Shakespeare Books

This was a truly great read! Nick Revill, an aspiring actor with the Chamberlin's Men, investigates the death of a wealthy landowner, who seems to have died in a fashion similar to that of Hamlet's father. Is art imitating fiction or is there something more sinister afoot? Lovers of historical mysteries will quite naturally look for similarites between this work and that of Edward Marston's Nicholas Bracewell series. And while there is very little rollicking humour in Philip Gooden's book, I can truly recommend this book for it's tight plot and dark intrigue, that keeps you guessing as to whether or not a murder was committed and if so, who did it.

There are scenes of great good humor, early investigative techniques, some suspense-could Shakespeare be the killer?--and wonderful depictions of London during the late 1500's. One doesn't need knowledge of Hamlet to enjoy this book. This is a well-plotted, delightful book and the start of a very good series.

In his new Shakespearian detective world, Philip Gooden has created something new and vibrant and original, with interesting characters, and a marvellous evocation of the world of Elizabethan London.

I loved this book! Even if you don't know HAMLET at all (and so many of the lines are quotations from Shakespeare) I think that any discerning lover of mystery will enjoy this book. Lovers of Shakespeare will also enjoy it enormously. And yet it is never ponderous or difficult--it's sprightly yet dark; intelligent, yet quite easy to read.

I believe that SLEEP OF DEATH has something to offer all readers: people who like a good mystery; people who like history; people who like good literature; people who like funny, witty books; people who like to learn. The narrator is quite endearing; the descriptions of the London of 400 years ago are wonderful.

This is undoubtedly the best mystery I read in 2001--and I must have read at least 100.

If the goal of secondary English education is to foster in our students the ability to read texts closely and well, and an ability to think independently and critically, then Victor Moeller's Socrates Does Shakespeare: Seminars and Film is spot on. The book is not burdened with theory over practice, but it is thoroughly grounded in sound theoretical and pedagogical principles. For the beleaguered secondary and college English teacher facing all those students in classes or blocks every day, the practical helps in the book are life-savers. For anyone who wants to help the process of effective learning in the Shakespeare classroom, this book is a "must have." Do yourself a favor; read the book-and use it. Michael E. Travers, Ph.D., Professor of English, Southeastern College at Wake Forest (NC)

A teacher's teacher, former Great Books leader-trainer Professor Victor Moeller applies the insightful questioning methods of Socrates to selected works of Shakespeare with detailed time-lined lesson plans incorporating films, time-saving quizzes and original essay exams. Every English department's treasure and every English teacher's must-have, this busy-teacher-friendly resource is indeed the gift that keeps on giving and is never returned.
Geri Secora
High School English Honors 9 teacher

Moeller's book is very helpful to a high school teacher interested in better teaching his students how to think about literature. After laying some helpful groundwork about how and why his socratic method works, Moeller offers seminar guidelines for students to co-lead fifteen-minute discussions of specific Shakespeare plays.
In addition to useful film guides and writing assignments, the lesson plans feature effective scaffolding techniques which lead students to compose their own effective socratic questions for use in a class discussion to facilitate thinking and understanding.
Supplemental reading suggestions, such as John Updike and James Thurber stories for "Macbeth", invite students to make connections beyond the Shakespeare text, and are well chosen and relevant to students' lives.
"Socrates Does Shakespeare" is a framework that will equip teachers like me, already employing socratic methods once in a while, to do it more consistently with texts I already teach, and to consider new units based on texts and films not yet part of our curriculum. Moeller has done much of the work for us by creating thought-provoking questions which lead students to explore the ambiguity of the plays and appreciate their complexity. I know my own students will benefit from the carefully thought out sequences he employs.
I recommend this volume to teachers of upper division or honors high school students or adults.

Finally, I have found a most useful book that has already helped me to conduct good discussions that involve all my students with the plays of Shakespeare that I take up in my Advanced Placement classes (on a two-year cycle)--Macbeth, Hamlet, Much Ado, Henry V, King Lear, and Merchant of Venice. The focus of the book is not on expert critical opinion but on helping teachers and students to arrive at their own individual interpretations based on a close and active reading of the text. Comparison-contrast
discussions of the film versions of these plays involves today's visually-minded students in ways that I have been unable to do until now.
John Bardin, Jacobs High School, Algonquin, IL

Shakespeare's sonnets and narrative poems are something that every well-versed romantic should have a copy of and this well priced and durable volume is great for reading and re-reading and marking up your favorite passages to memorize later.

