The paperback makes a great gift for anyone interested in Shakespeare or in the history of the book, even as that history moves into the digital era. A great buy and a must for any college or good high school library.
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The conceit of these volumes is that Shakespeare's plays are being performed at the Globe, a circular wooden theater on the banks of the Thames River in England. Theatergoers would pay penny and stand in the open courtyard around the stage and watch the play. Such people were known as the groundlings and they got rather rowdy, actually throwing things at the actors. If you paid another penny you could sit in one of the roofed galleries, protected from both the elements and the groundlings.
Williams presents each play in dramatic comic strip form providing three parts to each performance. First, there are the words that Shakespeare actually wrote being spoken by the characters. Second, the plot of the play is told underneath the pictures. Third, around the stand the spectators watch and other a wide variety of comments. Keep your eyes out for Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare, the Master of Revels, and a guy who only likes the gloomy pages.
Both of these volumes provide a spirited presentation of these Shakespeare plays, giving young readers not only a sense of the story but the way they were originally performed. Of course, the fun comments strike the mark better on the comedies than the dramas (the latter tend to be colored more gloomily), but there is no mistaking the enthusiasm Williams brings to the presentation of these plays. This is an excellent way of introducing young students to Shakespeare's works and hopefully it will whet their appetite for reading more detailed juvenile versions and eventually the original plays themselves.
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"Northrop Frye on Shakespeare" is targeted for the general reader. Frye's commentary helps any reader understand the Bard, but it does so in a more accessible style than any other work I have read by Frye. Ideally suited for the high school student or the college undergraduate, Frye's essays provide excellent entry points into many of Shakespeare's plays for the student who wishes to delve further into these essential works. Not exhaustive like Bloom's "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human," or scholarly and advanced like Cavell's "Disowning Knowledge," Frye's work invites the reader to ponder some key points and formulate her own ideas.
This collection of essays complements the other works mentioned in this review. As an introductory set of essays on Shakespeare, it is without peer.
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Klingon Hamlet is an elegant, graceful, vibrant and original Klingon
version of the critically acclaimed, glorious, magnificent and classic drama. That is why it is called "Restored version of Hamlet". The Hamlet's clumsy, inadequate, awkward and misleading English version has nothing but distorted, flaccid, ponderous meanderings. Now at last, the powerful drama of the legendary and brilliant playwright can be appreciated in the eloquence and glory of the Klingon language.
You have read Shakespearean plays before but you cannot appreciate Shakespeare until you have read him in original Klingon.
You'll love reading the elegant, graceful, vibrant and original Klingon version of legendary, critically acclaimed and glorious drama Hamlet instead of clumsy and awkward English version.
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Author Simon Hawke writes with a light comic touch, yet with an insight into young love and accurate although not overdone historical insights. Fans of William Shakespeare will get a laugh out of Hawke's ideas of where some of his ideas, and many of his well-known lines emerged. Protagonist Tuck is an interesting and likable hero with an ambition to be an actor almost as strong as his stage fright. The twists and turns of this mystery combine Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew with Romeo and Juliet and a bit of dozens of other plays.
Although it is a short novel, Hawke did spend a fair number of pages repeating what he'd already told the reader--clearly something to be avoided although, in the case of THE SLAYING OF THE SHREW, a fault that can easily be overlooked in the high quality and smooth writing.
I found this tale far more satisfying that the first in the series, particularly as the language used by characters is, for the most part, far more convincing. The Elizabethan-period politics, familial chicanery and villainy all make for a delightful mix of historical fact and fiction. Light-hearted, humorous and convincing in plot-I can highly recommend this for your shelf of historical mysteries.
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Most of the novel shows WS trying to figure out what kind of love he is after. His notions of love come from Plato's "Symposium" - will it be common, physical lust, or contemplation of absolute beauty leading to his best poetic and dramatic works? The relationships that the novel explores these questions with are with the youthful noble Henry Wriothesly and the exotic, colonial Fatima.
Burgess delights in wordplay throughout the novel, using for the most part, the language of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets in the narration and dialogue. Unlike "Shakespeare in Love" Burgess's novel does not build around any specific text, instead making his works almost marginal to the drama of Shakespeare's fictional biography. Burgess presents Shakespeare's works as the results and expressions of a desperate life.
Burgess augments Shakespeare's story with an almost post-colonial historical setting. With Fatima allegedly from the Indies, and a backdrop of English oppression of the Irish, "Nothing Like The Sun" complicates Shakespeare's historical moment. Class struggles, plagues, and political sterility also mark the temporal setting as the novel moves from the country (Stratford) to the coast (Bristol) to the capital (London).
Reading "Nothing Like The Sun" was a welcome experience for me, having only ever read Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange" before. The writing style takes a little getting used to, but that is the price you pay for art. I highly recommend it.