Shakespeare for the wiser sort: Solving Shakespeare's riddles in The Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, King John, 1-2 Henry IV, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Julius Caesar, Othello, Macbeth, and Cymbeline

William Shakespeare’s plays are riddled with passages, scenes and sudden plot twists which baffle and confound the most devoted playgoer and the most attentive commentator. Why, for example, didn’t Hamlet succeed to the throne of Denmark at the instant of his father’s death? (It’s not because the Danish throne was elective.) Why does Chorus in Romeo and Juliet promise his audience ‘two houres trafficke of our stage’ when the play obviously runs almost three hours? How is it that Old Hamlet ...