Shakespeare Books

I loved this book and thought it made me reach a higher intelligence level. I especialy loved the accent of the narrator. It was the best book I have ever read. The experience was overwhelming. The price may be big but it is worth it.

Nicholl probes the connections between Shakespeare's King Lear and alchemy in this entertaining book. First he discusses the alchemical milieu of the late 16th century in Europe and especially in England, analyzing the most influential books and pamphlets of the time. He then shows how the plot of Lear can be regarded as describing an alchemical transformation of the King.

Is he correct? I have no idea. But with his characteristically graceful writing, Nicholl brings to life the world of Renaissance alchemy and puts forth an interesting case for his thesis. Even if Lear is not an alchemical allegory, Nicholl points out several passages in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets with alchemical connotations.

Even if you're not interested in Shakespeare, this book is worth reading just to understand what exactly the phenomenon of alchemy was.

The life of William shakespear

Interesting commentaries help with understanding this text. Also it includes notes on the various versions of Shakespeare's play. Convenient size, too!

Leon Katz's volumes of classical monologues provide an excellent resouce tool for actors and educators. Some well-known, some deliciously obscure, these rich monolgues can expand and deepen an actor's repetoire of audition and class material. In addition, Mr. Katz's introductory notes to each monologue provide a wonderfully astute historical and theatrical context for each selection. A superb addition to the theatre practitioner's library.

A stirring murder mystery of love and betrayal, wrot with sword fights and bouts of melancholy. Here, our hero (Hamlet) entices us with his painful story of his fight for truth, with a wade through his murky mind. Poetic in places, Hamlet is one of Mr. Shakspeare's finest works.

A good source for the basic student new to Shakespeare. It helps clarify and answer questions. Doesn't go too far in depth and over the head of the student.

The audio was amazing. I listened to it in my car and within a week of driving to and from campus it was done! The voice can get a little boaring if you listen to it for more than an hour but not bad overall.

This is a user friendly and practical guide for high school theatre teachers. The exercises are useful and the worksheets tremendous. I have just completed a unit of Shakespearean scenes with my second and third year students and this was a helpful resource. For a more indepth book try Speaking Shakespeare Speaking Shakespeare

Of all of Coleridge's penetrating criticism of Shakespeare perhaps the most well- known is his analysis of the character of Hamlet. I quote the heart of it because it is simple pleasure to read this analysis of the great critic- creator on the master literary creator.

"In Hamlet he seems to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance between our attention to the objects of our senses, and our meditation on the workings of our minds, - an equilibrium between the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet this balance is disturbed : his thoughts, and the images of his fancy, are far more vivid than his actual perceptions, and his very perceptions, instantly passing through the medium of his contemplations, acquire, as they pass, a form and a colour not naturally their own. Hence we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shakspere places in circumstances, under which it is obliged to act on the spur of the moment :- Hamlet is brave and careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve. Thus it is that this tragedy presents a direct contrast to that of "Macbeth;" the one proceeds with the utmost slowness, the other with a crowded and breathless rapidity.

The effect of this overbalance of the imaginative power is beautifully illustrated in the everlasting broodings and superfluous "

Anyone who wishes to know what great literary criticism is should read and study this volume.