artistic form. If you are not familiar with this opera, I strongly recommend you buy this score, and a good recording to go with it, and knock yourself out.

Our school recently started performing this play at our school and I think it is absolutely funny. I have never read the book, but I am sure it is just as funny as the play was.

My 27 year old son just picked up this book from my desk and said, "Wow, this is the book that got me interested in Shakespeare when I was six! It was my favorite book for years."
This is Shakespeare for children and for parents who may not even like Shakespeare. We wore out one copy and I had to buy another. The illustrations are wonderful and contribute to discussion about the plays. All three of my children credit reading this book with their comfort with Shakespeare in high school. One become an English major. I am very sad to see that
it is out of print. I have grandchildren coming up!

The First Folio of 1623, our most important single source for Shakespeare's plays, is now available in this attractive volume at a price that individuals can afford. Doug Moston has written a fine and informative introduction to this reprint, mainly from the vantage point of the needs of today's actors. But scholars and Shakespeare lovers will want to have this book, too, since the First Folio is of major importance for the establishment of Shakespeare's texts, and for checking the conjectures of generations of editors who have tried to "fix" readings in the text that they thought were misprints. This is an essential reference and a fun book to browse, too