Shakespeare Books

Shakespeare as Political Thinker is a must for everyone interested in the political thought of William Shakespeare. This reprint will finally allow new comers to become familair with a commonsensical approach to Shakespeare's plays. The introductory chapter by John Alvis is worth the price. Perhaps the best Shakespearean critic alive, Alvis has an uncanny ability to show Shakespeare's moral seriousness without making the bard an unquestioning adherent to any political school or theological creed. Many of the essays that follow are also well done: Jaffa's chapter on Shakespeare's entire corpus, Laurence Berns' meditation on Lear etc.

The second printing of Shakespeare as Political Thinker gives hope to those interested in relearning ancient wisdom and pays tribute to its inspiration, Shakespeare's Politics (Allan Bloom).

This winter break I went on a Shakespeare buying spree, and this book is one of the fine gems I found. A large, but fascinating book, this work of great scholarship and excitement takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of Shakespeare, even into rather obscure corners of his works (Trollius and Cressida, Timon of Athens). This book is a must read for any would be deep thinker about Shakespeare.

This is a non-fiction account of Shakespearean drama performed before an audience of carefully selected patient/inmates within the walls of England's oldest asylum for the criminally insane. Indeed, it is a most compelling compilation of true tales told by the actors, patients, and psychotherapists. When The Royal Shakespeare Company came to Broadmoor Hospital, the epistemological obstacles normally separating art and science were obliterated! From reading this work, one may know the dramatic power of the literary metaphor to effect a medical metamorphosis!

This is a non-fiction account of Shakespearean drama performed before an audience of carefully selected patient/inmates within the walls of England's oldest asylum for the criminally insane. Indeed, it is a most compelling compilation of true tales told by the actors, patients, and psychotherapists. When The Royal Shakespeare Company came to Broadmoor Hospital, the epistemological obstacles normally separating art and science were obliterated! From reading this work, one may know the dramatic power of the literary metaphor to effect a medical metamorphosis!

This book is a fascinating journey, well-written, never boring, starting from the assumption that Shakespeare the actor of Stratford is not identical with Shakespeare the poet.
How can this be?
The historical facts known of both the actor and author Shake(-)spe(a)re are diligently analysed and underlying questions brought to light.
Whether you agree with the answers given or not, whether being scholar or layman, it is tremendously interesting to follow the argumentation and to find out yourself what is plausible from the great amount of copies of original quotations, illustrations, fotos of monuments and places etc handed over to you with this book for inquiry.
A real treasure for all who love Shakespeare and his time!

This book was truly a great surprise, especially given this admittedly complex subject. Quite honestly, I had halfway expected a rather 'dry', 'tedious' type of book, but thankfully, Dawkins rises to the occasion and brings us a thoroughly researched and referenced book that really 'lays out' the case re: the age-old question 'Who was Shakespeare?' He dissects this complicated scenario, year by year, person by person, and event by event -- all giving us, the readers, a much-clearer perspective on the actual Shakespeare and what he must have known or encountered. Some of it is not terribly surprising, i.e., political or economic issues, however, others were most intriguing, bringing in a fascinating connection with Elizabethen politics and esoteric matters. Before one initially 'writes off' such a perspective as not being directly 'relevant' to history -- as this reader nearly did! -- you may find your perspective changing-- challenged, for example, by Dawkins well-researched information about the early origins of what later became the Royal Society, the fascinating life of Sir Francis Bacon, or, of the Rosicrucians and their powerful symbolism and impact upon the elite at the time. This rich period in history obviously had another side to it, a 'hidden' one that still has an effect upon us today, and one that has often been neglected in more orthodox histories; Dawkins brings this other polarity of the period's history to the fore with aplomb...even including the Gemini 'twins' theme as it is relevant to Shakepeare's works. Given the fascination with novels such as The Da Vinci Code, it is interesting to learn here of a real 'Code' that actually happened in history, with real people and real events. I have since learned a lot more about Sir Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, Walter Raleigh, etc., all of whom lived at this time, contemporaries of Shakespeare. Having studied this material in-depth for many years, it is obvious that this author in particular offers us a rather rare glimpse of the underlying themes at this most powerful and intriguing time in history -- the Elizabethan period. If 'all the world's a stage', then let us all be readers of this truly interesting book, a welcome contribution to this genre.

