Shakespeare After All Publisher: Anchor

by Marjorie Garber

A brilliant and companionable tour through all thirty-eight plays, Shakespeare After All is the perfect introduction to the bard by one of the country’s foremost authorities on his life and work. Drawing on her hugely popular lecture courses at Yale and Harvard over the past thirty years, Marjorie Garber offers passionate and revealing readings of the plays in chronological sequence, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Two Noble Kinsmen. Supremely readable and engaging, and complete with a comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare’s life and times and an extensive bibliography, this magisterial work is an ever-replenishing fount of insight on the most celebrated writer of all time.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Literature, Plays, Criticism, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Marjorie B. Garber (born June 11, 1944) is a professor at Harvard University and the author of a wide variety of books, most notably ones about William Shakespeare and aspects of popular culture including sexuality.

She wrote Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, a ground breaking theoretical work on transvestitism's contribution to culture. Other works include Sex and Real Estate:Why We Love Houses, Academic Instincts, Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, Shakespeare After All, and Dog Love (which is not primarily about bestiality, except for one chapter titled "Sex and the Single Dog").

Her book Shakespeare After All (Pantheon, 2004) was chosen one of Newsweek's ten best nonfiction books of the year, and was awarded the 2005 Christian Gauss Book Award from Phi Beta Kappa.

She was educated at Swarthmore College (B.A., 1966; L.H.D., 2004) and Yale University (Ph.D., 1969).

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my go-to book for deepening my understanding of whatever Shakespeare play I just staggered through or tripped over or read to my toddler, which by the way he is very into and the reason is that he's a genius. It's not because I make funny voices and gallop all over the room. It's because he's a genius.

My friend Sammy recommends this for "in-between" Shakespeare fans, and I love that. Like, let's say this isn't your first party with Shakespeare; let's say you know about the second-best bed and you can read a speech without being more than a little confused. But you don't know, like - well I don't know what you would know if you were a serious Shakespeare scholar, if I knew that I would be one. Whatever those people know, let's say you don't know it. I'm sure it's very interesting. So those in-between people.

Because Garber gets into each play - the plot, the characters, some of the themes, a few of the tricks. She spends, I don't know, 20 or 30 pages on each of them, so that's a fair amount of depth. Her writing style - these are actually adapted from her lectures, she's a Harvard professor - is engaging and fun. I read a Shakespeare or two every year, and I always return to this book gleefully as soon as I'm done. Listen, I bought this book for my shelf and for my Kindle. That's serious business. I would rather have Garber's insight than anyone else's.

[Laura Leaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are some fascinating essays on the plays of Shakespeare. No boggy summaries. No unpacking of the plot. Just interesting perspectives and a marvelous close reading of each play. Margorie Garber has an open mind and a sharp eye for what matters. If you're a Shakespeare scholar, you might quibble with some of her interpretations, but for the lay-person, Garber makes accessible the depth, the beauty, and the majesty of Shakespeare's inventiveness and language. I'm also weirdly glad to have read some Shakespeare criticism by a woman.

Here is a line from her piece on "Coriolanus": "One reading might concentrate on Coriolanus, or Caius Martius, himself, the lone aristocrat, the heroic individual; another might take up the narrative of the common people, the hungry, disempowered "voices"; a third might emphasize the roles of the women in the play, or the family group constellated by the three "V's" (the mother Volumnia, the wife Virgilia, the friend Valeria) and her Young Martius, Coriolanus's son." I love this way of opening up the possibilities. I haven't read the play yet, but I'm very excited to re-read her essay after I do.

Her offerings on the plays I know and love ("Macbeth,""Hamlet,"King Lear,"Julius Caesar,""Henry V," and all the rest)are brilliant. I learned something new at every turn, and that's my highest praise.

I wish it hadn't taken me years to finish!

