Shakespeare is Hard, But So is Life

Shakespeare is Hard, But So is Life PDF Author: Fintan O'Toole
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 9781862075283
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
"O'Toole challenges the traditional approach towards the study of the four key plays--Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth--and provides an entertaining and absorbing appreciation of the dramatic qualities of each."--cover.

Shakespeare is Hard, but so is Life

Shakespeare is Hard, but so is Life PDF Author: Fintan O'Toole
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1035908727
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
The works of Shakespeare have become staples of literature. They are everywhere, from our early schooling to the lecture rooms of academia, from classic theatre to modern adaptations on stage and screen. But how well do we really know his plays? In this witty, iconoclastic book, the bestselling author Fintan O'Toole examines four of Shakespeare's most enduring tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear. He shows how their tragic heroes have been over-simplified and moulded to fit restrictive, conservative values, and restores the true heart and spirit of the classics. 'I've never read a book like this before: it's challenging, irreverent and funny.' Roddy Doyle

Shakespeare is Hard, But So is Life

Shakespeare is Hard, But So is Life PDF Author: Fintan O'Toole
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description


Shakespeare in Modern English

Shakespeare in Modern English PDF Author: Translated by Hugh Macdonald
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 178589840X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Shakespeare in Modern English breaks the taboo about Shakespeare’s texts, which have long been regarded as sacred and untouchable while being widely and freely translated into foreign languages. It is designed to make Shakespeare more easily understood in the theatre without dumbing down or simplifying the content. Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’, ‘Coriolanus’ and ‘The Tempest’ are presented in Macdonald’s book in modern English. They show that these great plays lose nothing by being acted or read in the language we all use today. Shakespeare’s language is poetic, elaborately rich and memorable, but much of it is very difficult to comprehend in the theatre when we have no notes to explain allusions, obsolete vocabulary and whimsical humour. Foreign translations of Shakespeare are normally into their modern language. So why not ours too? The purpose in rendering Shakespeare into modern English is to enhance the enjoyment and understanding of audiences in the theatre. The translations are not designed for children or dummies, but for those who want to understand Shakespeare better, especially in the theatre. Shakespeare in Modern English will appeal to those who want to understand the rich and poetical language of Shakespeare in a more comprehensible way. It is also a useful tool for older students studying Shakespeare.

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (Anniversary Edition)

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (Anniversary Edition) PDF Author: Stephen Greenblatt
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393079848
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
Named One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, reissued with a new afterword for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? 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.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare PDF Author: Ari Berk
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763647942
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
Describes Shakespeare's experiences in London and his retirement to the country in a fictional account that includes excerpts from his works.

The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare

The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare PDF Author: Anna Beer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111960527X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Discover an invigorating new perspective on the life and work of William Shakespeare The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare delivers a fresh and exciting new take on the life of William Shakespeare, offering readers a biography that brings to the foreground his working life as a poet, playwright, and actor. It also explores the nature of his relationships with his friends, colleagues, and family, and asks important questions about the stories we tell about Shakespeare based on the evidence we actually have about the man himself. The book is written using scholarly citations and references, but with an approachable style suitable for readers with little or no background knowledge of Shakespeare or the era in which he lived. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare asks provocative questions about the playwright-poet’s preoccupation with gender roles and sexuality, and explores why it is so challenging to ascertain his political and religious allegiances. Conservative or radical? Misogynist or proto-feminist? A lover of men or women or both? Patriot or xenophobe? This introduction to Shakespeare’s life and works offers no simple answers, but recognizes a man intensely responsive to the world around him, a playwright willing and able to collaborate with others and able to collaborate with others, and, of course, his exceptional, perhaps unique, contribution to literature in English. The book covers the entirety of William Shakespeare’s life (1564-1616), taking him from his childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon to his success in the theatre world of London and then back to his home town and comfortable retirement. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare sets his achievement as a writer within the dangerous, vibrant cultural world that was Elizabethan and Jacobean England, revealing a writer’s life of frequent collaboration, occasional crisis, but always of profound creativity. Perfect for undergraduate students in Literature, Drama, Theatre Studies, History, and Cultural Studies courses, The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare will also earn a place in the libraries of students interested in Gender Studies and Creative Writing.

The Life and Times of William Shakespeare

The Life and Times of William Shakespeare PDF Author: Peter Levi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780333511862
Category : Dramatists, English
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Drawing on modern historical scholarship, rather than speculation, this book links the plays and poetry closely to the life of their author and sets the whole chronicle against the vivid tapestry backdrop of Shakespeare's world and time.

This Is Shakespeare

This Is Shakespeare PDF Author: Emma Smith
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1524748552
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
An electrifying new study that investigates the challenges of the Bard’s inconsistencies and flaws, and focuses on revealing—not resolving—the ambiguities of the plays and their changing topicality A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn’t tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant. In This Is Shakespeare, Emma Smith—an intellectually, theatrically, and ethically exciting writer—takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting, as we watch Shakespeare emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd (the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day), 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.

Of Human Kindness

Of Human Kindness PDF Author: Paula Marantz Cohen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300258321
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
An award-winning scholar and teacher explores how Shakespeare's greatest characters were built on a learned sense of empathy While exploring Shakespeare's plays with her students, Paula Marantz Cohen discovered that teaching and discussing his plays unlocked a surprising sense of compassion in the classroom. In this short and illuminating book, she shows how Shakespeare's genius lay with his ability to arouse empathy, even when his characters exist in alien contexts and behave in reprehensible ways. Cohen takes her readers through a selection of Shakespeare's most famous plays, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and The Merchant of Venice, to demonstrate the ways in which Shakespeare thought deeply and clearly about how we treat "the other." Cohen argues that only through close reading of Shakespeare can we fully appreciate his empathetic response to race, class, gender, and age. Wise, eloquent, and thoughtful, this book is a forceful argument for literature's power to champion what is best in us.

Shakespeare Saved My Life

Shakespeare Saved My Life PDF Author: Laura Bates
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402273150
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
A female professor, a super maximum security prisoner, and how Shakespeare saved them both Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before—supermax solitary confinement. In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars. A testament to the power of literature, Shakespeare Saved My Life is a remarkable memoir. Fans of Orange is the New Black (Piper Kerman), A Place to Stand (Jimmy Baca) and I Couldn't Help Myself (Wally Lamb) will be be inspired by the story of the most unlikely friendship, one bonded by Shakespeare and lasting years—a friendship that would, in the end, save more than one life. What readers are saying about Shakespeare Saved My Life: "I was tremendously moved by both the potential impact of Shakespeare and learning on human beings and the story of this one man." "This is one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read." "I have never read a book that touched me as much as this memoir." "It is a challenging and remarkable story." "I loved this book so much. It changed my life." What reviewers are saying about Shakespeare Saved My Life: "You don't have to be a William Shakespeare fan, a prisoner, or a prison reformer to appreciate this uplifting book. "Shakespeare Saved My Life" also reveals many important truths ... about the meaning of empathy in our dealings with others"—Finger Lake Times "Shakespeare Saved My Life touches on the search for meaning in life, the struggles that complicate the path to triumph and the salvation that can be found in literature's great works ... An inspiring account."—Shelf Awareness "Opening the mind's prison proves enormously gratifying, not to mention effective ... brave, groundbreaking work"—Publishers Weekly "An eye-opening study reiterating the perennial power of books, self-discipline, and the Bard of Avon."—Kirkus "A powerful testament to how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary readers in all sorts of circumstances."—Booklist