Shakespeare for the Modern Reader: A User-Friendly Introduction by Shakespeare enthusiast and expert Henry I. Christ is a solid guide for introducing non-specialist general readers to the wondrous complexity, subtlety, and majesty of Shakespeare's great tragedies and comedies. Excerpts from the plays are analyzed for literary device usage, plot, and character, and numerous summaries are provided for readers who had only a dim idea of what the actors were saying when they saw the play performed. A "must-read" for the novice, Shakespeare For The Modern Reader is a superbly written and presented guide to the basics for anyone researching or attending Shakespeare's plays, or just reading them for personal pleasure.

A lifetime of love and learning has been packed into Henry I. Christ's latest book, SHAKESPEARE FOR THE MODERN READER.
The author's broad knowledge and lively enthusiasm for Shakespeare's life, the theater of his time, and his plays and poems is downright contagious. Reading the brief but comprehensive discussions of all the plays and poems made me hustle back to my own copy of The Complete Works to reread Shakespeare with countless new insights and deeper appreciation for his genius. The book also sent me running to the videotape section of my local library and to video-rental stores to see and hear the plays so lucidly discussed in this user-friendly book.

Christ draws numerous parallels between the theater and actors in Shakespeare's time and those in our modern theater, movies, and TV. In this way, he brings his subject vividly alive for modern readers in terms they can easily and enjoyably follow. I highly recommend SHAKESPEARE FOR THE MODERN READER as a treasure chest in the library of any lover of great literature.

Shakespeare goes to Paris

by John Pemble.


This is much more than a superb book on the reception of Shakespeare in France, vividly though that is explained, with an abundance of felicitous turns of phrase and with well-chosen quotations from French sources. We see how the Abbé Prévost and Voltaire `discovered' Shakespeare; how 18th century Frenchmen (and actually, as Pemble shows in his last chapter, many English critics, too) measured him against the rules of the classical theatre, recognizing his genius but deploring his lack of `taste' and the many ways in which he broke these rules; how the French Romantics took him to their hearts and extolled his originality against the slavish adherence of French dramatists to the models laid down by the Académie Française; how questions of patriotism came to figure, with the fear that Shakespeare, the outsider from the North, might undermine `l'esprit classique français - a fear that was fanned by political setbacks and by the loss of the cultural hegemony France had enjoyed in the years of Louis XIV; and how this nationalist view was countered by the idea that Shakespeare was beyond race and exemplified a universal Humanism.

In the course of this examination, Pemble throws his net even wider: the book is at the same time something of a survey of French literary theory, taking us from Taine to Sartre, to Structuralist and Postmodernist theories. If sometimes for a while we lose sight in these discussions of Shakespeare himself, they nevertheless provide a wider background against which we can place the more explicit reactions to him in France.

There are fascinating chapters on how Shakespeare was translated into French. There were not only the problems of finding the exact parallel in French of the English text, but also, especially in the 18th century, of making the translation palatable to the taste of the time, by substituting more genteel words for those that Shakespeare had used. This went far beyond what Bowdler would do to spare a maiden's blushes. French taste thought it inappropriate in lofty tragedies to refer to, for example, lowly animals like mice, rats, flies or crabs. There were translations for the study and different translations for the stage. Desdemona's handkerchief spotted with strawberries was all very well for scholarly reading, but unacceptable for the stage; so for two hundred years French theatre audiences never learnt what the fateful article actually was. As taste changed with the French Revolution and Romanticism, so new translations were required and provided; but even Romantic translators like Dumas (1846) made massive concessions to classical tastes, not only in the language but in, for example, a total re-write of the final scene in Hamlet, where the Ghost reappears and sentences three of Shakespeare's corpses to death, but allows Hamlet to live. As late as 1884 there were translations into rhyming alexandrines: the literary critics mocked them, but the actors and the theatre-going public still insisted on bienséance on the stage. In the 20th century even those, like André Gide, who tried to be most truthful to the original found themselves unable to match Shakespeare's full vigour and allusiveness. And, according to Jean-Louis Barrault, writing in 1947, French audiences still refused to take seriously the stage strewn with corpses at the end of Hamlet: "we have the devil's own job to stop them laughing at the sight of the final carnage."

