Henry V is a complex and challenging Shakespearean play that rewards detailed study. While few critics count it among Shakespeare's greatest works, the play is almost always successful in the theater. Compared to some of Shakespeare's more critically esteemed works, Henry V is more accessible to students, who find it easier to grasp as a text inviting lively discussion. In the early 1990's its popularity surged with the release of Kenneth Branagh's film version (1989), a hit with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. This reference book is a comprehensive introductory...

Often regarded as Shakespeare's most complex and difficult play Hamlet is also one of his most popular. It has been performed countless times on the stage and has been produced in many film and television versions. Even those who have never read the complete play or seen a performance know a few lines of To be or not to be and the image of a young man contemplating the skull of his dead friend Yorick. The play continues to attract the attention of high school students and scholars alike and has generated a tremendous amount of criticism. Because Hamlet exists as text,...

Since its first performances around 1596 and its earliest editions (1597, 1599), Romeo and Juliet has remained one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. The reasons are not far to seek, as the play centers on a subject of perennial interest: romantic love. A mixed genre, the play begins as a comedy and ends as a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet are among Shakespeare's most memorable characters, for he has endowed them with some of his greatest lyric poetry. Students and scholars continue to debate whether the death of the two lovers is a tragedy of fate, or whether Romeo and Juliet are...

One of Shakespeare's four major tragedies, Othello has captivated audiences for centuries. In its treatment of jealousy and racial tension, it offers an enduring study of universal themes. Part of the Greenwood Guides to Shakespeare, this reference book provides students with a comprehensive overview of the play. The early chapters discuss significant differences between Quarto and Folio texts of Othello and explore the play's sources and historical contexts--in particular, how Othello contributes to early seventeenth century discourses on racial otherness and the role...

Perhaps more than any other single work, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has popularized the image of Brutus as a ruthless and cowardly traitor, Caesar as a noble ruler and sympathetic victim, and the Ides of March as a time of danger and duplicity. On the surface, the play is comparatively simple and straightforward, and thus it has served to introduce generations of students to Shakespeare's works. But the play is deceptive in its apparent simplicity. While Brutus joins the conspirators in assassinating Caesar, his possibly selfless motives may make him the noblest Roman of them all....

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's most frequently performed plays. Though written more than 400 years ago, the play's concerns--anti-Semitism, homosexuality, materialism, usury, the law, and the sincerity of love--continue to resonate in contemporary culture. Shylock, one of the most memorable characters in literature, has been discussed at length and continues to fascinate readers and scholars, yet relatively few works have been published on the play as a whole. This reference is a comprehensive introduction to the play, its themes and contexts, its critical reception,...

In "Antony and Cleopatra, " Shakespeare dramatizes the classical love story of the Roman general and the Egyptian queen, their fatal romance, and the power struggle that leads to the triumph of Octavius Caesar. While the play has much to offer, it is also one of Shakespeare's least accessible tragedies. It can baffle readers with its difuseness and multiple perspectives, or intimidate directors eager to do justice to its huge canvass without overwhelming the audience. This reference provides a thorough overview of the play, its background, and its critical and dramatic legacy.

The early...

This comprehensive guide includes a discussion of the play's textual history, analyses of its various contexts and sources of influence, an examination of its dramatic structure, a detailed plot summary, a discussion of major themes and critical approaches, and a look at major productions from the 16th through the 20th century.

Shakespeare's "As You Like It" continues to captivate audiences some 400 years after it was written. This reference is a comprehensive guide to the play. Beginning with a discussion of the play's textual history, the guide analyzes its various contexts and...

"The Tempest" was first published in 1623 and is probably the last play Shakespeare wrote by himself. The product of his artistic maturity, it has inspired a variety of modern adaptations and remains one of his most popular plays. While its plot is fairly straightforward, "The Tempest" addresses numerous issues and topics current in the 17th century, such as magic and colonialism. Scholars, in turn, have responded by generating a vast body of criticism. This reference is a comprehensive guide to the play.

The volume begins with a brief consideration of the play's textual history,...

In its timeless exploration of familial and political dissolution, and in its relentless questioning of the apparent moral indifference of the universe, "King Lear" is Shakespeare's darkest tragedy. It is also one of his most timely, for many of the issues it raises resonate loudly within our own era. Perhaps because of its contemporary relevance, it is one of Shakespeare's most frequently produced, taught, and studied works. And the amount of scholarship on "King Lear" is exceeded only be the complexity which that scholarship reveals. This book is a lucid and thorough guide to the play's...