Scan barcode
sathyadgs95's review against another edition
5.0
Shakespeare requires no introduction -- he is "the Bard," the most imposing playwright and storyteller in the English language. And "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" brings together every one of his plays, ranging from harrowing tragedies to airy little puffs of comedy -- and even the lesser plays are still brilliant.
The plays basically are divided into comedies, histories and tragedies. The tragedies are pretty much... tragic, the comedies are not always funny but end semi-happily, and the histories... well, dramatizations of history, which usually make a great deal more sense after some historical research.
And everybody has heard of the greats here -- the Scottish lord who murders his way to kingship, young lovers divided by a feud, a Moorish general who is driven mad with jealousy, an elderly king whose arrogance rips his life apart, a very cleaned-up version of Henry VIII's split from his first wife, the goofy Prince Hal and his growth into a great king. There are feuding fairies, bickering lovers, romantic tangles, Julius Caesar's demise, gender-bending, an exiled duke/magician on his island, and the infamous "pound of flesh" bargain.
But Shakespeare also wrote a bunch of lesser-known plays that often can't be so neatly categorized -- a rotten love affair during the siege of Troy, a Roman general attacking his own city, an Athenian gentleman embittered by humanity, Richard III's Machiavellian plot to become king, two sets of twins separated at birth, a corrupt judge obsessed with a lovely nun, Falstaff's doomed efforts to make money, and so on. Some of these ("Troilus and Cressida") aren't nearly as good as his "main" body of work, but they're still excellent.
For all Shakespeare's plays, it's best to read them AFTER you've seen a good performance. Otherwise, it's like reading a movie script to a movie you haven't seen -- easy to get lost, and the dramatic effects aren't easy to connect to. But if you've seen performances of any/all of Shakespeare's plays, then his vibrant stories and poetry leap off the page.
There are long eloquent speeches, puns, clever linguistic twists, and evocative language that soaks the play in atmosphere ("With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine/There sleeps Titania sometime of the night/Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight..."). In fact, his plays are diamond mines of quotations -- some are infamous ("To be or not to be") and some of which have floated into public knowledge without labels ("Cowards die many times before their deaths/The valiant never taste of death but once").
And while some of his plays are basically fluff, he manages to weave in moral questions, criticism and explorations of the human soul. And his characters range as far as his plots -- kings and princes, teenage lovers, proud but doomed warriors, clever young ladies in drag, bratty queens, the witty but combative Beatrice and Benedick, and even the puppet-master mage Prospero.
Shakespeare's "Complete Works" is a must-have for anyone who loves the English language -- his writing was unparalleled, and even his lesser plays are a cut above the rest.
The plays basically are divided into comedies, histories and tragedies. The tragedies are pretty much... tragic, the comedies are not always funny but end semi-happily, and the histories... well, dramatizations of history, which usually make a great deal more sense after some historical research.
And everybody has heard of the greats here -- the Scottish lord who murders his way to kingship, young lovers divided by a feud, a Moorish general who is driven mad with jealousy, an elderly king whose arrogance rips his life apart, a very cleaned-up version of Henry VIII's split from his first wife, the goofy Prince Hal and his growth into a great king. There are feuding fairies, bickering lovers, romantic tangles, Julius Caesar's demise, gender-bending, an exiled duke/magician on his island, and the infamous "pound of flesh" bargain.
But Shakespeare also wrote a bunch of lesser-known plays that often can't be so neatly categorized -- a rotten love affair during the siege of Troy, a Roman general attacking his own city, an Athenian gentleman embittered by humanity, Richard III's Machiavellian plot to become king, two sets of twins separated at birth, a corrupt judge obsessed with a lovely nun, Falstaff's doomed efforts to make money, and so on. Some of these ("Troilus and Cressida") aren't nearly as good as his "main" body of work, but they're still excellent.
For all Shakespeare's plays, it's best to read them AFTER you've seen a good performance. Otherwise, it's like reading a movie script to a movie you haven't seen -- easy to get lost, and the dramatic effects aren't easy to connect to. But if you've seen performances of any/all of Shakespeare's plays, then his vibrant stories and poetry leap off the page.
There are long eloquent speeches, puns, clever linguistic twists, and evocative language that soaks the play in atmosphere ("With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine/There sleeps Titania sometime of the night/Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight..."). In fact, his plays are diamond mines of quotations -- some are infamous ("To be or not to be") and some of which have floated into public knowledge without labels ("Cowards die many times before their deaths/The valiant never taste of death but once").
And while some of his plays are basically fluff, he manages to weave in moral questions, criticism and explorations of the human soul. And his characters range as far as his plots -- kings and princes, teenage lovers, proud but doomed warriors, clever young ladies in drag, bratty queens, the witty but combative Beatrice and Benedick, and even the puppet-master mage Prospero.
Shakespeare's "Complete Works" is a must-have for anyone who loves the English language -- his writing was unparalleled, and even his lesser plays are a cut above the rest.
angelbabe_cj's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Infidelity, Misogyny, Murder, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, and Antisemitism
oh_valerie's review against another edition
5.0
восторг. любовь. я тронута до глубины души. не перестаю говорить, что шекспир - гений, и не перестаю влюбляться в него снова и снова.
jerryw's review against another edition
4.0
This rather obscure collection of poems by Shakespeare is - unsurprisingly very typical. Biblical stories, Roman gods and goddesses, virtue, supernatural stuff, you name it.