But a momentous sea-change was about to take place in France's appreciation of Shakespeare. In a brilliant chapter, Pemble shows how the very notion of tragedy changed in France. Until the 20th century the French had criticized Shakespeare because he offended against their conception of tragedy, which admitted of terror and pity, but rigorously excluded horror. "The French averted their gaze from what was desolate and painful". The Catholic Church preached an ultimately benign Providence; the 18th century Enlightenment and 19th century Positivism believed in Progress and the Perfectability of Man. God said, "Let Newton be" because Newtonian science spoke of divine purpose and harmony. But then religion became eroded; Darwinism seemed to replace orderly with random development; and above all, the horror of two world wars and of the Nazi occupation of France showed how shallow the classic conception of tragedy was. In reality what is tragic is purposeless suffering, life amidst mindless cruelty, a shaky moral compass or none at all - all the horror that the earlier conception of tragedy had banned. When Cocteau, Giraudoux, Anouilh, and Sartre rewrote the Greek myths, they reinstated the original bleak vision which had been expurgated from the classic French drama.

Against this background, the worry of just how to translate Shakespeare becomes relatively insignificant: instead of being regarded as a somewhat archaic and flawed genius, who "seems more topical to us than does Molière" (Barrault), he is seen as unblinkingly presenting the tragic absurdity of life while giving "form and intelligibility to the hazards of existence." (Venet). More than ever, he appears as our contemporary.

This book is an entertaining chronicle of the various twists and turns of Shakespeare's odyssey from a barbarian threatening to storm the walls of French culture to his triumphal entry into the literary and theatrical halls of fame in France. Starting with Voltaire's careful introduction of Shakespeare to his compatriots and nailing it with Andre Gide's postwar translation of `Anthony and Cleopatra', the French struggled to deal with Shakespeare both as an artist and a dramatist. The literary reaction is amply represented in an enticing sampler of commentary and analysis from artists and critics throughout the roughly 250 year period covered in the book The other major parallel strand (and the most fun to read about) is the attempt to translate England's iconic playwright to the French stage, and is most strikingly demonstrated by the tale of the one hundred and fifty year effort to mount a recognizable Hamlet on the French stage. However, there are any number of other telling anecdotes that Pemble employs to show the difficulties of staging Shakespeare--Romeo and Juliet was rewritten with a happy ending because audiences were outraged by the deaths of the lovers, and substantial alterations had to be made to Othello because the words for `handkerchief' and `strawberry' were considered too improper for public use. The literary and dramatic strands are dovetailed together in an argument showing why the end of Hamlet does and must work, it was pretty good--almost good enough to convince me, but nevertheless I still think it's one of the great literary non sequiturs of all time, and virtually anything could happen at the end of the play. There are a good number of other theatrical gems mentioned in the text--my favorite was the reaction of French actors to their first exposure to English dramatics. The native style adhered closely to what was known or conjectured of Greek and Roman conventions particularly for tragedy, so there was no real action on the boards, just speeches and reports of battle and death coming from off stage. Anyway, after seeing a few melodramatic and over-the-top performances by a British acting troupe, there was a sudden demand for plays with death scenes for the French thespians to wallow in. It was an amusing inversion of the cliche about actors 'dying to get the part'. Even the discussions of the history of different eras staging of Shakespeare's plays, with their many and various scenes is quite fun in Pemble's hands. Other technical subjects are also handled adroitly--discussions of the evolution of translations are surprisingly lively and Pemble doesn't get bogged down in the details which translators typically obsess on.

