Shakespeare Books

As a teacher of 11th grade English, I ordered this text because I was curious about its supplementary material. Now I am committed to the Norton Critical Editions for EVERY Shakespeare play I teach in the future! My students were amazed and sometimes enthralled with the incredibly rich background material which supplemented their study of Macbeth. They especially loved comparing Lady Macbeth's invocation of evil forces, and her declaration of imagined infanticide, with Seneca's Medea, in which Medea declares she will sacrifice her children to punish her cheating husband. They were incredulous that Macbeth's witches were actually mentioned several times in Holinshed's history. The factual background for Macbeth's rise and fall, set within the context of the eleventh century, gave them a deeper understanding of his inherent brutality. They also were better able to appreciate the modern aspects of his personality as interpreted by Shakespeare by contrasting the Bard's Macbeth with Holinshed's details of the actual historical Macbeth. And they really enjoyed learning that Lady Macbeth's real name was Gruoch. (Several said they're going to name their dog or their first daughter after her! Ha, ha!) WHAT A SUPERIOR SOURCE for any teacher! Please buy this if you are reading, studying, or teaching Macbeth!

William Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth" was performed at the Globe Theater in 1605-06. The "Scottish" play was a calculated to be pleasing to James I, who took the throne of England after the death of Elizabeth Tudor in 1603. It was not simply that the play was set in the homeland of the Stuarts, but also that when Banquo's royal descendants are envisioned the last of them is the new King. (Note: Shakespeare does a similar sort of tribute to Queen Elizabeth when in the final act of "Henry VIII" the the Archbishop prophesizes great things for the infant Elizabeth. However, not only is there doubt that Shakespeare was the sole author of that particular history, it was not produced until 1612-13, ten years after Elizabeth's death.)

The play chronicles Macbeth's seizing the Scottish throne and his subsequent downfall, both aspects the result of blind ambition. However, one of the interesting aspects of "Macbeth" for me has always been its take on prophecy, which is decidedly different from the classical tradition. In the Greek myths there is no escaping your fate; in fact, one of the points of the story of Oedipus as told by Sophocles is that trying to resist your fate only makes things worse (the original prophecy was that Oedipus would slay his father; it was only after Jocasta sought to have her son killed to save her husband that the prophecy given Oedipus was that he would slay his father and marry his mother). In the Norse tradition prophecy is simply fate and manhood demands you simply resign yourself to what must happen.

But in "Macbeth" there is a different notion of prophecy that is compatible with what is found in the Bible: specifically, the idea that human beings simply cannot understand God's predictions. This is the case both with those who failed to understand the prophecies that foretold the birth of the Christ but also the book of Revelations, where the fate of the world is detailed in complex and essentially uncomprehensible symbolism. When Macbeth is presented with the first set of prophecies by the three witches, he is understandably dubious: he will become thane of Cawdor and then King, while Banquo will beget kings. However, when the first prophecy comes true, Macbeth begins to believe that the rest of the prophecy may come true. His fatal error, at least in the Greek tradition, is that he does not allow fate to bring him the crown, he takes active steps by slaying King Duncan. He compounds this error by projecting his ambitions onto Banquo; although Macbeth has Banquo killed, his son escapes to keep the prophecy intact.

Now the witches's prophecies are deceptively clear: no man born of woman may harm him and he is secure until trees start walking. Macbeth, who now believes in the inevitability of prophecy, fails to understand the fatal concept of loopholes. Thus, the nature of prophecy becomes an integral part of the play's dynamic.

Virtually all editions of Macbeth will have at least some annotations. Rummaging through five different editions, I preferred this Yale University Press version, edited by Burton Raffel, as having the most comprehensive and comprehensible notes, as well as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare's play. Raffel not only explains the meanings of obscure words, but also gives brief notes pertaining to relevant history, geography, stage directions, etc, that are rarely addressed as fully by other editors. In addition, Raffel frequently gives the proper way to stress the syllables in a line when reading it aloud, which can be extremely helpful. (However, in most places these stresses need to be very subtle, so that you don't sound like "taDUM taDUM taDUM".) And Yale's page layout is among the clearest that I've seen.

As a bonus, this edition includes at the back a long essay on the play by Harold Bloom. This is not an uninteresting commentary, but Bloom desperately needs a good editor. His essay is not only at least three times longer than it should be, but is startlingly repetitious. Yale would have been wise to have asked Bloom for a rewrite.

This book is a marvelous way to introduce young people to Shakespeare. The narrations help explain the action and help bring the moral lessons and beauty of Shakespeare to young people

I found this book incredibly useful for a recent research paper I had to complete on Shakespeare's Othello. It details the themes, imagery, and characters of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, Othello. You may also want to check out A.C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy and Bloom's Iago, both wonderful literary criticisms with some focus on Othello.

Lacking the words to express how you're feeling? No matter, just borrow from the Bard...you'll be waxing poetic Shakespeare-style in no time. You can write a sonnet for a loved one. Or throw insults that would make an Elizabethan theatre crowd cheer. With words ranging from bawdy to beautiful the creative possibilies are endless (and often hysterical). This is the ulitmate gift for any lover of Shakespeare. It works very well by itself and is also a great accompaniment to the basic magnetic poetry set. I absolutely love mine and it has provided hours of hilarious ( and vocabulary building) entertainment for everyone who ventures into my kitchen. Its irresistible!

If you're interested in Shakespearean verse-speaking and have a moderately high tolerance for scholarly writing, get this book. I've read just about everything on the topic, and written plenty as well, and this little-remembered classic is one of the best treatments around. It's sane, thorough, and completely convincing in its thesis: that the first third of Shakespeare's career was spent solving a crucial problem--"bringing his exuberant delight in words and figures of speech into harmony with the dependence of drama on character an action." From the smallest prosodic detail to the larger chronolgy of development, an absolute treat. Chapter 2 alone is worth its weight in gold.

Back in the late 1980s there was a small group of scholars working on the question of how Shakspeare's reputation was formed: people like Gary Taylor, Mike Bristol, Jonathan Bate. But this book was the best of the studies they produced -- witty, fluent, rich in evidence, persuasive in argument. It has changed forever the way we understand how Shakespeare has interacted with cultures since his own time. And it has lovely pictures.

Peter Sammartino writes an eloquent, concise view of the Shakespearean authorship question and the case for Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. I began my investigation into the authorship question here and I have now read virtually every book on the subject. This is a must read for all those interested in obtaining deeper meaning from the plays and the Sonnets. Highly recommended.

I bought this for my 14 yr old and she has just fallen in love with shakespeare. She now has 4 or 5 of his titles in this form and is just enjoying them. I mean she reads them all the time for fun. And she can converse about the themes and works enough to prove to me she is learning just as much as if she read the regular version.
It has lead to a love of literature from this time and has encouraged her to seek out other authers and works not in this form. Even a couple of my younger kids have picked them up. Well worth it!!!!