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The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
The second Oxford edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works reconsiders every detail of their text and presentation in the light of modern scholarship. The nature and authority of the early documents are re-examined, and the canon and chronological order of composition freshly established. Spelling and punctuation are modernized, and there is a brief introduction to each work, as well as an illuminating and informative General Introduction. Included here for the first time is the play The Reign of King Edward the Third as well as the full text of Sir Thomas More. This new edition also features an essay on Shakespeare's language by David Crystal, and a bibliography of foundational works.
1344 pages, Paperback
First published April 21, 2005
About the author
William Shakespeare
17.9k books48.7k followersWilliam Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the world's pre-eminent dramatists. Often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"), he remains one of the most influential literary figures in history. His surviving works, including collaborations, comprise approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and several other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more frequently than those of any other playwright. His works continue to be studied, performed, and reinterpreted around the world.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he established a successful career in London as an actor, playwright, and shareholder in a theatrical company known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Following the accession of King James VI and I to the English throne in 1603, the company became known as the King's Men. Around 1613, at approximately 49 years of age, Shakespeare appears to have retired to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he died three years later. Relatively few records of his private life survive, giving rise to considerable speculation about his appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and other aspects of his personal life. Various theories have also questioned whether he was the actual author of the works attributed to him, although these claims are not accepted by mainstream Shakespeare scholarship.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between approximately 1589 and 1613. His early plays consisted primarily of comedies and histories, and are widely regarded as among the finest examples of their respective genres. He subsequently concentrated largely on tragedies, particularly between 1600 and 1608. These included Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered masterpieces of English literature. During the final phase of his career, he turned increasingly towards tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published during his lifetime in editions of varying quality and accuracy. A major milestone in preserving his dramatic works came in 1623, when John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of his fellow actors and close associates, published the First Folio. Officially titled Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, this posthumous collection contains 36 plays and remains one of the most important sources for the texts of his works. Its preface includes a commemorative poem by Ben Jonson, a fellow playwright and former rival, who famously praised Shakespeare as one "not of an age, but for all time".
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he established a successful career in London as an actor, playwright, and shareholder in a theatrical company known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Following the accession of King James VI and I to the English throne in 1603, the company became known as the King's Men. Around 1613, at approximately 49 years of age, Shakespeare appears to have retired to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he died three years later. Relatively few records of his private life survive, giving rise to considerable speculation about his appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and other aspects of his personal life. Various theories have also questioned whether he was the actual author of the works attributed to him, although these claims are not accepted by mainstream Shakespeare scholarship.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between approximately 1589 and 1613. His early plays consisted primarily of comedies and histories, and are widely regarded as among the finest examples of their respective genres. He subsequently concentrated largely on tragedies, particularly between 1600 and 1608. These included Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered masterpieces of English literature. During the final phase of his career, he turned increasingly towards tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published during his lifetime in editions of varying quality and accuracy. A major milestone in preserving his dramatic works came in 1623, when John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of his fellow actors and close associates, published the First Folio. Officially titled Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, this posthumous collection contains 36 plays and remains one of the most important sources for the texts of his works. Its preface includes a commemorative poem by Ben Jonson, a fellow playwright and former rival, who famously praised Shakespeare as one "not of an age, but for all time".
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 22, 2008
Edward III
For anyone saying, "Huh?" right now, let me say that EIII is one of the "Apocryphal Plays" that have been credited wholly or in part to Shakespeare at one time or another but that do not have conclusive proof of authorship by Big Bill Rattlepike. In the Second Edition of the Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works, the whole text of all plays the editors are convinced Shakespeare had a hand in is printed. This means that they have made the brave decision to include Edward III, convinced as they are that Shakepeare wrote up to four scenes in the play. The text has undergone every stylistic and vocubulary test known to scholarship and there is a growing consensus that Shakespeare wrote some, at least, of this play. Now, I don't know anything about these tests, but if you'd asked me which scenes stood out as the best, I'd have picked the four that the present editors claim were by Big Bill the Bard.
