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Shakespeare: The Biography | | Peter Ackroyd | | 2005 |
| Peter Ackroyd's marvellous biography is a living attempt to
reach into the world and heart of Shakespeare. He creates an
intimate and immediate connection with his subject, so that
the book reads like the work of a contemporary - meeting Shakespeare
afresh on his own ground. This biography is neither an academic
description nor a didactic analysis. Written with intuition
and imagination unique to Peter Ackroyd, a book by a writer
about a writer, brilliant and straightforward, it vividly presents
the reader with the circumstances of Shakespeare's life and
art. |
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Shakespeare: The Life, the Works, the Treasures | | Catherine M.S. Alexander | | 2007 |
| Produced in association
with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and beautifully illustrated
with both contemporary pictures from Shakespeare's time
and photographs of RSC performances, this book brings
the poet's life alive. It delves into the likely sources
that inspired him to write his masterpieces and assesses
the influences of subsequent generations of performers
who have shown the 'infinite variety' with which Shakespeare's
work can be adapted for all forms of media. This book
is unique in containing 30 items of removable facsimile
memorabilia. |
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Globe: Life in Shakespeare's London | | Catharine Arnold | | 2015 |
| Arnold creates a vivid
portrait of Shakespeare and his London from the bard's
own plays and contemporary sources, combining a novelist's
eye for detail with a historian's grasp of his unique
contribution to the development of the English theatre.
We learn about James Burbage, founder of the original
Theatre in Shoreditch, of the terrible night in 1613 when
the Globe caught fire, how, rebuilt, the Globe continued
to stand as a monument to Shakespeare's genius until it
was destroyed in 1642, and how, finally, Shakespeare's
Globe opened once more upon the Bankside. |
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White Hart Red Lion | | Nick Asbury | | 2013 |
| Nick Asbury acted in the
Royal Shakespeare Company's famed Histories cycle which
staged Shakespeare's vision of the deposition of Richard
II through to the notorious Battle of Bosworth in 1485.
With fellow RSC actors for company, Nick Asbury travels
the country visiting the buildings, landscapes and former
sites of war and intrigue that feature in the plays, and
asks the question: what is it about the England of Shakespeare's
Histories that continues to fascinate? This is his snapshot
of England and its people, then and now. |
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Exit Pursued By a Badger | | Nick Asbury | | 2013 |
| Nick Asbury was in the
ensemble from the RSC who, over the course of two and
a half years, performed eight history plays by Shakespeare
in repertory. Through Nick's engaging, observant, often
hilarious words, we experience the camaraderie of actors,
the terror of forgetting lines, technical difficulties,
money problems, finding strange things in the bath, thirty-three
broadsword fights and, of course, the ever-present threat
of being assaulted by demented badgers after a performance.
This is a terric true story of actors at work and Shakespeare
in performance. |
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Playing Shakespeare | | John Barton | | 1984 |
| John Barton attempts a reasonably objective analysis of how
Shakespeare's text actually works, examining the use of verse
and prose, set speeches and soliloquies, language and character.
He also concentrates on the more subjective areas such as irony
and ambiguity, passion and coolness. The book springs from a
tv series, in which these various topics were investigated by
Barton and a group of Shakespearean actors. Useful for actors
and scholars, this book will also aid teachers and students
working on Shakespeare's plays in the classroom. |
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Soul of the Age | | Jonathan Bate | | 2008 |
| How did plague turn Shakespeare
from a hack into a courtly poet? How did Bottom's dream
rewrite the Bible? How did Shakespeare's plays lead to
the deaths of an earl and a king? Why was he the one dramatist
of his time never to be imprisoned? Weaving a dazzling
tapestry of Elizabethan beliefs and obsessions, private
passions and political intrigues, Jonathan Bate's Soul
of The Age leads us on a breathtaking tour of the
extraordinary, colourful and often violent world that
shaped and informed Shakespeare's thinking. |
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The Genius of Shakespeare | | Jonathan Bate | | 2008 |
| Who was Shakespeare? Why has his writing endured? What makes
it so endlessly adaptable to different times and cultures? And
how has Shakespeare come to be such a powerful symbol of genius?
The Genius of Shakespeare is a fascinating biography
of the life - and afterlife - of the greatest English poet.
Jonathan Bate, one of the world's leading Shakespearean scholars,
deftly shows how the legend of Shakespeare's genius was created
and sustained, and how it has become a truly global phenomenon.
This is the best book about Shakespeare for a generation. |
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How the Classics Made Shakespeare | | Jonathan Bate | | 2019 |
| Ben Jonson accused Shakespeare
of having "small Latin and less Greek." He was exaggerating.