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read all of Shakespeare this year and found Marjorie Garber's book when I was still in the early plays and am eternally indebted to her for her insights. In Shakespeare After All, she takes between 25 and 60 pages for each play to describe them in detail, give perspectives from various critics over time, and her own readings of the works. I found her interpretations of the female characters particularly insightful. It was such a pleasure to read her chapters just before diving into each play. I found the book to be an ideal reading companion.

Fino's Reviews of Shakespeare and Shakespearean Criticism
Comedies
The Comedy of Errors (1592-1593
The Taming of the Shrew (1593-1594)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594-1595)
Love's Labour's Lost (1594-1595)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-1596)
The Merchant of Venice (1596-1597)
Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599)
As You Like It (1599-1600)
Twelfth Night (1599-1600)
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600-1601)
All's Well That Ends Well (1602-1603)
Measure for Measure (1604-1605)
Cymbeline (1609-1610)
A Winter's Tale (1610-1611)
The Tempest (1611-1612)
Two Noble Kinsmen (1612-1613)

Histories
Henry VI Part I (1589-1590)
Henry VI Part II (1590-1591)
Henry VI Part III (1590-1591)
Richard III (1593-1594)
Richard II (1595-1596)
King John (1596-1597)
Edward III (1596-1597)
Henry IV Part I (1597-1598)
Henry IV Part II (1597-1598)
Henry V (1598-1599)
Henry VIII (1612-1612)

Tragedies
Titus Andronicus (1592-1593)
Romeo and Juliet (1594-1595)
Julius Caesar (1599-1600)
Hamlet (1600-1601)
Troilus and Cressida (1601-1602)
Othello (1604-1605)
King Lear (1605-1606)
Macbeth (1605-1606)
Anthony and Cleopatra (1606-1607)
Coriolanus (1607-1608)
Timon of Athens (1607-1608)
Pericles (1608-1609)

Shakespearean Criticism
The Wheel of Fire by Wilson Knight
A Natural Perspective by Northrop Frye
Shakespeare After All by Marjorie Garber
Shakespeare's Roman Plays and Their Background by M W MacCallum
Shakespearean Criticism 1919-1935 compiled by Anne Ridler
Shakespearean Tragedy by A.C. Bradley
Shakespeare's Sexual Comedy by Hugh M. Richmond
Shakespeare: The Comedies by R.P. Draper
Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro

Collections of Shakespeare
Venus and Adonis, the Rape of Lucrece and Other Poems
Shakespeare's Sonnets and a Lover's Complaint
The Complete Oxford Shakespeare

[Jared Colley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book alongside Harold Bloom's famous work on the Bard and actually enjoyed it much more. The books are organized in much the same way, tackling each play one-by-one, chapter by chapter. When reading them side by side, I was more convinced and intrigued by Garber's readings; I think her interpretive strategies are more like my own than say Mr. Bloom's - so I am probably biased. In fact, I know I am biased; Bloom is a meglamaniac. Garber does a good job making use of more recent schools of interpretation (namely post-60s textual, feminist, and historicist forms of critique) while resisting the tendency of exploiting Shakespearean texts for political/pedagogical purposes that go beyond the texts-themselves. She respects the universality of Shakepeare's art while also grounding the complexity of Shakespeare's literature in the networks of socio-historical forces and influences. This book is a great reference and a great read.

[Sammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really rather good, although - as with so many books of this type - its target audience is a little ... vague.

In terms of accessibility for a general reader, Garber gives us a neat precis of Shakespeare's life and times, followed by analyses of all the plays in the canon. No play misses out, and all are treated fairly. At the same time, this is not an "introduction to Shakespeare", no matter what the blurb may try to sell you. All of the chapters assume at least some familiarity with the play in question, or are obscure enough about plot that you'd need to have some detail to begin with. This is not an account of the play's sources, history, or fate on the stage and screen; it's a popular academic treatise. With that said, if you're building up an amateur's Shakespeare library, this is an interesting read. What may be frustrating is an inevitability: there is so much to talk about with each play that, like most books of "essays", Garber tends to pick a few points about each play and then discuss them. This is not anything like a comprehensive overview (after all, most chapters are about 30 pages), but it tackles some of the key questions academics and directors ask about each work.