The play is a straightforward history, showing Edward the III first having trouble with the Scots then invading France, where his son gets caught, massively outnumbered, in a valley surrounded by hills...Cue ridiculous triumph-against-the-odds...
Between the two are some scenes where the King meets an exceptionally attractive member of the Nobility and woos her, despite being already married himself. These scenes raise the bar in terms of the language used and feeling expressed and are reminiscent of numerous similar scenes by Shakespeare - I could easily believe he wrote them. Later, the Prince of Wales, pensive before apparently insurmountable odds of battle, finds courage whilst meditating on the inevitability of death. Once again these passages are reminiscent of other famous Shakespeare scenes.
The plot is reminiscent of Henry V and I can easily imagine that Shakespeare took this play and used it as the model for that later, greater and entirely solo effort.
What Edward III lacks are depth of characterisation, depth of feeling conveyed by the language (outside the four scenes mentioned above) and a unity in the whole. The early part with Edward's attempted adultery seems disconnected from the subsequent invasion of France.
Even taken alone, Henry V eliminates all these problems.
This play illustrates to me the genius of Shakespeare: he was able to take a populist form that demanded a continuous supply of fresh material that allowed little time for rehearsal and create work that showed such psychological and dramatic insight in such glorious language that it transcended his era to the extent of him being widely considered the best Britsh playwright ever to have lived, 400 years later.
The Merchant of Venice
Well that was - short! Also, fun. It's a mess of a play in some respects - the plotting and structure are a muddle. The dramatic crisis occurs in act 4, leaving the entire last act over to the kind of banter and romantical silliness typified by As You Like It's forest scenes, which could feel anti-climactic if not played up to the hilt in performance, because when it come down to it,this play is dominated by Shylock. So much so that it ended up also popularly known by the alternative title The Jew of Venice and, in an era when actors dominated performance decisions, frequently curtailed at the end of act 4 when Shylock's part is over and the dramatic crisis is resolved.
This seems typical of the comedies, where much of the plot is an excuse to get a bunch of people into romantic shenanigans and the women into disguise as men, with little of the concern for pace or structure that we tend to demand of an genre of film these days. It's not that he couldn't do it - Richard III and Hamlet, even if bloated in places, certainly show how to organise things and Henry V doesn't even have much excess verbiage. MacBeth (aided no doubt by Middleton's many interventions) is superbly constructed and never slow - hence I conclude that Shakespeare was all about the laughs in his early comedies and never mind the preposterousness or the plots that go away for three acts.
There is no escaping the fact that Shylock dominates this play; his character is the only one developed to any real depth and the fact that the debate rages to this day as to whether Shakespeare and his contemporary audiences would have seen him as sympathetic or merely a pantomime villain testifies to this. Because a case can be made either way, villain or victim it seems plain to me that what we have is a sympathetic antagonist - not a monster everybody loves to hate but a human whose flaws in the end bring his own downfall in the very definition of Shakespearean Tragedy. He's abused and railed against for doing what Christians won't whilst at the same time being patronised by the very same people because he is fulfilling an essential function in a market economy and earning a living from it. When the opportunity arises he must have revenge, not the moral high ground of magnanimity and mercy - there-in lies the seed of his destruction.
It's hard not to compare this with Jonson, given that they were contemporaries and I recently finished a five play volume by one of the men said to have drunk Shakespeare into the fever that killed him. The contrasts are in fact stronger - Jonson being more prosaic, less witty in banter and more prone to showing off his learning, especially by quoting Latin and more concerned with "ordinary" folk than the rich and powerful. Shakespeare here also shows his mastery of character (if only in the form of Shylock) whilst the best of Jonson is much more in the way of caricature.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
This play doesn't seem to have enjoyed much popularity in my (adult) lifetime - I can't remember hearing about, let alone actually seeing, any film or stage production of it - and I can't understand why. It's ripe with opportunities for visual humour, has everybody's favourite character from Henry IV, much wit and punning, a more coherent plot than many another Shakespeare comedy and even offers wide scope to set and costume designers. I'd love to see this, filmed, or, even better, live on stage.