Having read "A MidSummer's Night Dream" I knew that the bard could pen page after page of love-filled, alluring rhyming verse. But if that's what you fancy then you must read the sonnets and the long lyric poems contained in this Everyman's edition.

I'm trying to commit sonnet #18 to memory. It famously starts "shall I compare these to a summer's day". These are among the greatest pick up lines of the 16th century.

The sonnets are beautiful in their appreciation of love and the feminie form. Shakespeare must have been exactly as he was potrayed in the film "Shakespeare in Love": always on the prowl for females and continually in search of a muse. (Interestingly the translation of "muse" in the 15th and 16th century is "poet.)

Finally, the poem Venus and Adonis is more of this romantic banter. This poem is red hot, much more erotic than anything you could read in Maxim or Cosmopolitan. Consider this: "Being so enraged (aroused), desire doth lender her force Courageously to pluck him from his horse...She red and hot as coals of glowing fire, He red for shame, but frosty in desire...Tis but a kiss I beg--what art thou coy."

This is titalliting, stimulating fair. ("Fair" means pretty in old English.) Who can read this without blushing. No wonder we didn't read this in high school.

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
(Sonnet 26.)

How to do justice to the legacy of literary history's greatest mind -- moreover in such a limited review? Forget Goethe's "universal genius" and his rebel contemporary Schiller; forget the 19th century masters; forget contemporary literature: with the possible (!) exception of three Greek gentlemen named Aischylos, Sophocles and Euripides, a certain Frenchman called Poquelin (a/k/a Moliere), and that infamous Irishman Oscar Wilde, there's more wit in a single line of Shakespeare's than in an entire page of most other, even great, authors' works. And I'm not saying this in ignorance of, or in order to slight any other writer: it's precisely my admiration of the world's literary giants, past and present, that makes me appreciate Shakespeare even more -- and that although I'm aware that he repeatedly borrowed from pre-existing material and that even the (sole) authorship of the works published under his name isn't established beyond doubt. For ultimately, the only thing that matters to me is the brilliance of those works themselves; and quite honestly, the mysteries continuing to enshroud his person, to me, only enhance his larger-than-life stature.

The precise dating of Shakespeare's sonnets -- like other poets', a response to the 1591 publication of Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" -- is an even greater guessing game than that of his plays: although #138 and #144 (slightly modified) appeared in 1599's "Passionate Pilgrim," most were probably circulated privately, and written years before their first -- unauthorized, though still authoritative -- 1609 publication; possibly beginning in 1592-1593.

Format-wise, they adopt the Elizabethan fourteen-line-structure of three quatrains of iambic pentameters expressing a series of increasingly intense ideas, resolved in a closing couplet; with an abab-cdcd-efef-gg rhyme form. (Sole exceptions: #99 -- first quatrain amplified by one line -- #126 -- six couplets & only twelve lines total -- #145 -- written in tetrameter -- and #146 -- omission of the second line's beginning; the subject of a lasting debate.) Their order is thematic rather than chronological, although beyond the fact that the first 126 are addressed to a young man -- maybe the Earl of Pembroke or Southampton, maybe Sir Robert Dudley, the natural son of Queen Elizabeth's "Sweet Robin," the Earl of Leicester -- (the first seventeen, possibly commissioned by the addressee's family, pressing his marriage and production of an heir), and ##127-152 (or 127-133 and 147-152) to an exotic woman of questionable virtues only known as "The Dark Lady," even in that respect much remains unclear; including the nature of Shakespeare's relationship with the two main addressees, regarding which the sonnets' often ambiguous metaphors invoke much speculation. #145 is probably addressed to Shakespeare's wife; the closing couplet plays on her maiden name ("['I hate' from] hate away she threw And saved my life, [saying 'not you']:" "Hathaway -- Anne saved my life"), several others contain puns on the name Will and its double meaning(s) (exactly fourteen in the naughty #135: "Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will;" and seven in the similarly mischievous #136), and the last two draw on the then-popular Cupid theme. Sometimes, placement seems linked to contents, e.g., in #8 (music: an octave has eight notes), #12 and #60 (time: twelve hours to both day and night; sixty minutes to an hour); and in the famous #55, which praises poetry's everlasting power and as whose never-expressly-named subject Shakespeare himself emerges in a comparison with Horace's Ode 3.30 -- in turn written in first person singular and thus, denoting its own author as the builder of its "monument more lasting than bronze" ("Exegi monumentum aere perennius") -- as well as through the number "5"'s optical similarity to the letter "S," making the sonnet's number a shorthand reference for "5hake5peare" or "5hakespeare's 5onnets," echoed by numerous words containing an "S" in the text.

