To the Reader.
1 All the World’s a Stage: Poetry and Theatre.
2 Creeping Like Snail: Childhood, Education, Early Friendship, Sibling Rivalries.
3 Sighing Like Furnace: Courtship and Sexual Desire.
4 Full of Strange Oaths and Bearded Like the Pard: The Coming-of-Age of the Male.
5 Jealous in Honour: Love and Friendship in Crises.
6 Wise Saws: Political and Social Disillusionment, Humankind’s Relationship to the Divine, and Philosophical Scepticism.
7 Modern Instances: Misogyny, Jealousy, Pessimism, and Midlife Crises.
8 The Lean and Slippered Pantaloon: Ageing Fathers and their Daughters.
9 Last Scene of All: Retirement from the Theatre.
10 Shakespeare Today.
Barbara Mowat, Folger Shakespeare Institute [of the first edition]<!--end-->
"This is a book from […] one of the great Shakespeare scholars of his generation. The book is well-written, at once lively and learned, engaging and informative. It is perfectly designed to help non-specialist readers enjoy Shakespeare's plays better and yet it is also rich with insights that will challenge the specialist reader." David Scott Kastan, Columbia University [of the first edition]
"Recommended for all public and academic libraries in need of fresh introductory materials on Shakespeare."
Library Journal [of the first edition]
"Essential. A must for lower- and upper-division undergraduates; a pleasure for graduate students through faculty and for general readers."
Choice [of the first edition]
"[This book] is sensible and persuasive in its linking of criticism and biography. Its primary audience is students, who will find the treatments of individual plays excellent as stand-alone studies as well as part of a larger argument."
English Association Journal for Teachers of English
"Objective and personal, too, the book is likely to be useful for long to come"
Notes and Queries
- Second edition of this highly innovative introduction to the extraordinary phenomenon of Shakespeare.
- Offers readers insights into what makes Shakespeare great, and why we still read and perform his works.
- Explores Shakespeare’s works through the ‘Seven Ages of Man’, from childhood to “second childishness and mere oblivion”.
- Now includes more material on fathers and sons, on the perils of courtship, about the circumstances of Shakespeare’s own life, about the performance history of his plays on stage and on screen, and more.
- A new final chapter on ‘Shakespeare Today’ looks at the remarkable diversity of interpretations in modern criticism and performance of Shakespeare.
- Discusses a wide range of plays and poems.
- Suitable for both non-specialist readers, and scholars seeking a fresh approach to the study of Shakespeare.