The Globe Guide to Shakespeare

by Andrew Dickson

Overview

With full coverage of the thirty-nine Shakespearian plays (including a synopsis, full character list, stage history, and a critical essay for each), this comprehensive guide is both a quick reference and an in-depth background guide for theatre goers, students, film buffs, and lovers of literature. Along with an exploration of the Bard's sonnets and narrative poems, The Globe Guide to Shakespeare features fascinating accounts of Shakespeare's life and the Globe Theater itself, with colorful details about each play's original performance.This comprehensive guide includes up-to-date reviews of the best films and audio recordings of each play, from Laurence Olivier to Baz Luhrmann, Kozintsev to Kurosawa. The Globe Guide to Shakespeare is the quintessential celebration of all things Shakespearian.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681772646
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	09/06/2016
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	720
Sales rank:	898,506
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Andrew Dickson studied at Cambridge University. A former arts editor at the Guardian, he is now a freelance writer and critic, and he has written for The New Statesman and Sight and Sound. As well as being the author of The Rough Guide to Shakespeare, he has also contributed to The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (2010). In 2014, he was a visiting fellow at the University of Warwick and is currently an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. He makes regular appearances on BBC radio and television. A new book about his work and travel in Shakespeare around the globe, Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe, will be published Henry Holt.

Table of Contents

How this book works viii

Introduction xi

Shakespeare Q&As xv

Part I The Plays

All's Well That Ends Well 3

Antony and Cleopatra 15

As You Like it 29

The Comedy of Errors 43

Coriolanus 54

Cymbeline 67

Edward III 81

Hamlet 93

Henry IV Part I 114

Henry IV Part II 127

Henry V 139

Henry VI Part I 151

Henry VI Part II 163

Henry VI Part III 174

Henry VIII 185

Julius Caesar 199

King John 212

King Lear 224

Love's Labour's Lost 240

Macbeth 252

Measure for Measure 268

The Merchant of Venice 280

The Merry Wives of Windsor 294

A Midsummer Night's Dream 305

Much Ado About Nothing 319

Othello 331

Pericles 349

Richard II 360

Richard III 374

Romeo and Juliet 387

The Taming of the Shrew 399

The Tempest 412

Timon of Athens 428

Titus Andronicus 440

Troilus and Cressida 453

Twelfth Night 466

The Two Gentlemen of Verona 480

The Two Noble Kinsmen 492

The Winter's Tale 504

Part II The poems

A Lover's Complaint 519

The Rape of Lucrece 526

The Sonnets 535

Venus and Adonis 546

Part III Contexts

Shakespeare's life 559

Shakespeare's stages 581

Shakespeare's language 600

Shakespeare's canon 618

Colleagues and rivals 622

Shakespeare for kids 638

Books 643

Websites and apps 659

Glossary of useful terms 671

Index 681

Editorial Reviews

Well-honed, stylish and thoroughly enjoyable.

Professor Stanley Wells

An especially useful resource for theatergoers and for scholars and students interested in performance.

Professor Kevin Curran

What I like most about The Rough Guide to Shakespeare is that its author grinds no axes of any kind. His native good sense shines through on every page.

Terry Teachout - The Wall Street Journal

A reference work and more, which could hardly be bettered, strongly recommended to all students and playgoers.

Professor Jonathan Bate

Compendious and likely to be extremely useful, whether you are just beginning Shakespeare or preparing to see your forty-eighth Hamlet.

The Times Literary Supplement

You couldn't wish for a more user-friendly, reliable guidebook ... I doff my Bardic cap to this fine achievement.

Anthony Holden

★ 10/01/2016
The activities of this year's 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death make us especially aware of the playwright's huge cultural impact. Dickson's (Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe) intention in writing this book is to "cut a path through the jungle" to each play, the major poetry, central critical works, the best editions, as well as to provide concise treatment of the chief biographical and historical questions. He has succeeded beautifully. For each play the book includes, in separate sections: an act-by-act synopsis; a brief entry on the probable date of composition, sources, and textual history; a well-written, unbiased interpretive essay, identifying themes and background; a worldwide stage history of pivotal productions on stage and screen; an annotated list of the best available screen and audio adaptations, showing lead cast, production company, and date; and the best available edition. Shakespeare's major poems, often given short shrift, are treated in the same manner as the plays. Short topical essays on the Bard's life and time round out the volume, including: essays on early modern English, the canon, stagecraft, and sources for kids. VERDICT This reviewer can't imagine a better source to recommend to students. Playgoers needing a reference guide before and/or after going to the theater will be delighted.—Paul A. D'Alessandro, Brunswick, ME

Library Journal

Dickson s intention in writing this book is to cut a path through the jungle to each play, the major poetry, central critical works, the best editions, as well as to provide concise treatment of the chief biographical and historical questions. He has succeeded beautifully. This reviewer can t imagine a better source to recommend to students. Playgoers needing a reference guide before and/or after going to the theater will be delighted."

Dickson's intention in writing this book is to 'cut a path through the jungle' to each play, the major poetry, central critical works, the best editions, as well as to provide concise treatment of the chief biographical and historical questions. He has succeeded beautifully. This reviewer can't imagine a better source to recommend to students. Playgoers needing a reference guide before and/or after going to the theater will be delighted.

An especially useful resource for theatergoers and for scholars and students interested in performance.--Professor Kevin Curran, Studies in English Literature

From the Publisher