16 January 2005
The Merchant of Venice; Shakespeare, William
I had purchased Shakespeare's histories, comedies, and tragedies a few years back in these Everyman's Library editions. Prior to that I had, and possibly still have somewhere, a mishmash of used paperbacks of a dozen or so different plays. The Everyman's Library hardbacks are nearly perfect: they have good binding and paper, good size for reading, are inexpensive, and have excellent essays and commentary. Each play has a ten-or-so page essay covering the major themes from both high level structure and detailed, sentence level nuance. Just reading these introductory essays provides a lesson in history and etymology. The footnotes offered throughout each play serve as sufficient struts to understanding. My only complaint is that I sometimes forget a footnoted definition that was presented early on whose word is repeated later in the play--a glossary would help considerably. Thanks to the brother-in-law and his fiance, I have this wonderful Dictionary of Shakespeare to fill the gaps of my poor memory.
I had purchased these volumes back in 2002 before we went to visit Diane in Sun Vally, Idaho where she played Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. The commentary almost made me sound intelligent about the theater when we hung out with the other actors after the show. You too can sound intelligent with the Everyman's Library! Buy yours today.
Comedies, Vol. 2; Shakespeare, William
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- The children of Infinite Jest posted by sstrader on 23 August 2015 at 3:48:24 PM
- Posthuman dystopia posted by sstrader on 22 March 2015 at 10:21:25 AM
- Poetry and apocalypse posted by sstrader on 22 November 2014 at 10:41:33 AM
- Roman Jakobson's functions of language posted by sstrader on 5 October 2014 at 10:36:23 AM