For those not in the know, the play revolves around an episode from John Falstaff's life prior to his association with Prince Hal, in which he attempts to cuckold his neighbours. There is a subplot regarding who will marry one Anne Page, from three suitors, leading to a typically Shakespearean ending with (implied) happy marriage.
In one sense this is a-typical Shakespeare - despite ostensibly being historical - set in the reign of Henry IV - it could, if you changed the characters' names, not be identified as anything other than contemporary with the author. It also deals not with the high-born and rich but with professionals and labourers - and rogues and thieves - making it very Jonsonian.
Julius Caesar
My first exposure to Shakespeare was this play, read in English class, when I was 13. Apparently it is a very popular choice in schools because it has no "bawdy." This wasn't any concern of my teacher, though, as he had us reading MacBeth later the same year.
Julius Caesar didn't go down very well; it was terribly confusing. Caesar dies half way through having done and said very little. What was that all about? The only bit that I remember liking was Antony's great rhetorical swaying of the plebians. The way he achieved that was fascinating.
My second encounter with the play was an outdoor performance in the courtyard of Conwy Castle, my main memory of which was having a sore bum because of inadequate cushioning from the courtyard floor (sat as I was on a couple of camping mats placed directly on the flagstones). So not much joy there either. And the whole structure was still confusing - it isn't about Julius! This fact was never explained by my teacher. But there is an explanation: the play is based on Classical dramatic models where-in this type of thing happens quite often. The central figure of the title is an enigma around which the real action revolves - the motive force for chaos and tragedy more by other people's responses to him than by his direct actions. And that's what we have here. Shakespeare writing a play after the fashion of the Latin dramatists he was familiar with from school, who in turn were following the fashion and subject matter of the Greek plays of antiquity.
Now, having learned this and also having come into contact with some of that ancient drama, I re-read Julius Caesar and find that it does in fact make sense, structurally if looked at this way. There is no central character except Caesar, despite him being conspicuous by his absence. There have been attempts to re-cast (and re-name) it as the Tragedy of Brutus but these are distortions or adaptations. The fact is that Cassius, Antony and Brutus are all compared and contrasted with each other and with Caesar and this is a necessary thing for understanding the character of each. Cassius's worldly motivations and ready perception of character are the opposite of Brutus's lofty ideals and inability to recognise that he is being used. Antony is motivated as much by will to power as by revenge; Cassius is aware of this. Brutus is a fool politically but is the superior general it turns out; they ould have won if Cassius had been more careful on the battlefield and Caesar - he's a greater figure than all of them put together, though he's just a man, with human frailties as Cassius points out, remembering how he saved Caesar from drowning in the Tiber. Greater - but for reasons not clear, not ever expressed - and the eye of the storm.
It's a fascinating mess and everybody ends up dead except Antony who walks off with the power and all the best lines in the play, back in that crucial "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." scene that forms the bulk of Act 3. The bit I liked even when I didn't have a clue about the rest - still the best part, even with the rest suddenly making sense.
Troilus and Cressida
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare mentions that early 19th Century critics were "baffled" by this play. I have some sympathy with them; I don't really know what Bill was trying to do with this one. No contemporary writer worth the name would plot the final two acts this way, for a start. Now plotting was never Bill's strongest suit but we aren't talking about one of his daft comedies where you can ignore plot development in exchange for extreme verbal and physical comedy down in the woods tonight and go home chuckling at what you've seen and heard and not really caring about the absurdity of it all. Nor is this Romeo and Juliet 2.0, despite the set up in the first three acts where we start with a lot of wit and word play and silliness but get progressively more serious as time goes on, ending up with a full-on Tragic denouement and a bold statement about the destructive nature of feuding and partisan violence within respectable society that is alarmingly relevant 400 years later. Here, if there is a Tragic figure at all it is Hector, sadly too naively trusting in others' honour because his own is impeccable, rather than Troilus or Cressida, let alone both. And the play, despite having two endings, never really resolves the issue of the Troilus-Cressida-Diomedes love triangle at all. It's a mess.
