This Is Shakespeare
How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019
'The best introduction to the plays I've read, perhaps the best book on Shakespeare, full stop' Alex Preston, Observer
'It makes you impatient to see or re-read the plays at once' Hilary Mantel
A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no others. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality and literary mastery. Who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else.
Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of.
But it doesn't really tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. It introduces an intellectually, theatrically and ethically exciting writer who engages with intersectionality as much as with Ovid, with economics as much as poetry: who writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity and sex. It takes us into a world of politicking and copy-catting, as we watch him emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day; flirting with and skirting round the cut-throat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval and technological change. The Shakespeare in this book poses awkward questions rather than offering bland answers, always implicating us in working out what it might mean.
This is Shakespeare. And he needs your attention.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smith (Shakespeare's First Folio), Oxford professor of Shakespeare studies, combines contemporary wit and verve with scholarly rigor to produce a refreshingly entertaining study of the Bard's plays. Smith aims to introduce "a Shakespeare you could have a drink and a good conversation with" and isn't afraid to deploy pop-culture references such as comparing Falstaff to Homer Simpson to achieve her goal. The effect isn't to diminish the literary genius behind the 20 plays she examines but to open and explore the gaps Shakespeare left in each of his works. Smith begins with The Taming of the Shrew's controversial treatment of gender relations. To show that the play's ambiguities its title character can be seen either as "feisty and independent... or strident and antisocial" aren't just the result of changing attitudes, Smith draws comparisons to more straightforward works by Shakespeare's contemporaries, demonstrating that the play challenged audiences from the very start. A Midsummer Night's Dream, often adapted to serve as children's introduction to Shakespeare, is revealed as a "darker, sexier play," in which animal desires collide against marital strictures. While a familiarity with the plays is expected, poetic jargon is kept at a minimum. Entertaining and sagacious, this work will spur readers who gave up on Shakespeare on first pass to approach his oeuvre with new eyes.
