William Shakespeare Books

Tillyard considers four of Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, All's Well that Ends Well, and Measure for Measure 'problem plays. In a problem play according to Tillyard speculative thought and the observation of human nature are not fully integrated into the action of the play, but rather have disproportionate space in the play in their own right. Problem plays too deal with characters on the verge of adulthood who must face difficult realities which lead them towards maturity. Tillyard argues that the Plays are not as gloomy as many might think. He also does not like the kind of criticism which makes simple links between some imagined crisis in the life of Shakespeare and the writing of the plays. He also stresses that the theme of 'mercy and forgiveness' is central in these plays most especially in 'Measure for Measure'.
This is a thoughtful critical study.

We tend to think of Shakespeare as the finished product he is today, the plays we see on stage with their costumes and trappings and the world's best actors, or those aspirants in High School tripping over light cables behind the scenery. He had a beginning, though, and like everyone who survived to adulthood in his age, he worked for a living. Reading this book you can imagine him trotting on stage for his part in a play, getting called up during a rehearsal to recast some lines one of the other actors found uncongenial. Rather like Beetle in Stalky and Co., only more solid somehow. It is a splendid book and illustrates the man and his age with the effortlessness of good scholarship. It is too short, but for those who really want to know what things were like around Shakespeare in his own day, get this book. Imagine Shakespeare helping to lug the giant timbers of a large building across the frozen Thames to build the Globe. Back then as now, Theatre people did what had to be done for the show to go on.

Many of today's readers - including many Shakespeare scholars - do not realise how frequently Shakespeare uses, or adapts, proverbs or similar sayings current and popular in his day. Thus, as not even the Oxford English Dictionary is strong in this area, a good reference book listing the proverbs we find in Shakespeare is quite indispensable: without it, we frequently cannot understand his originality and/or contact with 'folk wisdom" of his day, and even run the risk - quite often - of simply misunderstanding what he says. This compilation by Dent is generally recognised as the best of its kind: while much help is also provided by M.P. Tilley's famous Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1950), and by F.P. Wilson's updated Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs (1970), Dent is yet more comprehensive. He might have offered more explanation of the meaning of the proverbs, but usually that becomes clear from the many examples he quotes. A REPRINT IS VERY MUCH NEEDED. - Joost Daalder, Profesor of English, Flinders University (South Australia)

This is a wonderful collection of essays on Richard II. Especially noteworthy is Morgan Griffin's brilliant introduction to the critical history of the play, which synthesizes and critiques decades of scholarly work.

This is great for the beginner learning about the arts! A fabulous collection..a must have....for any library!

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 CD collection is an absolute joy. Mr Butler brings the sonnets to life with his clear elocution and his obvious understanding of the verses. the sonnets are not easy reading. I have heard people say"They are incomprehensible" Not this rendition. Every word has a meaning and Mr Butler makes sure we hear and understand each one. His"accent free"accent lends itself to this recording and we progress,like a running stream thru the total collection, with every sonnet sounding as fresh as its predecessor. Mr Butler's eloquence and Mr Shakespeare's writing makes this a winning collection for everyone,students,male, female, romantics and lovers, young and old

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

I have just finished a research project for my Masters class. The project was about the Philosophies found in Shakespeare's Sonnets. Edmondson's book was very helpful. Every sonnet is diagrammed through a chart so you know which theme applies to each sonnet. This was extremely important because I was studying the "young patron" and "dark lady" sonnets. There are even charts which map the sonnets that are addressed to male and female companions. The language Edmondson uses is easy to read and follow and very quotable. I was glad to have this book as a reference during my project on the sonnets. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has studied or wants a companion to Shakespeare's sonnets.

The debate surrounding Shakespeare's Sonnets has raged on for a long time, and much of the scholarship on them has remained nebulous, repetitive, and overworked. James Schiffer's volume, however, is refreshingly brilliant and provocative: the essays he includes address an array of topics that are often overlooked, while many of the arguments are simultaneously revisionist and visionary, challenging the conventional wisdom that has guided the criticism on the Sonnets for so long. And what's even better, the arguments are beautifully and meticulously presented, crafted by some of the foremost Shakespeareans of our time.