Apparently more recent criticism has focused on Shakespeare's treatment of sexuality in the play but I don't really find the idea that people can be fickle and inconstant and driven by other people's looks all that profound or interesting, though I find it believable that Bill might have been aiming at a discussion of it.
So what I'm left with is a play that starts humourous then becomes amusingly chaotic and diverting in the final act (alarums and excursions abound) but stops rather than really concludes and suffers horribly in comparison with the Iliad's treatment of all the characters they have in common - a comparison that, at least while reading off the page, is unavoidable to anyone who has previously encountered Achilles' rage as described by Homer.
And on we go to Sir Thomas More, a play for which Shakespeare wrote probably only one or two scenes.
The Book of Sir Thomas More
The editors believe Shakespeare wrote a three page passage in the extant "book" of this play, which was originally composed by Munday. Those pages were included in the 1st Ed. of this volume but, as with Edward III, here in the 2nd Ed. they print the full text of the play. The parts attributed to Shakespeare are higher quality than the rest but some of the material by Munday is almost as good. However, for me the real interests of this play, which overall is disjointed, unbalanced and a second rate work of the period, are twofold and not really related to Shakespeare directly, namely, the portrayal of More and the insight into the politics, censorship and mode of operation of playwrights of the period.
What we have is a playbook originally written by Munday dealing with the rise and fall of Thomas More, which was heavily criticised by the Master of the Revels who read all plays before performance and had the power to demand any alterations he deemed fit or suppress the play entirely. More was a controvercial figure in Elizabethan politics still, being considered a Catholic martyr by many and a champion of the working people to boot. Catholicism vs. Protestantism was inextricably mixed up with the right to the throne and international power politics. Nevertheless, the Master of the Revels didn't ban the play out-right but instead gave copious instructions for deletions and modifications that were written directly on the play-book.
Subsequently various authors, including Chettle, Heywood and Dekker as well as Shakespeare, revised the play, replacing passages and altering existing ones - it's a professional critic's wet dream. The demand for original material for the stage was difficult to keep up with and collaborations between playwrights were commonplace, as were revisions of extant plays. (Middleton appears to have revised two of Shakespeare's plays, for example.) Here we get a good look at an extreme example of attempting to rescue a play because writing a new one from scratch was too long a process, as well as an insight into the role and attitudes of the Master of the Revels, which clearly was considered politically important and taken seriously. Despite all of the effort by nearly everyone, it seems the play was never performed on the contemporary stage.
Which brings me to the character of More himself. Here he comes over as a trickster and humourist who uses pranks to teach more pompous folks and genuine fools various lessons but also a champion of mercy and restraint in keeping the peace between the lower classes and the aristocracy. He goes in humble and brave fashion to his martyrdom, refusing to break with his Catholic principles regarding Henry VIII's divorce.
In A Man for All Seasons More is presented as a much more serious but still saintly martyr who dies for his principles. A biography of William Tyndale that I once read, gives a different picture, by illustrating what some of those principles were: More had a network of agents who spied and informed on anybody connected with translating the Bible from Latin to English or printing or distributing such. Anybody found guilty of said "crimes" were burned alive at the stake - no mercy whatsoever.
All of these authors had a partisan agenda regarding More: Catholic martyr, champion of the unprivileged, murderer of anybody who opposed the Church's control of Christian thought. Could he have been all of these things?