Shakespeare was steeped in the classics. Shaped by his
grammar school education in Roman literature, history,
and rhetoric, he moved to London, a city that modeled
itself on ancient Rome. He worked in a profession that
had inherited the conventions and forms of classical drama,
and he read deeply in Ovid, Virgil, and Seneca. Jonathan
Bate, one of the world’s leading authorities on Shakespeare,
offers groundbreaking insights into how the classics made
Shakespeare the writer he became. |
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William Shakespeare: Complete Works | | Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (editors) | | 2007 |
| The text in this edition is based on the 1623 First Folio,
the first and original Complete Works lovingly assembled and
seen into print by Shakespeare's fellow-actors. The First
Folio is a literary icon and is the version of Shakespeare's
text preferred by many actors and directors. At the request
of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
have used the very latest techniques and research to correct
the errors and variations found in the early printed copies
and to present the First Folio for modern readers. |
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This Wide and Universal Theater | | David Bevington | | 2007 |
| This book explores how Shakespeare’s plays were produced both
in his own time and in succeeding centuries. Making use of historical
documents and the playscripts themselves, Bevington brings Shakespeare’s
original stagings to life. He explains how the Elizabethan playhouse
conveyed a sense of place using minimal scenery. He then shows
the lengths to which 18th- and 19th-century companies went to
produce spectacular effects. Finally, he considers recent productions
on both stage and screen, when character and language have taken
precedence over spectacle. |
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Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human | | Harold Bloom | | 1998 |
| In this book Harold Bloom
expounds a brilliant and far-reaching critical theory:
that Shakespeare was, through his dramatic characters,
the inventor of human personality as we have come to understand
it. In short, Shakespeare invented our understanding of
ourselves. In a chronological survey of each of the plays,
Bloom explores the supra-human personalities of Shakespeare’s
great protagonists. They represent the apogee of Shakespeare’s
art, that art which is Britain’s most powerful and dominant
cultural contribution to the world. |
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The Shakespeare Trail | | Zoe Bramley | | 2015 |
| This fascinating book takes
the reader from the place of Shakespeare's birth at Stratford-upon-Avon
all the way to London, the beating heart of Early Modern
theatreland. On the way, well-known locations such as
Anne Hathaway’s cottage and the Globe Theatre are uncovered,
but also some surprising nooks and crannies in a place
Shakespeare knew well – the old City of London. Packed
with walking tours, visitor information, maps and photographs,
The Shakespeare Trail will open the door to Will
from Stratford by guiding you to the places he knew. |
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The Quality of Mercy | | Peter Brook | | 2013 |
| In this book one of the world's most revered theatre directors
reflects on a fascinating variety of Shakespearean topics. In
this sequence of essays Peter Brook debates such questions as
who was the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays, why Shakespeare
is never out of date, and how actors should approach Shakespeare's
verse. He also revisits some of the plays which he has directed
with notable brilliance. Taken as a whole, this short but immensely
wise book offers an illuminating and provocative insight into
a great director's relationship with our greatest playwright. |
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Shakespeare: The World as a Stage | | Bill Bryson | | 2007 |
| Examining centuries of myths, half-truths and downright lies,
Bill Bryson tries to make sense of the man behind the masterpieces.
In a journey through the streets of Shakespeare's time, he brings
to life the hubbub of Elizabethan England and a host of characters
along the way. Bryson celebrates the glory of Shakespeare's
language and delights in details of his fall-outs and folios,
poetry and plays. Stitching together information from a vast
array of sources, he has created a unique celebration of one
of the most significant, and least understood, figures in history. |
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Nothing Like the Sun | | Anthony Burgess | | 1964 |
| The life and loves of Shakespeare
have been open to as much speculation as his work. Did
he really love Anne Hathaway, and was the Earl of Southampton
just a friend? Anthony Burgess takes on the Bard in a
vivid and lusty novel. This is a magnificent, bawdy telling
of Shakespeare's love life. Starting with the young Will,
the novel is a romp that follows Will's maturation into
sex and writing. It is at the same time a serious look
at the forces that midwife art, the effects of time and
place, and the ordinariness that is found side by side
with extraordinariness of genius. |
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Shakespeare | | Anthony Burgess | | 1970 |
| Among Shakespeare's many
biographers none brings to his subject more passion and
feeling for the creative act than Anthony Burgess. He
breathes life into Shakespeare the man and invigorates
his times. His portrait of the age builds upon an almost
personal tenderness for Shakespeare and his contemporaries
(especially Ben Jonson), and on a profound sense of literary
and theatrical history. Anthony Burgess's well-known delight
in language infuses his own writing about Shakespeare's
works. And in the verve of his biography he conveys the
energy of the Elizabethan age. |
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Roaring Boys | | Judith Cook | | 2004 |
| In the late 1580s a new
kind of entertainment flowered in London: professional
theatre, with its custom built playhouses, professional
companies, incredible staging and, last but not least,
the new writers, poets, playwrights - the roaring boys.
To ambitious young writers, London was a magnet offering
the possibility of fame, excitement, wealth and opportunity
beyond their wildest dreams. This lively and engaging
book, packed with anecdote, recreates the lives and times
of these playwrights and actors, and the world in which
they lived. |
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Searching for Shakespeare | | Tarnya Cooper, Stanley Wells and James Shapiro | | 2006 |
| This book looks at six contested portraits of William Shakespeare
and examines their authenticity. Stanley Wells and James Shapiro
piece together Shakespeare's personal and professional life,
while Tarnya Cooper explores contemporary understanding of portraiture
and Shakespeare's interest in the visual arts. Richly illustrated
with portraits, costumes, manuscripts and maps, this book provides
fascinating insights into the life of Shakespeare, as well as
into the lives of his fellow actors, entertainers and playwrights,
and of his patrons and audiences. |
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William Shakespeare: verzameld werk | | Willy Courteaux (vertaler) | | 2007 |
| Weinig schrijvers hebben onze beschaving zo beïnvloed als William Shakespeare.
Tot op vandaag zijn zijn theaterteksten een zeldzaam literair hoogtepunt.
De 37 aan Shakespeare toegeschreven theaterteksten staan in ons geheugen gegrift.
Willy Courteaux heeft vele jaren lang een titanenstrijd geleverd met de bard van Stratford-upon-Avon
en in 2007 verscheen de vrucht van zijn arbeid: het volledige verzamelde werk.
Algemeen wordt Courteaux geprezen om de zuivere vertaling die hij,
trouw aan de originele tekst van Shakespeare, heeft gemaakt. |
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The Private Life of William Shakespeare | | Lena Cowen Orlin | | 2021 |
| This biography of William
Shakespeare explores his private life in Stratford-upon-Avon,
his personal aspirations, his self-determination, and
his relations with the members of his family and his neighbours.
It offers close readings of key documents associated with
Shakespeare and develops a contextual understanding of
the genres from which these documents emerge. It reconsiders
clusters of evidence that have been held to prove some
persistent biographical fables. It also shows how the
histories of some of Shakespeare's neighbours illuminate
aspects of his own life. |
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Shakespeare in London | | Hannah Crawforth, Sarah Dustagheer and Jennifer Young | | 2015 |
| Shakespeare in London offers
an engaging reading of some of Shakespeare's major work.