For the academic reader, I'm not sure how I feel. It seems as if Garber got the commission for the book by promising a general introduction, but she can't quite keep her intelligence at bay. And, hey, I'm not complaining; her insights are valid and well-written. Unlike most Shakespeare writers, I almost never feel as if she's wandering down a rabbit-hole of philosophical ramblings. No, Garber's analyses are - although decidedly deskbound - certainly drawn from real examination of the plays in the context of William Shakespeare's time. There are a few niggles depending on your taste (for me, I dislike that old-school scholar thing of describing a character using dashes, e.g. "Lear is her father-king"), but each to their own.

The challenge is that I'm not sure if the book unites the two worlds very well. Some of the chapters are quite high-minded, and reveal little to the general reader about the play. At the same time, there were very few surprises in the book for me (and thus, I'd assume, even fewer for the full-time Shakespeare academic). It doesn't seem as if Garber is really adding to the hefty discussion on the Bard, but nor is she a Richard Dawkins, able to illuminate a fascinating-but-niche world for the general public.

I should note this is a positive review, indeed a 5-star review (well, 4.6) - in part because I admire Garber's writing, her intelligence, and her views, and in part because as a Shakespeare lover, I was engaged on every single damn page. I heartily recommend this book to people in an "in-between" stage of Shakespeare scholarship, but I'd champion the great populists like Stephen Greenblatt and Stanley Wells for those looking to get their head around the plays in an intellectual-but-understandable way.

[Carol Bakker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the best $9.00 purchase I made this year. In short, Garber is brilliant. Her commentary brought out the deep hues and shapes and textures of the bard. She taught me volumes in the art of reading literature. Her analysis was both interesting and helpful.

Today, I watched Branaugh's movie Murder on the Orient Express and looked for literary patterns and themes. Seriously, I thought, 'What would Marjorie see?' I am convinced I noticed substantially more than I would have before reading Shakespeare After All.

Garber is both elegant and economical. A book that approaches 1000 pages isn't usually accused of thrift, but she doesn't waste words. At times I paused simply to admire her sentences.

What annoys her? Taking Shakespeare quotes out of context. Appropriating them without regard for the meaning portrayed in the play.

Garber knows the Bible (although I don't know what/that she believes) and often points out biblical allusions that Shakespeare's 17th century audience would have easily recognized. But then she also reveals the bawdy double meanings of words that would never have occurred to me. Sometimes I wish a thing were simply...a thing!

She points out motifs and characters in one play which resemble others throughout the canon. This jester is like that one; see these motherless daughters; pay attention to boxes here. This unmasking scene echoes that one; the sea signifies this; the forest is a place of danger.

Consequently the reader receives both a close read of each play and an encompassing view of some of the world's best literature.

Few, very few, would find this fun to read for entertainment's sake. But as a study guide to reading Shakespeare, I highly recommend it.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

While almost all Shakespeare criticism tends to sound the same, after biographical details and conjecture (enough with the young William poaching deer!) is thrown in, this account of Shakespeare's plays is fresh and omnivorous. A bit cheeky too - when she speaks about a particulat uncritical critic who has a thing for Falstaff, whose one-sided readings may become the old-fashioned way of writing about Shakespeare. Nice presentation of speeches and dialogue throughout the book, representing a large variety of character, often the ones overlooked (as well as plays like the Two Noble Kinsman). One very interesting area of study, which seems to be a term coined by Marjorie Garber, are the "unscenes" - vivid pictures placed in the dialogue of events that happen off stage, such as Kate and Petrucio's wedding, Hamlet's madness reported by Ophelia or the reunion at the end of the Winter's Tale. Another great connection made between characters in other plays, such as suggesting Henry V and Richard II become synthesized. Lots to say, too, about language in the plays, not only how the words were supposed to have been spoken way back then, but what they sound like to us today. Julie Taymour film Titus gets a brief mention here, and there are many great examples of film adaptation in the further reading section. After All covers all the bases, and gets readers wanting to read - or see - the plays one more time, so that ideas from her book can sink in.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Remember the last time you read a work of literary criticism and actually understood it? The tide has changed with Shakespeare After All. Forgoing cultural studies jargon for an eclectic approach that draws from gender studies, post-colonial theory, and Elizabethan stage history, Garber focuses on close, erudite readings of the Bard's work. Comparing her tome to Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998), critics agree that Garber is more readable and enjoyable; Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World (**** Nov/Dec 2004) will give her a run for the money, however. A few reviewers wondered why Garber omitted discussion of Shakespeare's sonnets and poems; others criticized the book's significant length. Yet, until "somebody even smarter than Garber comes along with a 1,200-pager, this is the indispensable introduction to the indispensable writer" (Newsweek).