Of indescribable linguistic beauty, elegance and complexity, Shakespeare's sonnets owe their timeless appeal to their supreme compositional values, the universality of their themes, and their keen insights into the human heart and soul; as much as their transcendence of the era's poetic conventions which, following Petrarch, heavily idealized the addressee's qualities: a form new and exciting twohundred years earlier, but encrusted in cliche in the late 1500s. Indeed, Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" Sonnet #130 owes its particular fame to its clever puns on that very style, which went overboard with references to its golden-haired, starry- (beamy-, sparkling, sunny-) eyed, cherry- (strawberry-, vermilion-, coral-) lipped, rosy- (crimson-, purple-, dawn-) cheeked, ivory- (lily-, carnation-, crystal-, silver-, snowy-, swan-white) skinned, pearl-teethed, honey- (nectar-, music-) tongued, goddess-like objects. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;" the Bard countered, proceeded to describe her breasts as "dun," her hair as "black wires," and her breath as "reek[ing]," and denied her any divine or angelic attributes. "And yet," he concluded: "by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare."

Arguably, Shakespeare's very choice of addressees (a young man -- also the subject of the famously romantic #18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day;" the first of several sonnets promising his immortalization in poetry -- as well as the "Dark Lady," in turn introduced under the notion "black is beautiful" in #127) itself suggests a break with tradition; and compared to his contemporaries' poetry, even the equally-famous #116's on its face rather conventional praise of love's constancy ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments"), echoed in the poet's vow to vanquish time in #123, sounds fairly restrained. But ultimately, Shakespeare's sonnets -- like his entire work -- simply defy categorization. They are, as rival Ben Jonson acknowledged, written "for all time," just as the Bard himself immodestly claimed:

'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
(Sonnet 55.)

Also recommended:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
Shakespeare: For All Time (Oxford Shakespeare)
Much Ado About Nothing
Love's Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Two-Disc Special Edition)
BBC Shakespeare Comedies DVD Giftbox
BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox
Olivier's Shakespeare - Criterion Collection (Hamlet / Henry V / Richard III)
William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
Twelfth Night

This is the perfect way to read Shakespeare. I also highly recommend the other volumes of Shakespeare available from the Everyman's Library.

Although not my favorite work by Shakespeare, I acknowledge the frequency that "Romeo and Juliet" is taught in schools and understand the importance of a good teaching aid to do so. This book epitomizes a helpful tool in the classroom, providing well thought out lessons and activities that have held my students interests throughout the play. I commend these authors for their approach to teaching, not just with Romeo and Juliet, by as displayed in their other works such as Fairchild's "Compassionate Classroom." Further works by any of these authors will be a must-have for my classroom. Well done!

There are so many great books on Shakespeare teaching but they seem to be focused on only one approach, such as Shakespeare through performance or attacking Shakespeare's language or "here's a pack of quizzes and vocab exercises." This book acknowledges that best practices include a range of approaches -- that ed reforms don't require we discard affective education or the five-paragraph essay or dramatic performance but rather take the essentials of each and use them all. This book is Understanding by Design meets principles of Tomlinson meets drama class meets reading instruction. My only critique is make the book longer with the following: ESL-directed reading instruction, more vocabulary guides and worksheets, and how about some more writing instruction? The book's already 300-some pages, so it's possible that publication thwarts it being too big a tome. The book makes a nod to all methods and reminds you as teacher to make the right choices from your heart. Unfortunately few thank teachers for making the good choices when there are a million to make and no one's every perfectly served by our work. That aside, it's sure nice to view the whole buffet of teaching options at a glance and get a sense of what's out there and compare that to the needs of the students sitting in front of you. The book encourages you to be a teacher researcher as you sample the dishes.

I would buy this book along with either the Oxford, Folger, or Arden editions of the play. Also, I'm a big fan of any of Tomlinson's books, but in particular, check out Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum, Grades 9-12, and How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms, and Understanding By Design Expanded 2nd Edition. Also very good, particularly for all the performance activities: Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. Basically, with all these titles, you can't go wrong, because with all of these you're looking at teacher-made materials, created by veterans of the classroom who care about helping other teachers and most importantly, the students.

Teaching Romeo & Juliet: A Differentiated Approach is an outstanding source. The book is practical and easy-to-follow with wonderful activities. (I especially like "Skill Strands", pp. 221-228.)