The focus of the book is on Shakespeare's London, how
it influenced his drama and how he represents it on stage.
Taking readers on an imaginative journey through the city,
the book moves both chronologically, from beginning to
end of Shakespeare's dramatic career, and also geographically,
traversing London from west to east. Each chapter focuses
on one play and one key location, drawing out the thematic
connections between that place and the drama it underwrites. |
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Shakespeare on Toast | | Ben Crystal | | 2008 |
| This book knocks the stuffing from the staid old myth of Shakespeare,
revealing the man and his plays for what they really are: modern,
thrilling and uplifting drama. Actor and author Ben Crystal
brings the bright words and colourful characters of the world's
greatest hack writer brilliantly to life, handing over the key
to Shakespeare's plays, unlocking the so-called difficult bits
and finding Shakespeare's own voice amid the poetry. Told in
five Acts, this book sweeps the cobwebs from the Bard revealing
both the man and his work to be relevant, accessible and full
of beans. |
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Shakespeare's Words | | David & Ben Crystal | | 2002 |
| This book is for people who love Shakespeare, or who love
language, or both. The authors have created an immensely practical
and enlightening guide to understanding Shakespeare's language
for readers, audiences, students, directors and actors. They
have collected over 14,000 words that can cause difficulty or
be ambiguous to the modern reader. Each word is glossed and
illustrated by at least one quotation. This book will greatly
enrich every reader's understanding and appreciation of the
plays, and will encourage a new generation to treasure them. |
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Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary | | David & Ben Crystal | | 2015 |
| This dictionary is the
first of its kind, a brand new illustrated alphabetical
dictionary of all the words and meanings students of Shakespeare
need to know. Every word has an example sentence selected
from the twelve most studied plays. Usage notes and theatre
notes provide additional background to Shakespearean times
and the performance of his plays. Further support is provided
by language panels on select topics like the humours,
swearing, and stage directions, and full-colour illustrated
thematic spreads on special feature topics. |
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The Landscape of William Shakespeare | | Michael Justin Davis | | 1987 |
| This book reveals Shakespeare's
Britain. There is his birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon,
and London, where he spent most of his life writing and
performing plays. But there are also the many towns where
his touring company performed his works: Rye, Dover, Bath,
Oxford, Coventry, to name but a few. All these places
are described in relevant detail in the book. There are
buildings and landscapes that enable us to reconstruct,
with the use of specially commissioned photographs by
Simon McBride, the Elizabethan world in which Shakespeare
lived. |
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Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent | | Judi Dench | | 2023 |
| Interspersed with vignettes
on mentors, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room
etiquette, Judi Dench serves up priceless revelations
on everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her
personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare's most
famous scenes, all brightened by her mischievous sense
of humour, striking level of honesty and a peppering of
hilarious anecdotes, many of which have remained under
lock and key until now. Instructive and witty, provocative
and inspiring, this is ultimately Judi's love letter to
Shakespeare. |
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The Shakespeare Almanac | | Gregory Doran | | 2009 |
| This book is a cornucopia
of intriguing and wonderful details about the life and
times of England's greatest playwright, complete with
integrated illustrations. It is a day by day calendar
of Shakespeare's year. It follows the rural farming cycle
of lambing to sheep-shearing to harvest home, as they
are referred to in Shakespeare's plays and poetry. Every
passing month is supplied with quotations from the plays
about changeable weather patterns, or the flowers and
plants as they appear, as well as the animals and birds
he saw around him. |
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My Shakespeare | | Gregory Doran | | 2023 |
| This is the unique account
of Greg Doran's extraordinary journey through all of the
plays in Shakespeare's First Folio. We are given
first-hand insights into his collaborations with many
famous actors including Judi Dench, David Tennant, and
Antony Sher. With each chapter bringing to life a different
play in production, the book captures the excitement,
energy, surprises, joys and agonies of working on these
seminal plays and sheds new light on them through Doran's
own research and discoveries made with others in the rehearsal
room. |
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Will & Me | | Dominic Dromgoole | | 2006 |
| Shakespeare has always been part of Dominic Dromgoole's life.
From school plays to adolescent angst, from his love of Stratford
to his experiences as a director, the shadowy figure of the
Bard has always been there. Here Dromgoole recounts the story
of his life through Shakespeare, and in turn shows us what Shakespeare
can tell us about the world. A revealing and often
bawdy book, by turns soliloquy, tragedy and comedy, Will
& Me is a glorious appreciation of how a life can be illuminated
through encounters with Shakespeare's rough and ready genius. |
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Hamlet: Globe to Globe | | Dominic Dromgoole | | 2017 |
| Two years, 190,000 miles,
197 countries, one play. For the 450th anniversary of
Shakespeare’s birth the Globe Theatre in London undertook
an unparalleled journey to share Hamlet with the
entire world. The tour was the brainchild of Dominic Dromgoole,
artistic director of the Globe, and in Hamlet: Globe
to Globe, Dromgoole takes readers along with him on
this wildly ambitious expedition. He recounts the highs
and lows of the tour, paying witness to Shakespeare’s
power to transcend borders and bring the world closer
together. |
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Shakespeare: An Ungentle Life | | Katherine Duncan-Jones | | 2001 |
| This major biography of
Shakespeare shows him as a man among men and a writer
among writers. He lives in a congested city, where he
encounters disease, debt and cut-throat competition. His
brilliance often makes him the object of envy and malice
rather than adulation. He is a shrewd purchaser of property.