Measure for Measure
The editors believe that this play was adapted somewhat by another writer and additionally that it was Thomas Middleton. The same view is widely held regarding MacBeth, which to my mind loses it's unity of view and expression in the scenes of the witches spell casting and giving cauldrons a bad reputation forever after. Here, though, any adaptation is more subtle and doesn't impair the play at all.
This is also the earliest of what are known as the "problem plays" so called, as far as I can tell, because they do not fit neatly into any of the three conventional genres of the time, namely, comedy, tragedy or history. Earliest problem play does not mean early play, however - we are in the second half of Shakespeare's career by now. This leads me to propose a simple solution to the "problem": By this time Shakespeare was successful and confident enough to dispense with convention and write whatever kind of play he wanted and it seems to me that this is a morality play.
This play attacks everything that was appalling about the status of and attitudes towards women of the period, making it a stark contrast with The Taming of the Shrew. The law that the plot hinges upon is an ass, along with the prevailing obsession with virginity prior to marriage and as some kind of morally pure state that gets you extra bonus points from the Heavenly authorities. The convention of dowries and concomitant "wife as chattel" is also attacked.
There are no really memorable speeches but the play gets its points across successfully and doesn't outstay its welcome.
Henry V
Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to be reading King Lear, but the BBC broadcast Brannagh's Henry V film and I thought I'd catch it on iPlayer before it disappears. Go here for the review because there isn't room left here for it all:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
King Lear (Quarto)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Tragedy of Richard III
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Timon of Athens
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
MacBeth
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
All's Well that Ends Well
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Pericles
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Coriolanus
Fierce warrior, great general, total prat.
The Winter's Tale
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Cymbeline
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Two Noble Kinsmen
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
For anyone saying, "Huh?" right now, let me say that EIII is one of the "Apocryphal Plays" that have been credited wholly or in part to Shakespeare at one time or another but that do not have conclusive proof of authorship by Big Bill Rattlepike. In the Second Edition of the Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works, the whole text of all plays the editors are convinced Shakespeare had a hand in is printed. This means that they have made the brave decision to include Edward III, convinced as they are that Shakepeare wrote up to four scenes in the play. The text has undergone every stylistic and vocubulary test known to scholarship and there is a growing consensus that Shakespeare wrote some, at least, of this play. Now, I don't know anything about these tests, but if you'd asked me which scenes stood out as the best, I'd have picked the four that the present editors claim were by Big Bill the Bard.
The play is a straightforward history, showing Edward the III first having trouble with the Scots then invading France, where his son gets caught, massively outnumbered, in a valley surrounded by hills...Cue ridiculous triumph-against-the-odds...
Between the two are some scenes where the King meets an exceptionally attractive member of the Nobility and woos her, despite being already married himself. These scenes raise the bar in terms of the language used and feeling expressed and are reminiscent of numerous similar scenes by Shakespeare - I could easily believe he wrote them. Later, the Prince of Wales, pensive before apparently insurmountable odds of battle, finds courage whilst meditating on the inevitability of death. Once again these passages are reminiscent of other famous Shakespeare scenes.
The plot is reminiscent of Henry V and I can easily imagine that Shakespeare took this play and used it as the model for that later, greater and entirely solo effort.
What Edward III lacks are depth of characterisation, depth of feeling conveyed by the language (outside the four scenes mentioned above) and a unity in the whole. The early part with Edward's attempted adultery seems disconnected from the subsequent invasion of France.
Even taken alone, Henry V eliminates all these problems.
This play illustrates to me the genius of Shakespeare: he was able to take a populist form that demanded a continuous supply of fresh material that allowed little time for rehearsal and create work that showed such psychological and dramatic insight in such glorious language that it transcended his era to the extent of him being widely considered the best Britsh playwright ever to have lived, 400 years later.