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Scott Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom

Shakespeare After All, Marjorie Garber,

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, Vols. 1-2, Isaac Asimov


I don’t normally review three books at once but I think it makes sense in this instance. I have been reading these books together that are similar in scope and therefore worth discussing together.

One of the things I love most about Shakespeare is that I believe his plays talk to three different time periods. They speak to the time period of the characters especially in the histories, they speak to the time period they were written and then they speak to the time period they are being read or performed.

I have been working for a couple years on three books that discuss each of the 38 Shakespeare plays. I believe they are best read as companions as you work your way through Shakespeare’s catalog which I suspect is what most do. When I decide to read a play, I also read the corresponding chapters from Bloom, Garber and Asimov to help highlight the themes and to better understand the plays in their context. Sometimes I read these before reading the play so I have a better understanding of what I’m reading and sometimes I like to read the play first to see what I think are the keys and then see if the experts agree.

What I found really enjoyable from all three writers was how they all focused on different themes or points from a play making it worthwhile to read all three books.

So how are they different.

The Invention of the Human -Harold Bloom’s is one of the most famous literary critics and Shakespeare scholars of all time and certainly knows his subject. I think anybody who is really trying to better understand Shakespeare should have his book as a resource, but I will say its my least favorite of the three. Bloom is brilliant and I think he wants to make sure the reader knows it which I find annoying, He is also prone to absurd exaggeration, you don’t need to look and further than his title proclaiming that “Shakespeare invented the human”.

Shakespeare After All, Marjorie Garber is a well known Shakespeare professor at Harvard. I feel like Professor Garber equals Bloom in Shakespearean knowledge but presents it in a much less pretentious way. The book is based on her lectures at Harvard and definitely reads like a literary course in Shakespeare which I say as a complement. If you are only going to buy one of the three books to support your reading of Shakespeare this is the one that I would recommend.

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, Vols. 1-2, Isaac Asimov is one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century but he is most known for his science fiction writing. I have actually never read his other works and to be honest I’m not sure how I stumbled across this book but I love it. Its my favorite of the three and I actually bought a second copy to keep in my car as my car book that I can read anytime I find myself with some time to read away from the house. Asimov focuses much more on the history that the history plays are based on or the source material for the other plays. I happen to love history which is why this is my favorite of the three but I don’t recommend it over Garber’s because I assume most people looking for one companion to Shakespeare might prefer Garber’s more typical literary analysis but Asimov’s book is a great read that I highly recommend.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read for any Shakespeare lover. What more can really be said about Shakespeare? Well considering the amount of books that keep coming out, quite a bit. While, for the most part, Garber doesn’t offer too much that is new, she has an engaging writing style and takes the reader on a close reading of the plays. For instance, she points out the similarities between Brutus, Cassius, and Caser on a level that is far more than character.
At times, this close reading does fail – for instance, if Romeo forgives Death, why does he leave a note stating where he got the poison from? She also notes, correctly, that Henry VIII gets overlooked, and then writes about it shortly.