I applaud authors Fairchild, Follet, and DeCourcy for their thorough and well-designed lessons. I'd like to see similar teaching guides for "Hamlet" and "Julius Caesar." I recommend this book to all teachers who want to make Shakespeare fun and interesting for all students.

This is an incredibly helpful resource for English teachers with diverse classrooms. I particularly like the Skill Strands lessons for bringing sections of Romeo and Juliet alive in performance. Shakespeare's plays were meant to be brought from the page to the stage - or at least in front of the classroom! - and I found the performance related exercises to be fresh and engaging for my entire class. Thanks for producing such a functional reader that makes lesson planning so much easier.

In The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare James Qwilleran aka "Qwill", is becoming acclimated to his new life as a millionaire in Pickaxe City (400 miles north of everywhere). He has moved his two beautiful Siamese cats (KoKo and Yum Yum) into the old Klingenschoen mansion and has settled in for a five year stay to fulfill the requirements of Aunt Fanny's will.

As this book begins, Qwill is awaiting the arrival of "the big one", a huge snow fall, as predicted every day on the weather report on WPKX. He is starting to adapt to life as the richest man in Moose County, and has started dating the local librarian, Polly Duncan. He begins to get acquainted with the various families in town, and develops an easy friendship with Junior Goodwinter, the young, energetic editor of the Pickax Picayune. When Junior's father dies suddenly in an accident, Qwill sympathizes with his friend, and looks for ways to save the centuries' old newspaper run for years without profit. Qwill begins to become suspicious of Junior's mother, and her reaction to her husband's death. It seems the widow is ready to sell all of her possessions and has been seen around town with a new man. Could the death of Senior Goodwinter have been anything more than a bad car accident? Distracting Qwill from the suspicious death is the upcoming marriage of his beloved housekeeper, Mrs. Iris Cobb. Qwill brought Mrs. Cobb up from "Down Below" to manage his household and the new museum that is being created in the Klingenschoen mansion. But the man she is marrying is highly disliked in town, and Qwill works hard to insure that Mrs. Cobb is marrying the right man for her.

In the Cat Who Sniffed Glue, Moose County is dealing with a rash of vandalism that has been escalating to increasingly violent acts. One of the suspects in the vandalism ring is Chad Lanspeak, son of the owners of the Lanspeak's Department Store. As Chad's parents are good friends of Qwill, he tries to befriend the young man, and begins to believe that Chad was not involved in the violence. A murder of two prominent citizens occurs, and the prime suspects in the murder are Chad and his friends. When a car crash kills Chad and two other suspects in the vandalism ring, the police are quick to close the case. Qwill suspects that the police have closed the case prematurely, and continues to quietly investigate. With KoKo developing a fascination with glue, and Polly becoming more and more distant to his affections, Qwill is kept busy while trying to solve the murders and to clear the name of his good friend's son.

In the Cat Who Went Underground Qwill, is feeling despondent over the recent absence of Polly Duncan, and decides he needs a change. He moves his two beautiful Siamese cats (KoKo and Yum Yum) into his lakefront cottage in Mooseville for the summer, and quickly learns that country living is not for him. He has to call for plumbing repairs almost daily, and with the small size of the cottage, he quickly decides to build an addition to create more room for himself and the cats. Finding a reputable builder during the summer season is a daunting task, however, as all of the builders are booked for months in advance. Qwill finds himself a builder with a stellar reputation and feels smug for his ingenuity. This all comes to a screeching halt when the man goes missing, and Qwill must find himself an "underground" builder to finish the job. This latest carpenter is sluggish and lazy, and Qwill finds himself having to supervise all of the work being slowly performed. When the carpenter is discovered dead on Qwill's property, he becomes a suspect. He quickly learns that summer at the lake is not what he intended and works overtime to discover who has a grudge against carpenters in Moose County.

This is my favorite cozy mystery series! I had read all of the books in the past, and wanted to read them again for a second time. This time around, I have chosen to listen to them on CD, as I love the voice of George Guidall.

This is a great series by my favorite author!

The first book in the series is called "The Cat who Could Read Backwards". Enjoy!

I have read all of "The Cat Who..." books except the very latest one (and it is on a UPS truck at this moment from Amazon.com). Jim Qwilleran is a semi-retired journalist in a small town. His column in the local paper is titled "The Qwill Pen". He is owned by 2 siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum. It pays to pay attention to Koko if there has been a foul deed commited and to Qwilleran's own mustache which throbs with unease when lies are being told. When you need a break from more serious reading my suggested antidote is one or more of "The Cat Who..." books.

