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Hello,
Does anybody know a good and easy commentary book explaining Shakespeare's plays (Henry IV part 1, Much Ado about Nothing & Hamlet)? I'm looking for a no-brainer one, which will be as easy as possible to understand, because I'm having trouble understanding the plays (mainly the language).
thanks
Gosh, I can't bear a polite request ignored. If you want to know the plots, then you can find them on wiki or elsewhere on the web. Henry IV depends in a large part on the previous history, which Shakespeare told in his Richard II - you have to check up on that.
Even experienced readers can find the language obscure at times, but the verbal complexity is part of what makes Shakespeare great. There's no no-brainer way other than getting on and studying the texts. There's all sorts of student editions, sometimes with commentary on facing pages to the text.
Good luck.
SHAKESPEARE FOR DUMMIES is good, I think. Some libraries have Norrie Epstein's THE FRIENDLY SHAKESPEARE. Marchette Chute's STORIES FROM SHAKESPEARE is an older book. In Barry Edelstein's THINKING SHAKESPEARE is a good intro to the language stuff. The OXFORD edition of ROMEO AND JULIET has tons of notes that might be helpful when reading other plays. Samuel Johnson's introduction to Sh is still essential.
I like Samuel Johnson's wonderfully pre-Romantic take on Shakespeare very much, but I wouldn't call it essential to understanding Shakespeare.
The Oxford World Classics series is the best serious series I know at present, with all the variant readings of the text.
They are often not bad, very good even. I have heard some of the introductions are a bit suspect though. Apparently, the introduction to 'As You Like It' is now quite dated and in many places simply wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanB
Greenblatt is arguably the best, and my favorite Shakespeare scholar, but you're probably not ready for the New Historicism/Cultural Materialism route yet. So, Harold Bloom's essays in The Western Canon and The Burth of the Human could help.
Is Bloom entry level?
In those books, definitely. They were written for a general audience. To be honest, though, nothing Bloom has written--including The Anxiety of Influence--is particularly difficult. He's hardly Paul De Man.
THE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO SH is also a good intro. Jonathan Bate's 2010 biographical book is great. One can look in the index there and find stuff about most anything.