The Merchant of Venice
Well that was - short! Also, fun. It's a mess of a play in some respects - the plotting and structure are a muddle. The dramatic crisis occurs in act 4, leaving the entire last act over to the kind of banter and romantical silliness typified by As You Like It's forest scenes, which could feel anti-climactic if not played up to the hilt in performance, because when it come down to it,this play is dominated by Shylock. So much so that it ended up also popularly known by the alternative title The Jew of Venice and, in an era when actors dominated performance decisions, frequently curtailed at the end of act 4 when Shylock's part is over and the dramatic crisis is resolved.
This seems typical of the comedies, where much of the plot is an excuse to get a bunch of people into romantic shenanigans and the women into disguise as men, with little of the concern for pace or structure that we tend to demand of an genre of film these days. It's not that he couldn't do it - Richard III and Hamlet, even if bloated in places, certainly show how to organise things and Henry V doesn't even have much excess verbiage. MacBeth (aided no doubt by Middleton's many interventions) is superbly constructed and never slow - hence I conclude that Shakespeare was all about the laughs in his early comedies and never mind the preposterousness or the plots that go away for three acts.
There is no escaping the fact that Shylock dominates this play; his character is the only one developed to any real depth and the fact that the debate rages to this day as to whether Shakespeare and his contemporary audiences would have seen him as sympathetic or merely a pantomime villain testifies to this. Because a case can be made either way, villain or victim it seems plain to me that what we have is a sympathetic antagonist - not a monster everybody loves to hate but a human whose flaws in the end bring his own downfall in the very definition of Shakespearean Tragedy. He's abused and railed against for doing what Christians won't whilst at the same time being patronised by the very same people because he is fulfilling an essential function in a market economy and earning a living from it. When the opportunity arises he must have revenge, not the moral high ground of magnanimity and mercy - there-in lies the seed of his destruction.
It's hard not to compare this with Jonson, given that they were contemporaries and I recently finished a five play volume by one of the men said to have drunk Shakespeare into the fever that killed him. The contrasts are in fact stronger - Jonson being more prosaic, less witty in banter and more prone to showing off his learning, especially by quoting Latin and more concerned with "ordinary" folk than the rich and powerful. Shakespeare here also shows his mastery of character (if only in the form of Shylock) whilst the best of Jonson is much more in the way of caricature.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
This play doesn't seem to have enjoyed much popularity in my (adult) lifetime - I can't remember hearing about, let alone actually seeing, any film or stage production of it - and I can't understand why. It's ripe with opportunities for visual humour, has everybody's favourite character from Henry IV, much wit and punning, a more coherent plot than many another Shakespeare comedy and even offers wide scope to set and costume designers. I'd love to see this, filmed, or, even better, live on stage.
For those not in the know, the play revolves around an episode from John Falstaff's life prior to his association with Prince Hal, in which he attempts to cuckold his neighbours. There is a subplot regarding who will marry one Anne Page, from three suitors, leading to a typically Shakespearean ending with (implied) happy marriage.
In one sense this is a-typical Shakespeare - despite ostensibly being historical - set in the reign of Henry IV - it could, if you changed the characters' names, not be identified as anything other than contemporary with the author. It also deals not with the high-born and rich but with professionals and labourers - and rogues and thieves - making it very Jonsonian.
Julius Caesar
My first exposure to Shakespeare was this play, read in English class, when I was 13. Apparently it is a very popular choice in schools because it has no "bawdy." This wasn't any concern of my teacher, though, as he had us reading MacBeth later the same year.
Julius Caesar didn't go down very well; it was terribly confusing. Caesar dies half way through having done and said very little. What was that all about? The only bit that I remember liking was Antony's great rhetorical swaying of the plebians. The way he achieved that was fascinating.