He appears to be more interested in relationships with
well-born young men than with women. Katherine Duncan-Jones
takes us through the complexities of life in late Elizabethan
and early Jacobean England in a compelling and well-told
story. |
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Essential Shakespeare Handbook | | Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding | | 2004 |
| This is a beautifully illustrated
guide to every play in the Shakespearean canon. Each of
the categories – histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances
– commences with an essay that explains the nature of
the genre and discusses the themes and ideas that lay
behind the poet's words. An analysis of each play follows:
a look at the sources that inspired it, an act-by-act
plot outline, a list of the dramatis personae, ideas to
ponder when reading/seeing the play, and, finally, a discussion
of issues associated with the play and its productions. |
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Shakespeare's Theatre: A History | | Richard Dutton | | 2018 |
| This book examines the
theatre spaces used by William Shakespeare, and explores
these spaces in relation to the social and political framework
of the Elizabethan era. The text journeys from the performing
spaces of the provincial inns, guild halls and houses
of the gentry of the Bard’s early career, to the purpose-built
outdoor playhouses of London, including the Globe, the
Theatre, and the Curtain, and the royal courts of Elizabeth
and James I. The author also discusses the players for
whom Shakespeare wrote, and the positioning of audience
members in relation to the stage. |
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All the Sonnets of Shakespeare | | Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells | | 2020 |
| Intended for all readers
of Shakespeare, this beautiful and ground-breaking book
arranges Shakespeare's sonnets printed in 1609 in their
probable order of composition and intersperses the sonnets
from the plays among them. A lively introduction provides
essential background, while explanatory notes and modern
English paraphrases of every poem and dramatic extract
illuminate the meaning of these sometimes challenging
but always deeply rewarding witnesses to Shakespeare's
inner life and professional expertise. |
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Walking with William Shakespeare | | Anne-Marie Edwards | | 2005 |
| Walk with William Shakespeare
through his world, enjoying his plays, poetry and scenes
from his life. Visit his home in Stratford and ramble
through the countryside he knew and loved. Roam the Cotswold
hills where he probably taught school, and discover how
he learned courtly ways as you visit the Earl of Southampton's
mansion near Titchfield in Hampshire. Explore London,
the scene of his greatest triumphs. Maps and full directions
for all walks are included with fascinating forays into
Shakespeare's life. |
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The Truth About William Shakespeare | | David Ellis | | 2012 |
| How can biographies of
Shakespeare continue to appear when so little is known
about him? And when what is known has been in the public
domain for so long? In the past decade, the majority of
these biographies have been published by distinguished
Shakespeareans - shouldn't they know better? To solve
this puzzle, David Ellis looks at the methods that Shakespeare's
biographers have used to hide their lack of knowledge.
At the same time it asks what kind of animal 'biography'
really is and how it should be written. |
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Shakespeare: The Animated Tales | | Leon Garfield | | 1992 |
| Here, in one volume, are
six of William Shakespeare's most popular works, abridged
by Leon Garfield and illustrated by the Russian artists
responsible for the animation of a superb and innovative
television series which was made with the express purpose
of bringing Shakespeare to a wider audience. With the
assistance of scholars Stanley Wells and Rex Gibson, Leon
Garfield has skilfully adapted Shakespeare's original
text to appeal to younger readers, and in so doing has
produced a volume as enthralling, entertaining and exciting
as any performance on stage. |
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Will in the World | | Stephen Greenblatt | | 2004 |
| Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and
feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by
the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the
world's greatest playwright. Stephen Greenblatt recovers the
links between Shakespeare and his world and gives us a full
and vital portrait of the man. He takes us on a journey through
Shakespeare's unfolding imagination and humanity - his ability
to enter into his characters, to confer upon them his own strength
of spirit and to make them live and breathe as independent human
beings. |
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Shakespeare's Wife | | Germaine Greer | | 2007 |
| Germaine Greer combines literary-historical techniques with
documentary evidence about life in Stratford, striving to re-embed
the story of Shakespeare's marriage in its social context. Her
book presents a new and more fruitful set of hypotheses about
the life and career of the farmer's daughter who married our
greatest poet. This is a compelling, insightful book, which
already goes some way to right the wrongs done to Anne Shakespeare.
Greer steps off the well-trodden paths of orthodoxy, asks new
questions and opens new fields of investigation and research. |
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Playgoing in Shakespeare's London | | Andrew Gurr | | 1987 |
| Who were the people for
whom Shakespeare wrote his plays? What was it like to
go to a play in the London playhouses between 1567 and
1642? What were the social and cultural backgrounds of
these playgoers? Professor Gurr assembles all the evidence
from the writings of the time to answer these questions.
He describes the physical structure of the different types
of playhouse, the services provided in the auditorium,
the cost of a ticket and a cushion, the size of the crowds,
the smells, the pickpockets, and the collective feelings
the plays generated. |
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Shakespeare and Elizabeth | | Helen Hackett | | 2009 |
| Helen Hackett follows the history of meetings between Shakespeare
and Elizabeth through historical novels, plays, paintings, and
films. Raising intriguing questions about the boundaries separating
scholarship and fiction, she looks at biographers and critics
who continue to delve into links between the queen and the poet.
She uncovers the reasons behind the lasting appeal of their
combined reputations, and she locates the interest in their
enigmatic sexual identities, as well as in the ways they represent
political tensions and national aspirations. |
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Studying Shakespeare on Film | | Maurice Hindle | | 2007 |
| This book provides students with a 'hands-on' introductory
guide to this relatively new domain of Shakespeare studies.
Written in a clear and accessible style, the book consists of
five stimulating parts. At every stage students are given the
critical knowledge and vocabulary to analyse and discuss Shakespeare
on screen. With a helpful Glossary of Terms, Further Reading
and List of Useful Websites to aid study, this is an essential
resource for anyone with an interest in the various film and
television representations of Shakespeare's plays. |
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The Norton Facsimile of the First Folio | | Charlton Hinman (editor) | | 1996 |
| Based on Folios in the
Folger collection, this full-size photographic facsimile
of one of the essential books of English literature and
culture has won the admiration of actors and scholars
throughout the world. It is the first facsimile in which
every page is a clean, clear replica with minimal show-through
and offers the latest, most corrected state of pages.
