Author: williamshakespeare
Complete Works of William Shakespeare is the standard name given to any volume containing all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. Some editions include several works which were not completely of Shakespeare’s authorship (collaborative writings), such as The Two Noble Kinsmen, a collaboration with John Fletcher, Pericles, Prince of Tyre or Edward III.This is the one and only illustrated … illustrated edition of a complete Shakespeare collection including everything that ever made by the great writer William Shakespeare.The greatest works in all of English literature in one book.This Book contains Shakespeare’s complete plays and complete poems in a new,…
This interactive e-book edition of SHAKESPEARE MADE EASY: MERCHANT OF VENICE allows you to move easily back-and-forth between the original text and the modern text of the play. By clicking on a character’s name in the original text, you are taken to the same place in the modern text, and vice versa. The back-of-book exercises also contain links that take you directly to the lines in the play … play referenced in specific practice questions. more
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare stages the workings of love. Theseus and Hippolyta, about to marry, are figures from mythology. In the woods outside Theseus’ Athens, two young men and two young women sort themselves out into couples–but not before they form first one love triangle, and then another. Also in the woods, the king and queen of fairyland, Oberon and Titania, battle over … battle over custody of an orphan boy; Oberon uses magic to make Titania fall in love with a weaver named Bottom, whose head is temporarily transformed into that of a donkey by a hobgoblin…
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud. In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers’ final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the … world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers. The…
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most popular, and most puzzling, play. It follows the form of a “revenge tragedy,” in which the hero, Hamlet, seeks vengeance against his father’s murderer, his uncle Claudius, now the king of Denmark. Much of its fascination, however, lies in its uncertainties. Among them: What is the Ghost–Hamlet’s father demanding justice, a tempting demon, an angelic messenger? Does … angelic messenger? Does Hamlet go mad, or merely pretend to? Once he is sure that Claudius is a murderer, why does he not act? Was his mother, Gertrude, unfaithful to her husband or complicit in his murder? The…
Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the suffering of others. Lear himself rages until his sanity cracks. What, then, keeps bringing us back to King Lear? For all the force of its language, King Lear is almost equally powerful when translated, … powerful when translated, suggesting that it is the story, in large part, that draws us to the play. The play tells us about families struggling between greed and cruelty, on the one hand, and…
In Richard III, Shakespeare invites us on a moral holiday. The play draws us to identify with Richard and his fantasy of total control of self and domination of others. Not yet king at the start of the play, Richard presents himself as an enterprising villain as he successfully plans to dispose of his brother Clarence. Richard achieves similar success in conquering the woman he chooses to marry. … to marry. He carves a way to the throne through assassination and executions. The authoritative edition of Richard III from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series…
Love and marriage are the concerns of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Lucentio’s marriage to Bianca is prompted by his idealized love of an apparently ideal woman. Petruchio’s wooing of Katherine, however, is free of idealism. Petruchio takes money from Bianca’s suitors to woo her, since Katherine must marry before her sister by her father’s decree; he also arranges the dowry with her … with her father. Petruchio is then ready to marry Katherine, even against her will. Katherine, the shrew of the play’s title, certainly acts much changed. But have she and Petruchio learned to love each other?…
In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended the English throne, becoming James I of England. London was alive with an interest in all things Scottish, and Shakespeare turned to Scottish history for material. He found a spectacle of violence and stories of traitors advised by witches and wizards, echoing James’s belief in a connection between treason and witchcraft. In depicting a man who murders to … murders to become king, Macbeth teases us with huge questions. Is Macbeth tempted by fate, or by his or his wife’s ambition? Why does their success turn to ashes? Like other plays, Macbeth speaks…
The Winter’s Tale, one of Shakespeare’s very late plays, is filled with improbabilities. Before the conclusion, one character comments that what we are about to see, “Were it but told you, should be hooted at / Like an old tale.” It includes murderous passions, man-eating bears, princes and princesses in disguise, death by drowning and by grief, oracles, betrayal, and unexpected joy. Yet the … joy. Yet the play, which draws much of its power from Greek myth, is grounded in the everyday. A “winter’s tale” is one told or read on a long winter’s night. Paradoxically, this winter’s tale…