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A review by ljrinaldi
A Stage Full of Shakespeare Stories by Angela McAllister
3.0
Does it matter if this beautiful language, below
becomes this:
The second is clearer, and that is what this book is for, to make the stories clearer, and easier to understand. Still, I miss the flowing language, that makes Shakespeare so quoted in modern English that we don't even notice that that is what we are doing any more.
On the other hand, they have kept: "By the prickling of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes".
And so it goes through all the rest of the plays. The story is well retold, in modern English, and some lines are kept, and others are made more clear, such as Juliet's lament about Romeo being a Montague.
This book is good for teaching the contents of the plays, and making them easy to read, and understand, but is no substitute for seeing or reading the real thing, and I hope that anyone reading this book, would realize that.
With that caveat, I would recommend this as a good introduction to Shakespeare.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.
"Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
35I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?"
becomes this:
Are you real or are you a dagger of my mind?
Fate must has sent this vision to lead me
The second is clearer, and that is what this book is for, to make the stories clearer, and easier to understand. Still, I miss the flowing language, that makes Shakespeare so quoted in modern English that we don't even notice that that is what we are doing any more.
On the other hand, they have kept: "By the prickling of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes".
And so it goes through all the rest of the plays. The story is well retold, in modern English, and some lines are kept, and others are made more clear, such as Juliet's lament about Romeo being a Montague.
This book is good for teaching the contents of the plays, and making them easy to read, and understand, but is no substitute for seeing or reading the real thing, and I hope that anyone reading this book, would realize that.
With that caveat, I would recommend this as a good introduction to Shakespeare.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.