This exquisite edition introduced the standard system
of reference, "through line numbering," based on the lines
printed in the 1623 edition rather than on the acts, scenes,
and lines of a modern edition. |
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Nine Lives of William Shakespeare | | Graham Holderness | | 2011 |
| This new biography of Shakespeare identifies and expounds the many possible
'lives' that can reasonably be drawn around the basic facts,
traditions and literary remains of his legacy. Graham Holderness
takes a hard and fresh look at the facts, the traditions,
and the possible relations between a life and the works that
life created. He offers nine possible short 'lives' of Shakespeare,
based on specific facts and traditions, drawn from the documentary
record and from biographical interpretation, and supported
by a body of critical and biographical work. |
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Presenting Shakespeare | | Mirko Ilic and Steven Heller | | 2015 |
| In the 400 years since
his death, Shakespeare's exalted place in the pantheon
of theatre and poetry has been unequaled. Just as centuries
of theatrical artists have reimagined his works through
the lens of their own time and culture, so too have illustrators
and designers. This is the first book ever to showcase
theatre posters for Shakespeare's plays. They have been
designed by an international roster of artists representing
56 countries. This stunning selection of the best in Shakespeare
posters was chosen from the collections of museums, theatres,
and individuals. |
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Shakespeare's Language | | Frank Kermode | | 2000 |
| At a time when most critics seem more concerned with theories
of politics and psychology than with poetry, Frank Kermode takes
us back to the essence of Shakespeare - his words. Shakespeare's
revolutionary use of language is where the true power of his
plays lies. Yet how could he be so wildly experimental with
the English language and still remain a popular dramatist? If
we sometimes find his plays hard to understand today, was it
any easier for an Elizabethan theatregoer? This study distils
a lifetime's thinking to unlock the secrets of Shakespeare's
'wild and whirling words'. |
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Shakespeare Our Contemporary | | Jan Kott | | 1965 |
| This is a new and brilliantly original interpretation of Shakespeare
which has already influenced directors of Shakespeare's plays
in Europe and America. For Jan Kott, a Pole who suffered both
the Nazi terror and the Stalinist repression, the violence of
Shakespeare's world offers many close parallels to our own.
He sees Hamlet and Prospero not as romantic characters, but
as modern man facing the despair that so many of his contemporaries
have known. This is the best, the most alive, radical book about
Shakespeare in at least a generation. |
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Shakespeare: Court, Crowd and Playhouse | | François Laroque | | 1993 |
| A universal master whose
achievement is timeless, Shakespeare is nevertheless inseparable
from his age - the brilliant pageant of Elizabethan England,
glorified by Queen and courtiers, soldiers and explorers,
Renaissance poets and scholars. Theatrical professional
and consummate dramatist, Shakespeare wove the human comedy
being played all around him into masterpieces which have
shaped the English language to this day. The author of
this book teaches English literature at the university
of the Sorbonne nouvelle in Paris. |
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Shakespeare's Restless World | | Neil MacGregor | | 2012 |
| This book uncovers the extraordinary stories behind twenty
objects to re-create Shakespeare's world and the minds of his
audiences. The objects range from the rich to the very humble.
Each of them allows MacGregor to explore one of the themes which
defines the Shakespearean age - globalization, reformation,
plague, Islam, magic and many others. The author weaves Shakespeare's
words into his histories of the objects to suggest where Shakespeare's
ideas may have come from. The result is a fresh and unexpected
portrait of Shakespeare's world. |
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Living with Shakespeare | | Geoffrey Marsh | | 2021 |
| In the 1590s, Shakespeare
was working with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at The Theatre,
Shoreditch while he was living in the parish of St. Helen's,
Bishopsgate Street. This book examines his parish, church,
locale, neighbours and their influences on his writing,
from the radical 'Paracelsian' doctors, musicians and
public figures to the international merchants who lived
nearby. Packed with new discoveries from difficult-to-access
manuscript records this book reveals the parish’s complex
social, religious, political and neighbourly intersections
and influences. |
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Shakespeare and Lost Plays | | David McInnis | | 2021 |
| This book returns Shakespeare's
dramatic work to its most immediate and (arguably) important
context: the hundreds of plays known to original audiences,
but lost to us, revisiting key moments in Shakespeare's
career to provide a richer, more accurate picture of dramatic
activity than has hitherto been possible. This is an exceptionally
innovative book, a groundbreaking work, championing the
brand new methodologies and discoveries associated with
lost plays that the author and his collaborators have
brought to the profession. |
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Shakespeare in Ten Acts | | Gordon McMullan and Zoë Wilcox (editors) | | 2016 |
| The 400 years since Shakespeare's
death have seen his plays banished and bowdlerized, faked
and forged, traded and translated, re-mixed and re-cast.
Each performance discussed here holds up a mirror to the
era in which it was performed. It explores productions
as diverse as Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Mark Rylance’s Twelfth Night, and a Shakespeare
forgery from 1796. The illustrations - treasures from
the British Library's manuscript and rare book collections
- feature alongside film stills, costumes, paintings and
production photographs. |
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The Best-Loved Plays of Shakespeare | | Jennifer Mulherin and Abigail Frost | | 1993 |
| This is an exquisitely
illustrated book containing the stories of ten of
Shakespeare's most popular plays. There is a description
of each of the plays' main characters and a series of
essays that aim to give background information about the
Elizabethan period and the writing of the plays themselves.
