Shakespeare William

Pericles was one of the most popular plays of its time, and it has regained much of that popularity today. In a wide-ranging introduction, Roger Warren draws on his experience of the play in rehearsal and performance to explore the reasons for this enduring popularity. Unfortunately Pericles survives only in a corrupt text, the Quarto of 1609, in which many passages are nonsensical and others appear to be missing altogether. Earlier editions have merely cleaned-up the Quarto, but this edition offers a conjectural reconstruction of what the original play might have been like. It draws upon George Wilkin's The Painful Adventures of Pericles (1608) to emend some of the errors and missing material. It does so in the belief that the play is a collaboration between Shakespeare and Wilkins. The entire Quarto text is reprinted in an appendix, together with the passages from Wilkin's narrative that have particularly contributed to the reconstruction, so that readers can see for themselves how the reconstruction has been made.

Shakespeare's Henry VI plays dramatize contemporary as much as Elizabethan issues: the struggle for power, the manoeuvres of politicians, social unrest, civil war. This edition draws on experience of the play in rehearsal and performance to focus on both its theatricality and contemporary relevance in a wide-ranging introduction and detailed commentary.

Love's Labour's Lost, the first work to bear Shakespeare's name on its title page, differs greatly from his other early plays both for its highly unorthodox ending and its extraordinary use of language. This new edition presents a highly readable, modernised text of the play, freshly edited from the first quarto published in 1598. A thorough but concise scholarly and critical commentary provides exciting new perspectives on Love's Labour's Lost, and a comprehensive introduction discusses the significant elements of the play and its place in theatrical history. New critical trends are reflected in the special attention paid to the play's performance history since 1950, including films and adaptations, with illustrations of several productions. Engaging and illuminating, this will be an invaluable guide for seasoned scholars as well as students approaching the play for the first time.

Shakespeare's As You Like It can appear bright or sombre in performance: a feast of language and a delight for comic actors; or a risk-taking exploration of gender roles. This updated edition, containing a brand new Introduction, provides an account of what makes this popular play both innocent and dangerous. There is a section on recent critical, stage and film interpretations of the play, an updated reading list and a new appendix on an early court performance of As You Like It in 1599. Mapping the complexities of the play's setting — a no man's land related to both France and England, the edition also includes detailed commentary on its language and an analytical account of performance.

King Richard III is one of Shakespeare's most popular and frequently performed plays. Janis Lull's introduction to this new edition, based on the First Folio, emphasises the play's tragic themes — individual identity, determinism and choice — and stresses the importance of women's roles in the play. It also underscores the special relationship between Richard III and Macbeth, demonstrating that the later tragedy re-examines issues raised in the earlier one. A thorough performance history of stage and film versions of Richard III shows how the text has been cut, rewritten and reshaped by directors and actors to enhance the role of Richard at the expense of other parts, especially those of the women. This updated edition contains a new introductory section covering recent criticism and performances — including the RSC cycles of the history plays — of this perennially popular play. The notes define the play's language in terms easily accessible to contemporary readers.

One of the greatest of Shakespeare`s tragedies, `Othello` tells the story of a Moorish general in command of the armed forces of Venice, who earns the enmity of his ensign Iago by passing him over for a promotion. Partly for revenge and partly out of pure evil, Iago plots to convince Othello that Desdemona, his wife, has been unfaithful to him. Iago succeeds in his evil aims only too well, for the enraged Othello murders Desdemona. When Othello later learns of her innocence, he takes his own life. Bleak and unsparing, this play offers a stunning portrait of an arch-villain and an astute psychological study of the nature of evil.

Classic / British English Bassanio wants to get married, but he has no money and a lot of debts. He asks his friend Antonio for a loan, but Antonio is waiting for his ships to return. Until then, he has nothing to lend. To help Bassanio, he borrows money from a money-lender and agrees to an unusual condition. If Antonio cannot repay the loan in three months, the money-lender will cut a pound of flesh from his body. Will Antonio be able to repay the loan? Or will he die?

Memorable historical drama concerns rebellion against King Henry led by Harry Percy («Hotspur») and other nobles, complicated by the king's difficulties with his wayward son, Prince Hal. Superb blend of courtly intrigue, battlefield action, and low comedy featuring Sir John Falstaff, all expressed in fine blank verse and stirring prose.

Running an emotional gamut from betrayal and broken hearts to romance and reconciliation, this 1611 tragicomedy begins with the tyrannical actions of a jealous king, whose baseless suspicions destroy his own family. The play's second half takes place 16 years later, when the lively plot takes a lighthearted turn, abounding in song and dance.

Samurai warriors have reclaimed a future post-nuclear world of mutants in the original manga version of Shakespeare's tale of skulduggery. The series keeps true to Shakespeare's original text, but is specially abridged for use in the manga, which makes it ideal for students to use as a primer and a way of getting to grips with the themes in Shakespeare's plays. A fusion of classic Shakespeare with manga visuals, these are cutting-edge books that will intrigue and grip readers.

This manga recreation of Shakespeare's text transfers the action from Ancient Rome to a future Iraq, once again facing dictatorship after its prolonged struggles to establish a democracy. Part of the successful Manga Shakespeare series, a fusion of classic Shakespeare with manga visuals. The titles available in the series so far are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Richard III, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth. Features b/w illustrations with a 9-page colour section.

Shakespeare's enduring characters are set adrift in present-day Athens, but a present with a massive difference — an alternative history. Rigid class systems and 'god given' monarchies of the past have not been lost. Modern technologies meet ancient tradition; and the citizens of Athens are frustrated by continuing restrictions and hierarchies. Only the forest, home to the fairies and fey spirits can offer the illicit lovers what they seek.