Shakespeare is supposed to be common man literature for his time, no? I think it shows.
Though having the same morals and more or less the same content than his other works, I do still think that the poems are very elegantly written:)
Shakespeare is supposed to be common man literature for his time, no? I think it shows.
Though having the same morals and more or less the same content than his other works, I do still think that the poems are very elegantly written:)
sarah1984's review against another edition
4.0
19/10 - I've just started a course on Shakespeare through FutureLearn and the first play that we are studying is The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is one I know absolutely nothing about. So far, I've read about three pages, or to the end of scene one and what I understand is that while I can barely understand the language, I can get the general gist of what's going on (or at least I think I can). There are many instances where God is Got, better is petter, brings is prings, very is fery, good is goot, and w is left off the beginning of a couple of words, all of which makes for confusing and slow reading. I think I understand what was being discussed in scene one - Shallow has accused Falstaff of assault, breaking and entering and poaching of his deer - but it was a little difficult to pull that information out of all those difficult and misspelt words. Professor Bate's (who is the scholar running the course) comment that Elizabethan's weren't concerned with spelling is certainly proven correct by the writing in The Merry Wives of Windsor. To be continued...
At the end of act I, scene III - I don't understand why Falstaff is trying to woo a pair of married women. Is he just being spiteful? Or is he delusional enough to really believe that they 'gave him good eyes'? To be continued...
26/10 - Well I finished it, mostly thanks to www.sparknotes.com. I really had trouble with the language throughout the play and had to refer to SparkNotes at least once a page. I could see where the dialogue might be funny, but I think it might work better as an acted out play rather than a read one. I feel like I would have enjoyed The Merry Wives of Windsor a lot more if I had been able to imagine what was happening in the scene better.
Our next play to study is A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is one of the plays I studied at school, I think I was in year 10 literature, so about 16. I remember enjoying it and the movie with Calista Flockhart and Kevin Kline, also the Balanchine ballet. I think I might have to make a concerted effort to get my hands on one or both of these, watching the action really does help my comprehension of the dialogue. To be continued...
31/10 - A Midsummer Night's Dream was an easier and much more humourous read. Having read it before and seen the 1999 movie surely made a difference and "Yay!" I've managed to download/rent that same movie through my pay tv service. A movie of this week's play, Henry V, is proving more difficult to acquire. No luck with my pay tv service, iTunes, Hoyts Kiosk, or my library system.
I've heard the quote
"Once more unto the breach, my dear friends..."
many times but had no idea it was Shakespeare's words that I was hearing, or a paraphrased version of it, from sources as diverse as Star Trek to every day use around the office. To be continued...
PopSugar 2015 Reading Challenge: A Play
At the end of act I, scene III - I don't understand why Falstaff is trying to woo a pair of married women. Is he just being spiteful? Or is he delusional enough to really believe that they 'gave him good eyes'? To be continued...
26/10 - Well I finished it, mostly thanks to www.sparknotes.com. I really had trouble with the language throughout the play and had to refer to SparkNotes at least once a page. I could see where the dialogue might be funny, but I think it might work better as an acted out play rather than a read one. I feel like I would have enjoyed The Merry Wives of Windsor a lot more if I had been able to imagine what was happening in the scene better.
Our next play to study is A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is one of the plays I studied at school, I think I was in year 10 literature, so about 16. I remember enjoying it and the movie with Calista Flockhart and Kevin Kline, also the Balanchine ballet. I think I might have to make a concerted effort to get my hands on one or both of these, watching the action really does help my comprehension of the dialogue. To be continued...
31/10 - A Midsummer Night's Dream was an easier and much more humourous read. Having read it before and seen the 1999 movie surely made a difference and "Yay!" I've managed to download/rent that same movie through my pay tv service. A movie of this week's play, Henry V, is proving more difficult to acquire. No luck with my pay tv service, iTunes, Hoyts Kiosk, or my library system.
I've heard the quote
"Once more unto the breach, my dear friends..."
many times but had no idea it was Shakespeare's words that I was hearing, or a paraphrased version of it, from sources as diverse as Star Trek to every day use around the office. To be continued...
PopSugar 2015 Reading Challenge: A Play
nwhyte's review against another edition
Henry VI, Part I[return]Henry VI, Part II[return]Henry VI, Part III[return]Richard III[return]Comedy of Errors[return]Titus Andronicus[return]Taming of the Shrew[return]Two Gentlemen of Verona[return]Love's Labour's Lost[return]Romeo and Juliet[return]Richard II[return]A Midsummer Night's Dream[return]King John[return]The Merchant of Venice[return]Henry IV, Part I[return]Henry IV, Part II[return]Henry V[return]Julius Caesar[return]Much Ado About Nothing[return]As You Like It[return]Merry Wives of Windsor[return]Hamlet[return]Twelfth Night[return]Troilus and Cressida[return]All's Well That Ends Well[return]Measure for Measure[return]Othello[return]King Lear[return]Macbeth[return]Antony and Cleopatra[return]Coriolanus[return]Timon of Athens[return]Pericles[return]Cymbeline[return]The Winter's Tale[return]The Tempest[return]Henry VIII[return]The Two Noble Kinsmen[return]Edward III[return]Sir Thomas More (fragment)
ianbanks's review against another edition
5.0
A beautifully illustrated edition accompanied an excellent introduction by Katherine Duncan-Jones on the history of the sonnets. Like most Folio editions this is a wonderful book and book-shaped object.