[Hunter R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential introduction to all of Shakespeare, and a reference work that I will keep returning to time and time again

[Rozonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deep, rich, easy to follow and to understand, this book is a jewel for all Shakespeare lovers,both newbies and experts. This play by play analysis shows cultural, linguistic and social aspects of the plays, both in their time and throughout history; in fact this is one of its most fascinating qualities- Ms Garber treats the plays as living beings, whose development goes beyond the time they were written and/or acted for the first time. Sometimes she repeats herself a little bit (for example, when she talks a bout cross-dressing and gender confusion in Shakespeare) but even when she does, it is not annoying due to her erudition and the naturalness of her language. If you want to read a complete introduction to Shakespeare, choose this one.

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a pretty solid commentary. She writes about 30 pages on each play and makes reference to all the hip schools of thought where appropriate (postcolonialism, queer theory, new historicism, feminism, soft psychoanalysis, etc) and is very thorough. She's not really here to interpret the plays in radical new ways, just collect the most agreeable and uncontentious scholarly readings of the text and present them in a clear way. if you're looking to read about the different plays without having to judge any cagey critical readings (like Godard's or Girard's), and just learn about how best to understand the play in a straightforward fashion, this is your book. But just be warned, it's very dry and unexciting...

[Matt McCormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very comprehensive compilation of each of Shakespeare's plays. In hindsight, I think this might best be read as an adjunct to reading the individual plays themselves. Garber is insightful and interesting but she isn't providing a full synopsis of a specific play's plot. Rather, she offers perspective into psychology of the the play and it's characters, the relationship of the play to the historical context of when it was written, and how themes in one play relate to others.

I'll keep this work on my shelf and return to it whenever I read a specific play or, better yet, before I see one in production. My city's Shakespeare in the Park festival will put on Hamlet this year. Garber will be a welcome instructor before I sit in the grass to watch it.

[Laura AP]

é sempre bom encontrar o trabalho de uma pessoa que é Completamente Doida. no caso porque escreveu tipo 1500 páginas sobre todas as peças de shakespeare. o capítulo que eu li conectou todos os pontos, imagino que os outros também sejam show.

[Barawe · Rating 5 out of 5]

really good stuff this one - no long paragraphs written in some weird academic gibberish, no overthinking, just one very sharp lady introducing you to the complexity of Shakespeare's plays

[Evan Streeby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal book of criticism. I’ve only read a few sections thus far, but her insights have me flipping page to page reading everything again with renewed vigor and insight

[Zachary Waltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction is a delectable invitation into Shakespeare scholarship, its different modes and perspectives. The reader gets a clearer picture of the matter of Shakespeare, and how one must make of it the form of his work, but also, as a result, how it is still a creation of sorts that alters with each era.

Quotes

“We cannot resist creating our own Shakespeare.” (6)

"There has always been a productive tension between the use of the play as a poem or a text and the idea of the play as a performance." (8)

"Improvement, of course, was in the eye, or rather ear, of the beholder. Even without conjectural editing or other acts of critical ingenuity, the editors had to select from among the versions offered by various alternative source texts, quarto or folio, with the intention of choosing the most felicitous or most mellifluous option. …. “sullied” flesh … It is not that we have no authentic Shakespeare texts, but rather that we have several. From the beginning, “Shakespeare” was Shakespeares. … Editors feuded with one another …" (14)

"Shakespeare criticism, like all critical interpretation, is, to a certain extent, inevitably contrapuntal." (18)

"The strength of the plays, the evidence of what we call their “greatness,” is their capacity to be reinterpreted, reread, and performed anew in every generation." (19)

Trivia:
- The scaffold was the same name for the stage and the execution place. (22)
- Copyright was first introduced in England in 1709.

[Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a superb resource. After a wonderful introduction to the topic, Garber gives us a chapter on each of the plays. Her analyses are lucid, never modish and show a great love and understanding of the works.

I started reading this a few years ago. I picked it up again when I started teaching a class on Shakespeare's play. I decided it was worth it to read the book straight through. When you read it this way, you get a great through line on the development of Shakespeare as a writer, and also a good idea of how themes weave through the 30+ plays.