Wonderful watercolour illustrations showing key events
in the plot or particular character traits provide the
perfect accompaniment to the text which is peppered with
quotes from the original plays providing a real flavour
of Shakespeare's language. |
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The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street | | Charles Nicholl | | 2007 |
| In this subtle and atmospheric exploration of William Shakespeare
at forty, we see him not from the viewpoint of literary greatness,
but in the humdrum and very human context of Silver Street,
where to the maid of the house he was merely "one Mr Shakespeare",
renting the room upstairs. Charles Nicholl applies a powerful
biographical magnifying glass to a fascinating but oddly neglected
episode in Shakespeare's life. By opening up an unexpected window
into the dramatist's famously obscure life-story, the writer
has created a fresh and original book
about Shakespeare. |
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How to Do Shakespeare | | Adrian Noble | | 2010 |
| Adrian Noble has worked
on Shakespeare with everyone from Oscar-nominated actors
to groups of schoolchildren. Here he draws on several
decades of top-level directing experience to shed new
light on how to bring some of theatre's seminal texts
to life. He shows you how to approach the perennial issues
of performing Shakespeare, including: Wordplay, Dialogue,
Building a character, and Shape and structure. This guided
tour of Shakespeare's complex but unfailingly rewarding
work stunningly combines instruction and inspiration. |
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Shakespeare's Kings | | John Julius Norwich | | 1999 |
| In a fast-paced narrative,
historian John Julius Norwich chronicles the events of
14th- and 15th-century England that inspired Shakespeare's
history plays. It was a time of uncertainty and warfare,
a time during which the crown was constantly contested,
alliances were made and broken, and peasants and townsmen
alike arose in revolt. This was the raw material of Shakespeare's
dramas, and Norwich holds up his work to the light of
history. Shakespeare's Kings is a study of the Bard's
method of spinning history into art. |
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Shakespeare the Thinker | | A.D. Nuttall | | 2007 |
| This elegantly written
study of Shakespeare's thought is a marvellous inquiry
into the questions that engrossed the playwright throughout
his life. Nuttall investigates the dynamic nature of Shakespeare's
evolving answers and provides for twenty-first century
readers an unparalleled guide to Shakespeare's plays.
The delight of Nuttall's book springs not just from the
incisiveness of his ideas but from the deftness with which
he unfolds scenes and speeches. It is like walking through
the countryside with someone who recognizes every bird's
song and each wild flower. |
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The Late Mr Shakespeare | | Robert Nye | | 1999 |
| From a dingy attic above a brothel in Restoration London,
aged actor Pickleherring tells all that's fit to know - and
much that's not - about the life of the Bard. A child actor
in Shakespeare's troupe, Pickleherring has heard every salacious
story about the playwright's life - and is generous-spirited
enough to repeat them all. From his vantage point as one of
Shakespeare's favourite actors, Pickleherring has the answers
to every question ever asked about his mentor. Audacious, bawdy
and jaw-droppingly ingenious, this book is a bravura performance
by one of our finest living novelists. |
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Hamnet | | Maggie O'Farrell | | 2020 |
| Drawing on the author's
long-term fascination with the little-known story behind
Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, Hamnet is a
luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation
of a family ravaged by grief, and a tender and unforgettable
re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten,
and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated
plays of all time. The novel breathes full-blooded life
into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary
footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of
Agnes Hathaway, a woman intriguingly absent from history. |
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Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets | | Don Paterson | | 2010 |
| In this illuminating and
often irreverent guide, Don Paterson offers a fresh and
direct approach to the Sonnets, asking what they can still
mean to the twenty-first century reader. In a series of
fascinating commentaries placed alongside the poems themselves,
Don Paterson discusses the meaning, technique, hidden
structure and feverish narrative of the Sonnets, as well
as the difficulties they present for the modern reader.
Most importantly, however, he looks at what they tell
us about William Shakespeare the lover - and what they
might still tell us about ourselves. |
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Sweet William | | Michael Pennington | | 2012 |
| Michael Pennington's solo
show about Shakespeare, Sweet William, has been
acclaimed throughout Europe and in the US as a unique
blend of showmanship and scholarship. In this book he
deepens his exploration of Shakespeare's life and work
and the connection between the two that lies at its heart.
It is illuminated throughout by the unrivalled insights
into the plays that Pennington has gained from the many
hours he has spent working on them as a leading actor,
an artistic director and a director, and as the author
of three previous books on individual Shakespeare plays. |
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The Life of William Shakespeare | | Lois Potter | | 2012 |
| In this remarkable biography
Shakespeare scholar and theatre critic Lois Potter explores
literary and historical contexts often neglected in other
studies, drawing in particular on the idea of the literary
personality and on new discoveries about collaboration.
She looks at Shakespeare's possible role models, both
real and fictional, with particular attention to the people
with whom he worked as both author and actor, and considers
how these various kinds of collaboration may have affected
him. The result is a unique and wide-ranging study of
the life and work of the great dramatist. |
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The Shakespeare Thefts | | Eric Rasmussen | | 2011 |
| The 750 copies of William
Shakespeare's First Folio have been sought after
by kings, earls, and bibliophiles. In his effort to track
down the extant 232 copies Eric Rasmussen embarked on
an incredible adventure around the world. This fascinating
account explores how manuscript hunters identify a book's
past through distinguishing marks and how a book's location
and condition can reveal its story. Part literary detective
story, part Shakespearean lore, The Shakespeare Thefts
is a rare glimpse between the covers of one of the most
coveted books in the world. |
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The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion
to Shakespeare | | Dick Riley & Pam McAllister | | 2001 |
| This companion to Shakespeare
presents The Bard in a new and exciting way. For students,
scholars, and theatre lovers this book wraps some 400
years of Bardology into a lively and often unexpected
package. The authors examine the whole
dramatic canon, play by play, including dramas of disputed
authorship. The long poems and sonnets are also covered.
