Recommendations for Shakespeare
It is probable that a thread with a similar title has been opened before. If that is the case, maybe someone will be able to bring it to my attention. New responses are nice too though.
Let me say first that I read quite often. Not as much as most of y'all but I have an OK background in English and American literature. I have read much less poetry than novels, but I have read some. I'm pretty happy with what I have read except for, perhaps, my exclusion of Shakespeare and a few other things. I want to finally get to Shakespeare but I'm not sure where to begin. Iv'e been put off because I have read A Midsummer's Night Dream, Macbeth, and parts of other plays, but, quite frankly, I could not understand the stuff. In part this was due to a lack of interest, since I was aware of the difficulty and often lost my concentration and thought of other things. But mostly it was because the plays are hard to read. I know most of the stories from growing up a native English speaker I guess. But I want to understand the plays word for word more or less. I want to read and understand what is happening. I think I can read this stuff. I just think that I need a lot of help. Well, anyway, here is what I am asking.
If anyone could recommend a good book, or books, to read. I don't really want to try a book without footnotes. It would be nice if many of the obscure words were defined right there on the same page. This would also help with understanding idioms, symbolism, etc. Any advice on which plays to start with would be nice too.
I going to throw this in here too. Same questions for Edmund Spencer. He is another one I have for a long time been wanting to read, but, finding his language difficult, I have been discouraged. I just can't see myself surviving a reading of his poems without them being heavily annotated or footnoted.
Thanks in advance for all replies.