Koko and Qwill are at it again in this combination of mysteries. The antics of Koko will keep you guessing who done it in this series. Braun is her consumate self in depicting the life of Qwill and his mystery solving companion centered in this quaint northern city. Once you start the story, you can't put it down until you have finished, even if it is three in the morning.

Lilian Jackson Braun always delivers, even if it's the latest edition of the "Moose County Something" in Moose County, which is 400 miles north of everywhere. Qwilleran is at his sleuthing best with KoKo, a Siamese cat with keen intelligence, as his mystery-solving partner. As always, the mysteries are well plotted with quirky characters that capture and carry the reader from the first clue to each satisfying conclusion. If you enjoy the "Cat Who . . ." books as much as I do, you'll want to read "The Cat Who Sang for the Birds", the latest in the series. And it's not necessary to read the books in order. Each stands on its own as a complete story. Cuddle with your favorite feline, and as Qwilleran would no doubt recommend, read aloud to stimulate your feline's intelligence.

I really liked this book, how could i not? It's Shakespeare. I liked Twelfth Night also because it doesn't end with happiness and laughter like most comedies, it ends with the fool's sad song. very good.

This is a wonderful adaptation of one of Shakespeare's lighter works... Richly detailed artwork accompanies a brisk, skillful prose adaptation of this broad farce of mistaken identity and misplaced love... An ideal entry point for younger readers, one of several fine adaptations by Bruce Coville.

I love the stories that Bruce Coville writes, and was browsing some other books of his, when I saw that he had retold some of Shakespeare's plays for children. I first bought Romeo and Juliet, and have been buying them all as they come out. What a great way for kids (and adults) to learn about Shakespeare's plays! The illustrations are appropriate to the plays, and beautifully done. Twelfth Night, like the others, is well written and easy to read, and includes quotes from the play. I enjoyed this version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

Originally written by William Shakespeare and retold by Bruce Coville, Twelfth Night is a wonderful book. Coville really captures the Shakespearean feel of the original in this delightful picture book. The story revolves around a young woman named Viola. The story begins as Viola finds herself in an unfamiliar land with no means of food or shelter. To survive in this new place she dresses as a man to go and work for the duke of the land, Orsino. It is not long before Viola develops strong feelings for the kind duke. However, Orsino is already infatuated with Lady Olivia. Orsino sends Viola to Lady Olivia to deliver his letters professing his love to her. Upon meeting the gentle messenger Olivia falls in love with her. Little does anyone know that the messenger is indeed a woman! It is all a crazy mess that is both comical and entertaining. Anyone looking for quality entertainment could find it in this great book.

It keeps getting better with each page. If you're like me, and you're not all that familiar with the real Shakespeare, you'll find this a truly illuminating read. It's accessible, it's fun, and it sure is a better beach read then anything else you're likely to find this summer. What a terrific surprise!

Great reading in any type of weather. Witty, intellingently presented. Great choice of words. Makes William Shakespeare really a "Bill" who did write ABOUT the masses FOR the masses. Sharp focus on many of the plays that used to give me problems in analyses. Explanation flows effortlessly and make a great deal of sense, when presented with actual monologues! So few bucks for such insights. When Mr. MacKechnie urges his readers "onward" I was ready! JGRAINGER, PHD.

What a find! I bought this book on the recommendation of Joan Plowright's foreward and am so pleased I did. Mackechnie's book not only gathers an amazing amount of Shakespearean monologues, but he dissects them with considerable insight and wit. He guides you through each speech with so much info: why, where, who, that it all makes perfect sense. Any acting student would benefit not only from the technical wisdom but from the anecdotal wisdom as well. Apparently Mackechnie has worked with Laurence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Plowright, Ian Mckellen, among others. Highly recommended.

This is a delightful parody of several of The Bard's more famous plays including Hamlet and MacBeth. Written in the "High Style" and foleyed in Firesign Theatre's usual excellence, you will actually believe that you have been transported to Castle Phlegm.

Anythinge You Want To (Shakespeare's Lost Comdie) has unavilable for years so make sure you add this to your collection before it's toad away.

Well, I'm glad to see that the other reviewers (so far, anyway) have liked this album. It is my favorite Firesign album but the online Firehead community in general rate it in the middle of the pack. The work is presented to the listener as a play and, perhaps because it was meant to be performed live, is one of the most linear and accessible of the Firesign albums. The feature-length play is the only thing on the album. This gives the guys a lot of room to work in and they make full and glorius use of all of it!