Included are inside stories on theatre and film productions,
'alternate' interpretations of the plays, Shakespeare's
status around the world, the clubs and societies, and
the mysterious life. |
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Walking Shakespeare's London | | Nicholas Robins | | 2004 |
| This book brings together 20 walks exploring 16th century
London. They cover the whole of Central London from Shoreditch
to Deptford. As well as exploring the London that Shakespeare
knew, the walks also cover the theatres of modern London, where
great directors have succesfully staged Shakespeare's plays
over many centuries. This guide is illustrated with specially-commissioned
full-colour photographs and is enriched with atmospheric 16th
century engravings. Each walk is supported with an easy-to-follow
map highlighting places of interest along each route. |
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The Shakespeare Wars | | Ron Rosenbaum | | 2006 |
| Ron Rosenbaum gives us a Shakespeare book like no other. Rather
than raking over worn-out fragments of biography, Rosenbaum
focuses on cutting-edge controversies about the true source
of Shakespeare's enchantment and illumination - the astonishing
language itself. With quicksilver wit and provocative insight,
Rosenbaum takes readers into the midst of fierce battles among
the most brilliant Shakespearean scholars and directors over
just how to delve deeper into the Shakespearean experience -
deeper into the mind of Shakespeare. |
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100 Shakespeare Films | | Daniel Rosenthal | | 2007 |
| Shakespeare's plays have inspired spaghetti Westerns and British
Oscar-winners, Bollywood thrillers and Soviet epics. Covering
twenty plays, this selection of 100 Shakespeare films spans
a century of cinema, from a silent The Tempest (1907)
to Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It (2006). The introduction
traces the history of screen Shakespeare and analyses the pros
and cons of adaptation. Presented alphabetically by Shakespeare
play, each chapter begins with a synopsis. The film essays explore
cinematography, design, dialogue, music and performance. |
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The Life and Times of Shakespeare | | Maria Pia Rosignoli | | 1968 |
| If it is impossible to
describe in a few words Shakespeare's genius, we can try
to sum up briefly the information gathered on his work,
his period and, from what little has been recorded, the
life of the dramatist. His main feature seems to be a
very great understanding of man - his life, his pain,
his 'life sickness'. To this we can add his extraordinary
ability to express anything poetically and directly. He
did not travel the world, but he gave life to a world
of which he was the sole creator. In the words of Ben
Jonson: "He was not of an age but for all time." |
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A History of Shakespeare on Screen | | Kenneth S. Rothwell | | 2004 |
| This book chronicles how film-makers have re-imagined Shakespeare's
plays from the earliest exhibitions in music halls and nickelodeons
to today's multi-million dollar productions shown in megaplexes.
Topics include the silent era, Hollywood in the Golden Age,
the films of Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles, television -
including the BBC plays -, the avant-garde cinema of Jarman
and Greenaway, and non-Anglophone contributions from Japan and
elsewhere. This second edition updates the chronology to the
year 2003 and includes a new chapter on recent films. |
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Will | | Christopher Rush | | 2007 |
| In this unforgettable blend
of scholarship and imagination poet and novelist Christopher
Rush takes us right into the mind of the Bard, a man whose
almost superhuman art was forged from very human frailties
and misfortunes. Cutting through all the pieties which
encrust Shakespeare, Rush has created an utterly convincing
figure, irrepressible, bawdy, witty and wise, his every
word steeped in the situations and phrases of his own
plays, yet tormented by the question whether his towering
talent was a blessing or a curse. His captivating voice
speaks to us across 400 years. |
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The Nation's Favourite Shakespeare | | Emma Shackleton (editor) | | 1999 |
| William Shakespeare is one of the most enduring and influential
writers of all time. This delightful celebration of his work
brings together over a hundred best-loved speeches, scenes and
sonnets, all of which are guaranteed to appeal both to seasoned
Shakespeare enthusiasts and to the uninitiated alike. Here are
many old favourites to be re-discovered: Romeo's wonderfully
romantic accolade to Juliet's beauty, Macbeth's haunted musings
after killing Duncan, Henry V's rousing and poignant battle
speech to his troops, and Shakespeare's most romantic sonnets. |
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1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare | | James Shapiro | | 2005 |
| How did Shakespeare become one of the greatest writers who
ever lived? In one exhilarating year, 1599, we follow what he
read and wrote, what he saw and who he worked with as he invested
in the new Globe theatre and created four of his most famous
plays. James Shapiro illuminates not only Shakespeare's staggering
achievement but also what Elizabethans experienced in the course
of 1599. This book brings the news and intrigue of the times
together with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked
as an actor, businessman and playwright. |
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1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear | | James Shapiro | | 2015 |
| 1606 is an intimate
portrait of one of Shakespeare's most inspired moments:
the year of King Lear, Macbeth and Antony
and Cleopatra. James Shapiro deftly demonstrates how
these extraordinary plays responded to the tumultuous
events of this year, events that in unexpected ways touched
upon Shakespeare's own life: the return of the plague,
the prospect of a united Britain, and the Gunpowder Plot.
By immersing us in Shakespeare's England, 1606
profoundly changes and enriches our experience of his
plays. |
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Contested Will | | James Shapiro | | 2010 |
| For 200 years after Shakespeare's
death, no one thought to argue that somebody else had
written his plays. Since then dozens of rival candidates
have been proposed as their true author. This book unravels
the mystery of when and why so many people began to question
whether Shakespeare wrote the plays. James Shapiro's fascinating
search for the source of this controversy retraces a path
strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false
claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and
a failure to grasp what could not be imagined. |
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Woza Shakespeare! | | Antony Sher and Gregory Doran | | 1996 |
| In 1995 the renowned actor Antony Sher made his professional
stage debut in his native South Africa, playing Titus Andronicus
in a production directed by his partner Gregory Doran. Woza
Shakespeare!, which tells the story of this production,
is hair-raising, moving and funny. As Sher and Doran hand the
story-telling back and forth, fascinating portraits emerge of
their relationship, both professional and personal; of the production's
multi-racial cast; of theatre in South Africa as it emerges
from the dark ages of apartheid; and of Shakespeare's bloodiest
tragedy. |
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Year of the King | | Antony Sher | | 2004 |
| Antony Sher's stunning performance for the Royal Shakespeare
Company as a Richard III on crutches - the so-called 'bottled
spider' - won him both the Laurence Olivier and Evening Standard
Awards for Best Actor. This book records - in the actor's own
words and drawings - the making of this historic theatrical
event. This new edition is published on the twentieth anniversary
of the premiere. It includes a new introduction in which Sher
looks back somewhat bemusedly at how much has happened to him
and to the world in the intervening years. |
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Year of the Fat Knight | | Antony Sher | | 2015 |
| This is Antony Sher's account
- supplemented by his own paintings and sketches - of
researching, rehearsing and performing one of Shakespeare's
best-known and most popular characters, Falstaff. He tells
us how he had doubts about playing the part at all, how
he sought to reconcile Falstaff's obesity, drunkenness,
cowardice and charm, how he wrestled with the fat suit
needed to bulk him up, and how he explored the complexities
and contradictions of this comic yet often dangerous personality.