I will be consulting this book often in the future as a refresher whenever I am going to teach, read or see one of these miraculous plays.

[Ilia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I’ve just read too much Shakespeariana now but this didn’t grab me – it’s introductions are quite basic and platitudes are frequent. Harold Bloom’s eccentric Invention of the Human is often more incorrect, but is still more interesting. Readers looking for an updated introduction to the plays are better served by Emma Smith’s This Is Shakespeare, which has a clearer thesis and more insights per page. Unfortunately Smith’s book doesn’t cover all of the plays, but her podcast series are a good supplement.

[Kirk Lowery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book represents 30 years of teaching the Bard by a Harvard professor of English. All of the plays have a chapter devoted to them, including introductions to their content, original production, etc. My only complaint about this large book is that it isn't larger: she doesn't deal with the sonnets. Oh well, we can't have everything.

There are many, many commentaries on Shakespeare. This is one of the best, in my opinion. Far superior to Bloom's attempt.

[Sarah Poe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have use this book throughout a course I’m taking on Shakespeare and it has been the best resource, hands down. I’m not going to complete the book because I only used it for a half dozen plays but I am sure I will return to it anytime I go see a Shakespeare play or read another. Easy to read, yet thorough.

[Aria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive book for those who want to know more about Shakespeare's plays, though it doesn't have as much detail as I had expected it to have. Nevertheless, it's definitely where a student should start with (after having read the plays first, of course) when they have to write a paper on the aforementioned.

[Kim]

I'm reading all of the Shakespeare plays in chronological order, one per month, starting in Jan. 2025 with the Shakespeare 2020 group. (Yes, this will take a while!) Each month I read the chapter about that month's play in this book, so it will be on my currently-reading shelf for a while.

January 2025 Richard II (219/989)

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an essential book for understanding the plays of William Shakespeare. Marjorie Garber provides a chapter on each of his 38 plays, giving a run-down of the plots, themes, and characters. In 20-50 pages, she gives an engaging and accessible analysis. Shakespeare After All is structured with a chronological order of the plays, showing the Bard’s development as a writer. I have been reading the plays while using this book as a resource and have found it very helpful in appreciating them. Shakespeare After All has also been useful for writing my own reviews.

Garber’s chronological order of the plays:
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Taming of the Shrew
Titus Andronicus
Henry VI Part 1
Henry VI Part 2
Henry VI Part 3
Richard III
The Comedy of Errors
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Richard II
King John
The Merchant of Venice
Henry IV Part 1
Henry IV Part 2
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Much Ado About Nothing
Henry V
Julius Caesar
As You Like It
Hamlet
Twelfth Night
Troilus and Cressida
Measure for Measure
Othello
All’s Well That Ends Well
Timon of Athens
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Pericles
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest
Henry VIII (All Is True)
The Two Noble Kinsmen

While I am happy to give Shakespeare After All 5-stars, it is not perfect. Garber is certainly guilty of “reading too much” into the plays, but this appears to be a flaw inherent to all literary criticism. Harold Bloom was far more guilty of this in his career than Garber ever was. But even acknowledging this, I heartily recommend this book to anyone looking to better appreciate Shakespeare. The fact that I highlighted 1,467 passages in the eBook has got to say something about its quality!


********************************************************************************************

[Image: Book Cover]

Citation:
Garber, M. (2008). Shakespeare after all (eBook). Anchor; Reprint edition. https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Af... (Original work published 2004)

Title: Shakespeare After All
Author(s): Marjorie Garber
Year: 2004
Genre: Nonfiction - Literary criticism, history
Page count: 1590 pages
Date(s) read: 12/19/24 - 5/10/25
Book 93 in 2025
********************************************************************************************

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garber knows Shakespeare as well as anyone--she is a Harvard prof. Her undergrad Shakespeare survey at Harvard is SRO so she knows how to present to non-specialists. Here she covers all the plays and the sonnets in witty, informative and well written essays.