I first heard this play in much shorter form on the "Not Insane" album. It was fleshed out considerably for the original release of "Shakespeare's Lost Comedie" which benefited from several new acts and characters. This latest version has been enlarged even further to resemble a BBC presentation of a stage play. A narrator who sounds vaguely like Principal Poop with an English accent opens and closes the play and provides awkwardly humorous color commentary during the intermissions.

It is the juxtapostion between the Olde Englyshe phrasing and the modern references I find so appealing. These are the multiple entrendes that Shakespear might have written in if he had Nuclear power and Hollywood to make fun of. In one speech, an alchemist wonders aloud "am I then doom't to lyve oot my lyfe on zis island but 3 myles wide und watch ambitions melted down to smoking slag?" In a later segment of almost 5 minutes, while all the nobles are assembled discussing war, the dialog works seamlessly as though it were taking place on either the battlefield, the boardroom of some corporation or on a movie lot. Pure genius and every act in the play has _at least_ two subtexts going on so you can listen to it over and over finding something new each time.

This album has been in print in various formats but never for too long at any given time. If you are a Firehead, just curious or perhaps a fan of "The Reduced Shakespear Company" and never even heard of Firesign Theatre you really owe it to yourself to get this album. If you don't like it you can always wait til it goes out of print again and auction it off here on Amazon!

(Note - I use album here in it's original sense: a collection of something in one format. Whether we speak of LP, CD, Tape, MP3, it is still an "album" in this sense.)

Someone was very smart to get this back in print. I heard this at my public library years ago and was rolling on the floor in laughter. It's a parody of various scenes from Shakespeare's plays, all rolled into one new, very strange, and very funny, play. I just can't begin to describe how well it's done and how funny it is. I don't know what I'd have thought of it if I hadn't been a Shakespeare fan, and I'm not sure if very high-minded Shakespeare fans might be offended by what Firesign has wrought... But I can say I personally rank this album among the very funniest comedy records I've ever heard (and I've heard a lot.)

Today the Shakespeare Scholars enjoy emphasizing endlessly on Shakespeare's bawdy quibblings and situations of sexual ambiguity, while ignoring the large Themes where Shakespeare's sublimity really shines through ...

I couldn't afford this book but have used it and found it very precise and thorough and I trust the Author did his best to provide an objective Reference Book for people serious about trying to get to the bottom of Shakespeare.

My strong suspicion (and experience) is that for those willing to work at it, straining the Bible out of Shakespeare is priceless.

I have had the wonderful pleasure of having Dr. Shaheen as a professor for the past 5 years and this book is pure literary genius. Having spent his entrie professional career researching and documenting all biblical references in all of Shakespeare's works, Shaheen leaves nothing to question. He knows exactly what he is talking about and this book is a must have for any Shakespeare scholar or anyone interested in the literary use of the bible. Not only are his lectures amazingly informative, this book is as well.

Shaheen is a good reference for anyone who is interested in learning how much of the bible Shakespeare used in his plays. Along with the biblical chapter and verse citations, Shaheen also refernce's the commonly understood practice of faith during the time Shakepeare was writing. What did the Catholic and Angelican church practice? What bible or biblical references did Shakespeare have access to? Shaheen gives one a bird's eye view of how the Christain church may have positively impacted the words, thoughts and faith of William Shakespeare.

My copy of this book is highlighted and dog-eared, with book marks popping out all over the place. Mr. Leithart's analysis is wonderfully unforced. He's not jamming Shakespeare's work into a Christian mold. He is uncovering what is there. I found this especially effective in his analysis of "The Taming of the Shrew". Since Leithart wrote these when he was teaching a class himself, they are classroom tested. The introduction supplies a suggested schedule to follow. Each play is introduced, then examined Act by Act with review and thought questions. Each chapter ends with suggested essay topics, and some review of movie versions that are available to see. This is great, and I make constant use of it.
Six more, Mr. Leithart, please!

I appreciated this book for its Christian perspective on a few of my favorite Shakespeare plays. The author explored not only the plots, but also the characters' relationships to Christ. The author made insightful parallels and comparisons between the characters and Christ and His church. I also appreciated the critiques of some of the film versions of the plays. I heartily recommend this eye-opening book!

And one of the reasons for that is this book, Brightest Heaven of Invention. It is a wonderful guide to read along with your next Shakespeare play. It explains the scenes from a unique perspective--a must-have book for Shakespeare fans! Mr. Leithart, we're waiting for the next book in this series.