This is the most extensively annotated edition of Macbeth currently available, offering a thorough reconsideration of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. A full and accessible updated introduction studies the immediate theatrical and political contexts of Macbeth's composition, especially the Gunpowder Plot and the contemporary account of an early performance at the Globe. It treats such issues as whether the Witches compel Macbeth to murder; whether Lady Macbeth is herself in some sense a witch; whether Banquo is Macbeth's accomplice in crime; and what criticism is levelled against Macduff. Several possible new sources are suggested, and the presence of Thomas Middleton's writing in the play is proposed. An extensive, well-illustrated account of the play in performance examines several cinematic versions, such as those by Kurosawa and Roman Polanski, and a brand new introductory section on recent performances and adaptations brings the edition completely up-to-date.

Representing the full richness of Shakespeare's writing, the World's Classics offer the best value critical editions of his plays. Authoritative and up to date, they are 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare'.

Audiences have always delighted in the robust comedy and verbal inventiveness of The Taming of the Shrew. It has survived many adaptations ranging from, probably, the play printed in 1594 as The Taming of the Shrew through several eighteenth-century versions to modern-dress productions and transformations into ballet, musical, film, and opera. Introducing this new edition, H.J. Oliver pays attention to the play's theatrical virtues while also providing a deeply considered study of its textual problems, structural complexities, and interpretive challenges.

The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's most varied, theatrically self-conscious, and emotionally wide-ranging plays. This edition provides a newly edited text, a comprehensive introduction that takes into account current critical thinking, and a detailed commentary on the play's language designed to make it easily accessible to contemporary readers. Much of the play's copiousness inheres in its generic intermingling of tragedy, comedy, romance, pastoral, and the history play. In addition to dates and sources, the introduction attends to iterative patterns, the nature and cause of Leontes' jealousy, the staging and meaning of the bear episode, and the thematic and structural implications of the figure of Time. Special attention is paid to the ending and its tempered happiness. Performance history is integrated throughout the introduction and commentary. Textual analysis, four appendices — including the theatrical practice of doubling, and a select chronology of performance history — and a reading list complete the edition.

Probably the most famous play in the English language, Hamlet transcends the revenge tradition and explores the nature of man. Learning that his father has been killed by Claudius, his uncle. Hamlet's only honourable course of action is revenge. But Hamlet's nature tends not towards action but reflection and in his incapacity to act lies the seed of his own destruction. Полный, неадаптированный текст произведения.

Полный, неадаптированный текст произведения.

In this quintessential Shakespearean drama, Hamlet's halting pursuit of revenge for his father's death unfolds in a series of highly charged confrontations that climax in tragedy. The play is reprinted here from an authoritative British edition complete with illuminating footnotes.

Series Description Read Shakespeare in all its brilliance and actually understand what it means. Each No Fear Shakespeare contains the complete text of the original play, a line-by-line translation, a complete list of characters, and plenty of helpful commentary. No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete text of Antony and Cleopatra on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right. Each No Fear Shakespeare contains: The complete text of the original play; A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday language; A complete list of characters with descriptions; Plenty of helpful commentary.

In his own time, Shakespeare was best known to the reading public as a poet, and even today copies of his Sonnets regularly outsell everything else he wrote. For this edition, Stephen Orgel offers a warmly personal and original introduction to Shakespeare's best-loved and most widely read poems. Careful readings emphasize their sexual and temperamental ambiguity, their textual history and the special perils an editor faces when modernizing the original quarto's spelling, punctuation, and even layout. The edition retains the text of the Sonnets prepared by Gwynne Evans, together with his detailed notes on each, and a line-by-line commentary. Throughout, the 'voices' of the sonnets appear in all their intricacy and dramatic power.

Since the rediscovery of Elizabethan stage conditions early this century, admiration for Measure for Measure has steadily risen. It is now a favourite with the critics and has attracted widely different styles of performance. At one extreme, the play is seen as a religious allegory; at the other, it has been interpreted as a comedy protesting against power and privilege. Brian Gibbons focuses on the unique tragi-comic experience of watching the play, the intensity and excitement offered by its dramatic rhythm, the reversals and surprises which shock the audience even to the end. His introduction considers how the play's critical reception and stage history have varied according to prevailing social, moral and religious issues, which have remained highly sensitive. This updated edition contains a new introductory section by Angela Stock, which describes recent stage, film and critical interpretations, and an updated reading list.

Titus Andronicus is still regarded by many as a bad play of dubious authorship. Its adversaries have abhorred the violence of the action and the apparent lapses in the quality of the verse. Since 1945, however, the play has been taken increasingly seriously in both the theatre and the study: the violence and cruelty it depicts were disconcertingly matched by the events of two World Wars. Hughes joins those critics who take the play seriously, arguing for its unity of theme and its grim humour, and demonstrates that it is the work of a brilliant stage craftsman, confident in his mastery of space, movement and verse. The text is based on the first quarto, supplemented by crucial additions and stage directions from the Folio. For this updated edition, a new section is included on recent stage, film and critical interpretations by Sue Hall-Smith. An updated reading list completes the edition.

This is a fully annotated edition of all the poems which are now generally regarded as Shakespeare's, excluding the Sonnets. It contains Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim, and A Lover's Complaint. The introduction to the two long narrative poems examines their place within the classical and Renaissance European traditions, an issue which also applies to The Phoenix and the Turtle. John Roe analyses the conditions in which the collection was produced, and weighs the evidence for and against Shakespeare's authorship of A Lover's Complaint and the much-debated question of its genre. He demonstrates how in his management of formal tropes Shakespeare, like the best Elizabethans, fashions a living language out of handbook oratory. This updated edition contains a new introductory section on recent critical interpretations and an updated reading list.