[Kathie Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful guide to reading Shakespeare's plays. Along with her Harvard lectures on You-tube, I feel as though I've gotten a substantive and enlightening discussion of the plays, especially some of the more obscure ones. The Bard lives on.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will need to go back and finish. I overestimated my library's willingness to constantly renew. 😋😋😋

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure,
Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.—Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow…..

Why is the man a genius?

Well, for starters, this person’s drama is as much epical as romantic. His six dramas of English history and three Roman tragedies, together with Hamlet, Lear, and Macbeth (which are based on renowned chronicles accepted as genuine history by him and his public) form such a whole as is found nowhere else and is the compacted rampart of Shakespearean drama.

His plays devoted to national history most naturally connect his work with the old religious drama, of which the original object was not mere pleasure but instruction and moral improvement.

His refrain in these historical plays is country instead of faith.

He imparts knowledge of history as those old poets taught religion. These plays are a continuous history of England over a long period, the whole 15th century. Foreign war with its triumphs and disasters, years of wealth and of misery, glory and shame, princes heroic and mean; all succeed each other in his plays, painted independently for a public enabled at once to marvel and to learn.

Shakespeare keeps this breadth when he leaves London for Rome, and Holinshed for Plutarch. Although no longer inspired by patriotism, he is inspired by the great names of ancient times-Coriolanus, Brutus, Julius Caesar, Antony, Cleopatra.

His first care still is to breathe new life into famous men and great events. He succeeds in representing the past with a human truth so deep and with life so intense that his work has become complementary to that of the scholar. With him historical drama reaches its climax in such scenes as that in which the Roman mob, after applauding Brutus, is almost immediately turned against him by the moving eloquence of Antony, so that men weep at the sight of Caesar's body and cry out death to the conspirators.

And finally, this book, entirely speaks of the Universality of Shakespeare. It would be wrong to identify Shakespeare with any of his characters. His supremacy lies in this that he could see and understand so much of life, could pierce the heart of so many passions, without falling a prey to any aspect of life; so that we say of him that he is universal, and we dare not say what was his personality.

Every phase of feeling lay within the scope of Shakespeare's understanding and sympathy. There is no point of morals, of philosophy, of the conduct of life that he has not touched upon, no mystery of human nature that he has not penetrated.

Life and death, love, wealth, poverty, the prizes of life and the way we gain them; the characters of men and the influences and forces which affect them; on all these questions Shakespeare has enriched the world with his thought. In his plays we find pure mirth, bright and tender fancy, nonchalant satire, enthusiastic passion, questionings into the deep and terrible mysteries of life. In almost every play we have the most diverse elements, the high and the low, the great and the little, the noble and the base, the sad and the merry, brought under the dominance of one dramatic purpose.

In Jonson's words. Shakespeare "was not of an age, but of all time".

So amazingly widespread is his glory, that it might also be said that "he was not of a land, but of all lands". Free of every theory, accepting all of life, rejecting nothing, bonding the real and the poetic, engaging to the most upper-class men, to a rude workman as to a wit, Shakespeare's drama is a prodigious river of life and beauty.

Give this book a go. You’ll like it for sure.

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not just 5 stars but truly one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life. What an incredible gift Garber has given us. She treats each play with the dignity it deserves; each play gets its own glowing essay and deep literary and psychologal analysis. Sure some plays get more pages because they are more complex, but respect for the Bard and all that he achieved pours out of every page.

I learned so much from her insights. She has a knack for the textual, focusing on the literary devices used, the thematic elements, the mythologies that inform the plays, and deep psychoanalysis. She gives just enough historical backdrop for you to understand relevant context for the author, but then focuses on the works themselves.

If I had one criticism, it’s her All’s Well that Ends Well essay — which I think is too glowingly praising Helena (an unequivocal rapist) and seems to miss the point that the bard created a play that rejects its own title (have you ever read or seen this play and thought it ended well?) in favor of a different school of philosophical thought.

Overall, highly highly recommended. A must read for any lover of Shakespeare. She is so thorough that you’ll find so much you’ve missed …