This is the only recording of at the moment, although Harper has plans for a new one. This creaking plot might work in a good stage production; but although we know the first two acts, except for a line or two, to be by a hand other than Shakespeare's, the last three acts are bargain basement stuff. Still this is as good a reading as we are likely to get. (The old, out of print version on London/Argo label was quite eloquent.) The best thing about this version is the God-like voice of John Gielgud reading the narrator role of Gower. He sounds as ancient as the character is supposed to be. An unfortunate directorial decision leaves us without the "dumb shows" (which are simply read on the older recording without apology). Nigel Terry ("Excalibur") suffers well as the Odysseus-like hero and the rest of the excellent cast try hard to make things sound plausible. The electronic music does not help create any atmosphere but merely jars.

J. L. Styan has a master's eye for nuance. He works with the text, envisions the text, draws on his extensive experience with Shakespeare's plays on stage, on screen, and on paper to create a marvellous, readable, enjoyable document for drama lover and playgoer, student and scholar alike. There's always something to be gleaned from one of his books. This is the latest, I hope not the last. The book consists of articles written over several years, now culled, revised, and brought together to create an overview of performance techniques, stage-to-audience-to-stage communication, and significant details conveyed via dialogue that the scholarly approach to the plays often forgets to consider. ROMEO AND JULIET will never be the same after reading this analysis of the balcony scene. The awareness that we folks of the year 2000 just do not have generally of the intricacies of all Shakespearean women being played by boy actors is explored, and also just what that might convey . . . Give yourself a treat! Try this one out! See how you change your perspective, see more clearly/differently/MORE! And enjoy the depth of perspective you suddenly become an apprentice of!

This book covers the creative process of the staging of a major National Theater production of the Shakespeare classic "Antony and Cleopatra" one of the most difficult to stage of Shakespeare's tragedies......As played by Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench it was critically hailed. Tirzah Lowen follows the process of putting the production together and the directorship of Peter Hall in his last major production at the National.....This is a wonderful book for all who love Shakespeare and theater.

I began a complete reading of Shakespeare and along the way I started browsing secondary works here and there, and this one really began to stand out for me. The layout of the book makes it easy to browse, and the individual takes on each play are unpredictable though not eccentric. For instance plays that are generally universally regarded as substandard Shakespeare (such as Timon of Athens or Pericles) are given the benefit of the doubt that maybe their worth lies in other areas than where the general run of criticism has determined it should lie. The chapters for each play are not too long, and they're broken up into useful sections (story, main characters, general criticism, performance history, etc)... The Complete Works of Shakespeare is one of the few summit works of the world, and a person really shouldn't get to weighted down with secondary works about the plays themselves, but this book is very compact and to the point and helpful and worth having if you're just going to have a few secondary works to help you along...

Honesty requires a disclaimer. Booth is a friend and colleague. But I would react similarly if I didn't know the author. If there were six stars, I would award them to Precious Nonsense. Booth takes familiar texts that seem all too clear and obvious and makes us see a multitude of things going on beneath their surfaces. His discoveries are startling and sometimes you want to argue with him, but because he puts his cards on the table he makes argument possible. What he shows demonstrates the difference between great prose and verse and ordinary writing, and reveals the similarity between the operation of literary art and that of music. Booth is phenomenally sensitive and deeply learned, and he has a terrific memory. A bonus is his style: he , in making us see how much goes on in such art that we are never is clear, convesatonal, and often funny, This is a revolutionary book.

This large, very comprehensive book (about 800 pages) was published some years after the authors's well-known and excellent classic Shakespeare's Proverbial Language. It is compiled in much the same way, and does for other Renaissance dramatists what the earlier book did for Shakespeare. Hence, it seems to me appropriate to quote here what I wrote about the earlier book. Readers can, in essence, substitute for "Shakespeare", in the review below, "Renaissance dramatists". So here comes a repeat of my review of Shakespeare's Proverbial Language:

"Many of today's readers - including many Shakespeare scholars - do not realise how frequently Shakespeare uses, or adapts, proverbs or similar sayings current and popular in his day. Thus, as not even the Oxford English Dictionary is strong in this area, a good reference book listing the proverbs we find in Shakespeare is quite indispensable: without it, we frequently cannot understand his originality and/or contact with 'folk wisdom" of his day, and even run the risk - quite often - of simply misunderstanding what he says. This compilation by Dent is generally recognised as the best of its kind: while much help is also provided by M.P. Tilley's famous Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1950), and by F.P. Wilson's updated Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs (1970), Dent is yet more comprehensive. He might have offered more explanation of the meaning of the proverbs, but usually that becomes clear from the many examples he quotes. A REPRINT IS VERY MUCH NEEDED." - Joost Daalder, Profesor of English, Flinders University (South Australia)

For students struggling with Shakespeare, or the play Hamlet in particular, this book will prove extremely enlightening and useful. It consists of numerous short, very informative articles, written by noted literary scholars or experts on the play, among them R.A. Foakes, Marvin Rosenberg, Rebebba West, and even the great Shakespearean actor Laurence Olivier himself. The editor, Don Nardo, provides an excellent introductory article that sums up Shakespeare and his times, and also a generous bibliography that will give students plenty of supllementary material to look for.

This book is excellent, because many good and bad actions that appear on the book, you still can see them now a day. That's why the book has been popular for centuries, because it talks about some action of life that can bring beautiful and horrible things. These books teach us many things and sometimes it's a mirror, because you can see yourself reflected in a character. So my conclusion is that this book can teach us many things that help to improve yourself us a person. I noticed a lot of bad things that I did, thanks to the book I improve my self us a person and us a human being. I recommend this book to adults and teen-agers.

This wonderful resource offers a comnination of activities. It focuses on the standard vocabulary and literary devices, but it also gives worksheets to aid in character development. In addition, it offers related improvizations for students, activities to use with a video and plot summaries to help teachers and students make sense of the action. This is a MUST HAVE for anyone who would like to expand their lessons beyond the traditional dusty analysis of Shakespeare.

I don't know about you, but I often buy a lot of teaching JUNK. But-finally, I found something to USE.

Often, Shakespeare teaching materials are either watered down so much that it insults the high school students' intelligence. Or, the materials are so centered on performance that the average student becomes scared to death of Shakespeare.

The materials included in John Wilson Swope's activities book is right up my ally. Through the help of his activities, I can complete a two week literature workshop that includes literture circles engaging students in discussions of not only themes, but figurative language, vocabulary and connection to today's culture. What a relief- students don't have to be afraid they will be made to perform in front of the class (not everyone likes the spotlight). With the activities, I can also create a written final in addition to a performing final (some suggestions for performance is included, like unthreatening sock puppet skits). Students are responsible individually and as a group. And, this material is extremely helpful to those on a block schedule. In 85 mins., I need to change my activites 2-3 times a class period; these activities help me do just that. Thanks Swope!