Speaking of translation, there's some French in the book. Most of it is translated, and it would be pointless to translate some of the examples left in their original tongue without benefit of footnote or parenthetical, as in the case where we're looking at samples of some wretched verse (though frankly there are instances where it would have been useful). Pemble also has a strange reluctance to identify the exact passages in Shakespeare which correspond to some of his French quotes. I read French fairly well, but that didn't noticeably enhance my enjoyment of the book, so don't let the language intimidate you if you think you'd like to read it. The one `benefit' I derived from being francoliterate was coming up with a rather pricey shopping list of hard-to-find or musty out-of-print French books, which kept growing as I read `Shakespeare Goes to Paris'. One last subject to address, for a topic like this, most readers (most definitely including myself) rely on the author's knowledge and judgment, so we need to ask if he seems reliable or credible. On the few occasions where I do know something of the matter at hand, Pemble is normally spot on. One opportunity that he missed perhaps is finding some things in the French perspective which might allow us see Shakespeare in a new light, after all in the English speaking world the upstart crow's work has attained a near sacred status, and tampering with it or acknowledging its warts is well nigh blasphemous. All in all, Pemble's book is very entertaining and quite informative

Jane Martineau, formerly Curator and Editor in the Exhibitions Office of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, has made an outstanding contribution to Shakespeare, theatre, and art lovers alike.

"Shakespeare In Art"with over eighty paintings accompanied by descriptive essays and enriched by eleven scholarly essays is a veritable panoply of paintings by artists who selected Shakespeare's characters as their subjects.

With Hogarth's representations of Falstaff examining his Troops, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and many more we are reminded of the then burgeoning relationship between theatre and painting. It is noted that "The illustrating of Shakespeare, which was to reach gigantic proportions by the end of the eighteenth century, had begun very modestly in England in 1709........"

George Romney, we learn, was obsessed by the story of King Lear throughout his life. Romney's magnificent King Lear in the Tempest tearing off his Robes is apt testimony to this artist's predilection. William Blake's pen and watercolour "As if an Angel dropp'd down from the clouds" from Henry IV is unforgettable.

"Shakespeare In Art" is not to be hurriedly scanned but leafed through at leisure and forever treasured.

- Gail Cooke

+++++

This book or "exhibition" (a collaborative effort of many, many people including private collectors, museums, and galleries) tells the story of how William Shakespeare (1564 to 1616) and his works had a profound influence on every artist, writer, and composer around the world from England to Germany, France, Italy, and Russia in the period "from circa 1730 to 1860." As well, "this is the first exhibition in London [,England] since 1964 devoted to Shakespeare's impact on the visual arts" and explores "the influence of Shakespeare on eighteenth-and nineteenth-century literature, theatre, music, and printmaking."

The guiding principle when reading this book is to realize that "Everyone agreed that [Shakespeare's] plays were untranslatable and yet everyone tried to translate them."

This book consists of two combined parts: text and images.

The text consists of eleven surprisingly in-depth essays each written by a different person (although two are written by the same person.) Each essay has mainly color figures (paintings, engraving reproductions etc.) to highlight the text.

Then we have the images (paintings, etc.) in the form of color "plates." (A plate is a full-page book reproduction of a work.) These are truly magnificent and stunning to look at. Each plate is accompanied by an explanatory text (and in some cases a figure) and this text is headed by particulars about the plate. For example, the cover of this book (shown above by Amazon) is actually a plate in this book. Here are the particulars of this plate [with my accompanying explanation]:

82 [this is the eighty-second plate in this book]
Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A. (1829-1896) [the artist's name, birth and death date]
Ferdinand lured by Ariel ("The Tempest," 1. ii. 387-402) [title of work and its inspiration]
1849-50 [date the work was made]
Oil on panel [type of work]
64.8 X 50.8 cm (25.5 X 20 in.) [work's dimensions]
Makins Collection, Washington, DC [work's present display location]

This book contains just over 60 figures and almost 90 plates.

