How to Read a Shakespeare Play [Hardcover]

This clear and succinct book is designed for general readers who want to know how to go about reading Shakespeare’s works for pleasure.

• Encourages readers to approach Shakespeare's works aggressively, interactively, and questioningly
  
• Focuses on six popular Shakespeare plays - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV Part I, Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest
  
• Recommends the best editions, recordings and DVDs / videos of these plays
  
• Discusses the production of the plays on stage and screen
  
• Introduces readers to different genres in Shakespeare – romantic comedy, English history, tragedy and romance
  
• Avoids jargon and abstract literary theory

List of Illustrations.

1. How to Read a Shakespeare Play.

2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

3. Romeo and Juliet.

4. Henry the Fourth, Part I.

5. Hamlet.

6. King Lear.

7. The Tempest.

8. Epilogue.

Further Reading.

Index

“The first chapter is a fabulous, full-frontal, thirteen-page assault that both dispenses information and suggests effective questions that student readers might employ when reading a text in order to ‘read aggressively’ (p. 9). What is mildly revolutionary is that it is here, in print, ready to be easily disseminated to students and thus to more easily and readily articulate the type of engagement with a text that we hope and expect our students will undertake. BevingtlÓ+