Shakespeare Books

Unless you're rich. Then go ahead

This book is a great way to get your kids interested in these famous plays. The pages are meant to be photocopied and cut out, so a whole classroom can enjoy it as a project, then perform the play! My students had fun and learned a lot.

I actually received this book from a teacher of mine, thinking that it would be "useful" for a college English major. When I picked it up and actually began to read it, however, I was instantly amazed, not only by the wealth of information, but how truly fascinating it all was. Not only does Marchette Chute examine Shakespeare and his works, but the times in which he lived, the people with whom he interacted, and the world of the London theater that he was so much a part of. This book has not only given me a greater understanding and affection for Shakespeare, but has sparked a new interest in the Elizabethan theater in general.

I was looking for a shakespeare book with some topical quotes. This was just what I wanted, and the introduction was very funny too. The obscure facts included in the book from the period was also very interesting to read about...

A real gift book!
Well chosen,
well combined (text and image)
well designed (nice fonts, good quality reproductions).

Congratulations!

This book was great! The way the poems were put together was marvolous!! I would recommend this book to all ages!

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.

Great book, so is Teachers editon. Along with "Picture This Shakespeare" this is wonderful for the novice, or the "hater" of Shakespeare. I love this and so do my kids- I homeschool.

Shakespeare on Toast: A Delightful Holistic Introduction to Shakespeare

Told in bite-sized scenes, and arranged into five acts, Shakespeare on Toast gives a wholesome helping of Shakespeare in each take. The book ranges on comprehensive topics from history and setting to language (quite detailed for an introductory book) to a rather idiosyncratic analysis of an entire scene from Macbeth, as well as incidental factoids... such as the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently got his first role in an American film when his friend convinced the producers that he was a famous Shakespearean actor back in Austria. But, also mentioned in the same breath in the book's "opening scene," he's perhaps better known as a "Shakespearean actor" playing Hamlet in the 1993 movie Last Action Hero, wherein he blasts away at Polonius with an Uzi and decides "not to be" in a rather explosive way.

Throughout the volume, Ben Crystal gives several examples that Shakespeare is actually still quite alive. There's the hackneyed veneration he gets for inventing a plethora of words and sayings in modern English. There's the myriad modern incarnations in both everyday culture and other theatrical presentations. And also, Crystal weaves out an interesting allusion between jazz and Shakespeare's words, and even goes as far as to include figures of syllable-graphs, which visually show the variation in numbers of syllables per line, comparing it with the variations of a jazz master. By analyzing meter and language, Crystal suggests that Shakespeare is really quite with us--"directing from the grave," that verse (from the folios) is more like sheet music; thus lines with fewer syllables end with (musical) rests, where an actor pauses in speech and does a particular action associated with the line.

Also covered is the mystery of the man, his plays and sonnets, and his times. There's the assertion an actor would make that the Bard, were he alive now, would be more of a soap opera writer than a Nobel Prize laureate (or perhaps a soap-opera-writer-become-Nobel-Prize-laureate). Indeed, this is also supported by the fact that, unlike Ben Jonson and others, Shakespeare never made efforts to ensure the longevity of his plays (the good folio was apparently published by two of his actors [while Crystal did not mention this, but incidentally, I might ask might they be the real author(s)?], and the quartos by rival companies and others wishing for a bit of the pie through his fame), suggesting that perhaps he really did write his plays purely for his times and to earn a living.

Along with a review of many aspects relating to Shakespeare, though often told from a different perspective, the book is also filled with many interesting factoids. Some interesting ones include: The Elizabethan (and other earlier era) audiences were more gullible, and were more easily drawn into the world of the play (such that an audience member was so disgusted by Iago in a production of Othello in the 1800s that he shot him during the show!), whereas, nowadays, we take any spectacular sight to be CGI or just another special effect, and good acting to be just acting (and not a sign that a person really *is* like that). The tradition of richness in costume existed as early as then--when Phil Henslowe spent the equivalent of about $5000 (us dollars) on a fancy cloak. And also... when you read Shakespeare your Sylvian fissure "lights up like a Christmas tree."

The title of this set: "Shakespear's Oracle" is slightly misleading to those searching around for just the right Tarot deck- but make no mistake, this IS a tarot set(complete 78 cards, major/minor arcana). The great thing about this deck is the subject: Shakespere's plays and characters are so inbedded in our culture(even after 400 years)that it's easy to relate to them(his character's also "reflect" the Tarot's images: King Henry VIII as the "Emperor"- no other historical figure could fit this card better!. Even if you are not familiar with Shakespere(a rare condition!), it's still easy to see the similarities between them. Glad I picked this one up and highly recommend it to any Tarot reader. 5 stars!