I will give the titles of each essay, the number of figures in each essay, and the number of plates that follow the essay (if applicable):

(1) The Shakespeare phenomenon. 5 figures.
(2) Shakespeare and the British print market (from) 1700 to 1860. 6 figures.
(3) "Our divine Shakespeare fitly illustrated." Staging Shakespeare (from) 1660 to 1900. 9 figures.
(4) Shakespeare and music. 5 figures.
(5) The early illustrators of Shakespeare. 2 figures. 4 plates follow.
(6) Shakespeare and the sublime. 9 figures. 18 plates follow.
(7) The Shakespeare galleries of John Boydell and James Woodmason. 4 figures. 7 plates follow.
(8) Theatrical painting from Hogarth to Fuseli. 7 figures. 32 plates follow.
(9) Shakespeare and Romantic painting in Europe. 8 figures. 10 plates follow.
(10) Bardolatry. This deals with paintings etc. of Shakespeare himself. 4 figures. 5 plates follow.
(11) Shakespeare and Victorian art. 3 figures. 12 plates follow.

This book does not have images of scenes from all of Shakespeare's plays. As well, there are not only images of scenes from the plays but images of other things (such as of Shakespeare himself).

The scene and character images in this book are from the following plays:

The Tragedies:

Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth (my personal favorite), Othello, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens.

Comedies:

As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, All's Well that End's Well, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Tempest.

Histories:

Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2), Henry VI (Parts 2 and 3), Henry VIII, Henry V, Richard III.

Finally, even though not completely necessary, I recommend being at least familiar with Shakespeare's plays (especially the most popular ones like Hamlet or Macbeth). This will enhance your appreciation of the images.

In conclusion, this book is a fascinating combination of text and images of Shakespeare & his plays. Essential reading for anyone interested in Western Culture!!

(first published 2003; forward; 11 chapters; main narrative 245 pages; bibliography; lenders and photographic credits; index)

+++++

Oh, the British... can't cook... but they sure can GARDEN! Just when you thought Shakespeare's been overexposed ad nauseum et infinitum, you learn some surprising 'new' facts about his life that... that... wait for it... has nothing to do with a drop of ink from his plume (not directly, anyway). Amazingly, these plants are still here. TODAY!

As William the Bard would have written, "Wow!" or "Woweth!"

Definitely worth another trip to London.

When you purchase a book online, one that you are buying for the photographs, you are taking a risk that it will not meet your expectations. Rest assured that THIS book is one that is what you expect it to be and beyond. Not only are the photographs of the gardens beautiful, but most helpful, and unexpected, is the index of plants mentioned in Shakespeare's plays and poetry and the actual quotes themselves. A page is dedicated to each plant or tree. You won't go wrong in purchasing this beautiful and useful book.

If you are a lover of the various shakespeare film adaptations then you will certainly love this book. Mr. Rosenthal describes numerous films some direct adaptions and some which are just plan fun (Joe Macbeth for instance ). The bard should not be taken so seriously that fun cannot included in his study. This book explores the good and not so good. A great reference source.

At first glance this looks like one of those coffee table books that people buy to look like they'd know what they're talking about. But upon further examination, you'll find that it has everything you ever want to know about "Shakespeare on screen." There is a comprehensive table of contents and it index. Today if the film is an adoption of Shakespeare or just inspired by Shakespeare is in this book, grouped under the different plays of Shakespeare. For example, under chapter two on hamlet there are seven a different entries starting with the famous Lawrence Oliver 1948 classic down to the infamous Michael Almereyda 2000 modern adaptation. Be sure to look for my review of most of these.
In each section or chapter there is a breakdown of the basic play and some background information on that play. Then for each movie there is a list of the Cast, Directed by, Produced by, Photography, and music. Beach movies then further broken down into its elements.
Even though all this information is available in different books, Daniel Rosenthal was able to design this comprehensive and beautiful book to make you feel that you know all there is to know about Shakespeare in the movies.