On the way, Sher paints a uniquely close-up portrait of
the RSC at work. |
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Year of the Mad King | | Antony Sher | | 2018 |
| Antony Sher played Lear
in the 2016 RSC production directed by Gregory Doran.
Sher kept a diary, capturing every step of his personal
and creative journey to opening night. Year of the
Mad King is his account of researching, rehearsing
and performing what is arguably Shakespeare’s most challenging
role, known as the Everest of Acting. His strikingly honest,
illuminating and witty commentary provides an intimate,
first-hand look at the development of his Lear and of
the production as a whole. Also included is a selection
of his paintings and sketches. |
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Shakespeare's First Folio | | Emma Smith | | 2016 |
| This is a biography of
a book: the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays
printed in 1623 and known as the First Folio. It
begins with the story of its first purchaser in London
in December 1623, and goes on to explore the ways people
have interacted with this iconic book over the 400 years
of its history. Throughout, the stress is on what we can
learn about the eventful lives of individual copies now
spread around the world. From ink blots to pet paws, from
annotations to wineglass rings, First Folios teem
with evidence of its place in different contexts with
different priorities. |
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This Is Shakespeare | | Emma Smith | | 2019 |
| In this book Emma Smith
takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting,
as we watch Shakespeare emulating the blockbusters of
Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, flirting with and
skirting around the cutthroat issues of succession politics,
religious upheaval, and technological change. Smith writes
in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy,
politics, celebrity, and sex. Instead of offering the
answers, the Shakespeare she reveals poses awkward questions,
always inviting the reader to ponder ambiguities. |
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Shakespeare the Player | | John Southworth | | 2000 |
| In analyses of Shakespeare's life, one factor
has been overlooked: his profession as a player. Shakespeare cannot be separated from his
profession nor his works separated from the purpose of their creation. His life as a player
must be taken into account, as there is no other explanation
for how an inexperienced man from a Warwickshire
town with no theatrical background or training came to
have such command of theatrical ways and means, such knowledge
and understanding of the poetic and dramatic techniques
of his predecessors and contemporaries. |
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Shakespeare Revealed | | René Weis | | 2007 |
| René Weis brings Shakespeare the man and his milieu to the
fore in a compelling reassessment. Breaking with tradition,
he reveals how the plays and poems themselves contain a rich
seam of clues about Shakespeare's life, from his heretical dalliances
with Catholicism to his grief at the death of his son Hamnet.
If there is a code in his works, Shakespeare intended it to
be broken. These startling new textual findings are consolidated
by scrupulous archival research. This is a bold and provocative
book that presents an intimate view of the interior world of
a genius. |
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Shakespeare & Co. | | Stanley Wells | | 2006 |
| In this book Stanley Wells
breaks new ground in an engaging and illuminating study
of the lives and careers of Shakespeare's contemporaries.
Stanley Wells explores the Elizabethan theatrical scene,
looks at the great actors Shakespeare worked with, and
examines the lives and works of the writers of his day
and his later successors. He argues that it is only through
remembering and celebrating the sheer richness and variety
of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama that we can come to
a closer understanding of the shadowy figure of Shakespeare
himself. |
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Shakespeare: For All Time | | Stanley Wells | | 2002 |
| This enthralling and splendidly illustrated book tells the
story of Shakespeare's life, his writings and his afterlife.
Drawing on a lifetime's experience of studying, teaching, editing
and writing about Shakespeare, Stanley Wells combines scholarly
authority with authorial flair in a book that will appeal equally
to the specialist and the untutored enthusiast. Rich in anecdote
and insight, authoritative and informative in equal measure,
this magnificent book triumphantly proves Ben Jonson's assertion
that his friend Shakespeare "was not of an age, but for all
time". |
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Shakespeare, Sex, & Love | | Stanley Wells | | 2010 |
| Through detailed reference to written sources, Stanley Wells
takes us to the brothels, bedchambers, marriages, and divorces
of Stratford-upon-Avon; and to the metropolitan buzz of London,
including its burgeoning industry in homoerotic publishing.
He shows how Shakespeare's attitude to sex developed over the
course of his career, and explores the multiplicity
of ways in which he deploys it: sexual humour; sexual jealousy;
sexual experience; same-gender relationships. Through this one
perennially enticing subject, Wells brings a myriad of ideas
and insights to life. |
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In Search of Shakespeare | | Michael Wood | | 2003 |
| In this absorbing historical detective story Michael Wood
takes a fresh approach to Shakespeare's life, brilliantly recreating
the turbulent times through which the poet lived. Wood takes us
back into Elizabethan England to reveal a man who is the product
of his time - a period of tremendous upheaval that straddled
the medieval and modern worlds. This book presents us with a
Shakespeare for the twenty-first century: a man of the theatre,
a thinking artist, playful and cunning, who held up a mirror
to his age, but who was also "not of an age, but for all time". |
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Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company | | John Wyver | | 2019 |
| No theatre company has
been involved in such a broad range of adaptations for
television and film as the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Drawing on interviews with actors and directors, this
book explores this remarkable history of collaborations
between stage and screen and considers key questions about
adaptation that concern all those involved in theatre,
film and television. John Wyver is the television producer
of RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, and so is uniquely
well-placed to provide a vivid account of the RSC's television
and film productions. |
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