These Books Among Us

Shakespeare by Another Name by Mark Anderson (640 pages) My Rating: 1.5 Stars Date Read: 14 December 2016 Synopsis: The debate over the true author of Shakespeare’s body of work (some of which was published under the name “Shake-speare”) began not long after the death of William Shakespeare, the obscure actor and entrepreneur from Stratford-upon-Avon who was conventionally assumed to be the author. There were natural doubts that an uneducated son of a glover who never left England and apparently owned no books could have produced some of the greatest works of Western literature. Early investigators into the mystery argued for such eminent figures as Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon as possible authors, but recent scholarship has turned to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true Shakespeare. “Shakespeare” by Another Name is the first complete literary biography of Edward de Vere that tells the story of his action-packed life—as student, soldier, courtier, lawyer,...

The Tempest by William Shakespeare ( pages) My Rating: 4 Stars Date Read: 4 November 2016 Synopsis: “Sources and Contexts” offers a rich collection of documents on the play’s central themes—magic and witchcraft, politics and religion, geography and travel. Writers include Ovid, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Gabriel Naudé, Michel de Montaigne, and William Strachey. “Criticism” collects eighteen responses to The Tempest, from John Dryden and Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Stephen Orgel and Leah Marcus. “Rewritings and Appropriations” includes creative reactions to The Tempest, by playwrights, filmmakers, and poets, among them H.D., Peter Greenaway, and Ted Hughes. A Selected Bibliography is also included. My Review: I had to read this play  for my Shakespeare class in college and it was the first time I had ever read it. This was an interesting play, and I'm not sure where it will fit on my scale for my favorite Shakespearean plays. While the plot was pretty straight...

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will by William Shakespeare (430 pages) My Rating: 3.5 Stars Date Read: 25 October 2016 Synopsis: This edition of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night reprints the Bevington edition of the play along with 7 sets of thematically arranged primary documents and illustrations designed to facilitate many different approaches to Shakespeare's play and the early modern culture out of which the play emerges. The texts include facsimiles of period documents, maps, woodcuts, descriptions of the popular customs associated with Twelfth Night, anti-theatrical tracts, royal proclamations concerning dress, laws prohibiting certain sexual acts, poems fantasizing those very acts, early modern texts on household economies, passages from Puritan conduct books, excerpts from Ovid and Montaigne, a representative range of early modern opinions about boy actors, and theories of laughter. Besides contextualizing the audience for Shakespeare's play and shedding light on ...

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (398 pages) My Rating: 4.5 Stars Date Read: 25 September 2016 Synopsis: This Norton Critical Edition of Hamlet features a newly edited text based on the Second Quarto (1604–05). It is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations and appendices providing important passages from both the First Quarto Hamlet (1603) and the Folio Hamlet (1623). Robert S. Miola’s thought-provoking introduction, “Imagining Hamlet,” considers this tragedy as it has taken shape in the theater, in criticism, and in various cultures. “The Actors’ Gallery” presents famous actors and actresses—among them Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, Kenneth Branagh, and Jude Law—reflecting on their roles in major productions of Hamlet for stage and screen. “Contexts” includes generous selections from the Bible, Greek (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides) and Roman (Seneca) tragedies, Saxo Grammaticus, Dante, Thomas More, and Thomas Kyd. ...

King Lear by William Shakespeare (288 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Finished: 7 February 2015 Synopsis: Criticism provides thirteen major critical interpretations and three provocative adaptations and responses toKing Lear. Critical interpretation is provided by Samuel Johnson, Charles Lamb, Peter Brook, Michael Warren, Lynda E. Boose, Janet Adelman, and R. A. Foakes, among others. The adaptations and responses are by Nahum Tate, John Keats, and Edward Bond. A Selected Bibliography is also included. My Review: I really enjoyed this play. It is definitely one that I would recommend to anyone who likes Shakespearean tragedies!! The characters were very interestingly developed throughout the play. I really enjoyed seeing the development of the relationship between King Lear and his daughters. Also, seeing the characters fall deeper and deeper into their own insanity was very interesting as well. Act three of the play shows the audience even more of Lear’s descent into madn...

Twelfth Night: Or What You Will by William Shakespeare (256 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Finished: 24 January 2015 Synopsis: Roger Warren & Stanley Wells (Editors) Twelfth Night is one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays in the modern theatre, and this edition places particular emphasis on its theatrical qualities throughout. Peopled with lovers misled either by disguises or their own natures, it combines lyrical melancholy with broad comedy. The introduction analyses its many views of love and the juxtaposition of joy and melancholy, while the detailed commentary pays particular attention to its linguistic subtleties. Music is particularly important in Twelfth Night, and this is the only modern edition to offer material for all the music required in a performance. Publisher: Oxford University Press Paperback ISBN 9780199536092 My Review: I really enjoyed this play. I studied it in high school and I am studying it again in college. It is just so much fun. ...