Barry Clarke's book does more than just add to the strength of the Baconian case in the authorship debate. He brings his background of scientific rationality and logic (as a Mensa puzzle maker no less) to this literary puzzle. Following in the tradition of serious analysis recently led by N. B. Cockburn in his "The Bacon-Shakespeare Question", the two of them have now created what may be the One-Two punch that both overthrows the Stratfordian arguments and provides Bacon as the strongest likely Shake-speare author, by far.

First, Clarke reiterates the argument that William Shakspere shouldn't be considered the bona-fide author unless someone else can be "proved" beyond doubt to be so. Instead, since the authorship has long been doubted with no definitive proof for William Shakspere, the question should be carried out as a trial by evidence. Currently, there is only the presumption, based on tradition and plausabile circumstancial evidence, that Shakspere wrote the plays and poems under a name similar to his. (Remember, the Sonnets were written by "Shake-speare", not William Shakespeare.) And the recent evidence supporting Bacon's authorship (and there is a great deal of it) has not been examined by Shakespeare scholars.

Clarke's book is not long on speculation and short on substance, as I have seen in recent books in favor of the Earl of Oxford or for Mary Sidney. He provides facts and reasonable analysis leading to a supportable but unpopular conclusion on a question that too many intelligent people have stopped thinking about.

This is a work in the best traditions of academic scholarship: a wealth of evidence has been assembled and rigorously scrutinized in support of Clarke's `Bacon as [author of] Shakespeare' case, inferences have been drawn with meticulous care and a concern not to go beyond the evidence, and a wide field has been surveyed. Clarke is to be commended for having foregone the temptation to cash in on the current public appetite for sensationalized conspiracy theory, as most famously in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. Clarke is equally at home unravelling cryptographic and other clues, discussing Elizabethan legal process and locating all within the paranoid court atmosphere of the time, when to criticize powerful people, even obliquely, could easily be rewarded with a spell in the Tower of London. It is this last issue which provides the motive for the massive deception claimed.

Bacon's credentials as author of `Shakespeare's Works' are examined in depth. He is seen to be an ambitious man of prodigious and varied talents, and not - as has often been argued - a dry and stylistically stilted author whose sensibilities are restricted to science, the law and administration. Clarke not only offers up an extensive collection of allusions (both within `Shakespeare', hinting at another's authorship, and from materials penned by Bacon and others, hinting at involvement in drama authorship) but also some completely new cryptographic evidence unearthed by himself. At the same time Shakespeare's credentials as author are shown to be flimsy in the extreme.

The case which Clarke sets forth is often technical but always closely argued, and readers with an interest in pursuing the argument further will welcome the extensive annotated bibliography.

Over the years there have been a number of attempts to discredit `Shakespeare' as author of the works that bear his name, but to the best of my knowledge this is the only one which is uncompromising in its rigour. Thus far it has been relatively easy for dyed-in-the-wool `Shakespeare' disciples to refute or at the least to cast serious doubt on arguments against the bard's candidature, but this work changes all that. The vast number of scholars and others sustaining their careers on the premise that the Stratford man really was the author of `Shakespeare' will now have little choice but to ignore this devastating challenge, for they would seem to have little chance of refuting Clarke's evidence or his arguments.

My 13 year old daughter really enjoyed reading the book. She would stop reading and narrate back to me everything that was happening!

As a theatre educator, I enjoyed this historical fiction. Widge's adventures through Shakespeare's England are fantastic. A great read for all ages.