My second encounter with the play was an outdoor performance in the courtyard of Conwy Castle, my main memory of which was having a sore bum because of inadequate cushioning from the courtyard floor (sat as I was on a couple of camping mats placed directly on the flagstones). So not much joy there either. And the whole structure was still confusing - it isn't about Julius! This fact was never explained by my teacher. But there is an explanation: the play is based on Classical dramatic models where-in this type of thing happens quite often. The central figure of the title is an enigma around which the real action revolves - the motive force for chaos and tragedy more by other people's responses to him than by his direct actions. And that's what we have here. Shakespeare writing a play after the fashion of the Latin dramatists he was familiar with from school, who in turn were following the fashion and subject matter of the Greek plays of antiquity.
Now, having learned this and also having come into contact with some of that ancient drama, I re-read Julius Caesar and find that it does in fact make sense, structurally if looked at this way. There is no central character except Caesar, despite him being conspicuous by his absence. There have been attempts to re-cast (and re-name) it as the Tragedy of Brutus but these are distortions or adaptations. The fact is that Cassius, Antony and Brutus are all compared and contrasted with each other and with Caesar and this is a necessary thing for understanding the character of each. Cassius's worldly motivations and ready perception of character are the opposite of Brutus's lofty ideals and inability to recognise that he is being used. Antony is motivated as much by will to power as by revenge; Cassius is aware of this. Brutus is a fool politically but is the superior general it turns out; they ould have won if Cassius had been more careful on the battlefield and Caesar - he's a greater figure than all of them put together, though he's just a man, with human frailties as Cassius points out, remembering how he saved Caesar from drowning in the Tiber. Greater - but for reasons not clear, not ever expressed - and the eye of the storm.
It's a fascinating mess and everybody ends up dead except Antony who walks off with the power and all the best lines in the play, back in that crucial "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." scene that forms the bulk of Act 3. The bit I liked even when I didn't have a clue about the rest - still the best part, even with the rest suddenly making sense.
Troilus and Cressida
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare mentions that early 19th Century critics were "baffled" by this play. I have some sympathy with them; I don't really know what Bill was trying to do with this one. No contemporary writer worth the name would plot the final two acts this way, for a start. Now plotting was never Bill's strongest suit but we aren't talking about one of his daft comedies where you can ignore plot development in exchange for extreme verbal and physical comedy down in the woods tonight and go home chuckling at what you've seen and heard and not really caring about the absurdity of it all. Nor is this Romeo and Juliet 2.0, despite the set up in the first three acts where we start with a lot of wit and word play and silliness but get progressively more serious as time goes on, ending up with a full-on Tragic denouement and a bold statement about the destructive nature of feuding and partisan violence within respectable society that is alarmingly relevant 400 years later. Here, if there is a Tragic figure at all it is Hector, sadly too naively trusting in others' honour because his own is impeccable, rather than Troilus or Cressida, let alone both. And the play, despite having two endings, never really resolves the issue of the Troilus-Cressida-Diomedes love triangle at all. It's a mess.
Apparently more recent criticism has focused on Shakespeare's treatment of sexuality in the play but I don't really find the idea that people can be fickle and inconstant and driven by other people's looks all that profound or interesting, though I find it believable that Bill might have been aiming at a discussion of it.
So what I'm left with is a play that starts humourous then becomes amusingly chaotic and diverting in the final act (alarums and excursions abound) but stops rather than really concludes and suffers horribly in comparison with the Iliad's treatment of all the characters they have in common - a comparison that, at least while reading off the page, is unavoidable to anyone who has previously encountered Achilles' rage as described by Homer.
And on we go to Sir Thomas More, a play for which Shakespeare wrote probably only one or two scenes.
The Book of Sir Thomas More
The editors believe Shakespeare wrote a three page passage in the extant "book" of this play, which was originally composed by Munday. Those pages were included in the 1st Ed. of this volume but, as with Edward III, here in the 2nd Ed. they print the full text of the play. The parts attributed to Shakespeare are higher quality than the rest but some of the material by Munday is almost as good. However, for me the real interests of this play, which overall is disjointed, unbalanced and a second rate work of the period, are twofold and not really related to Shakespeare directly, namely, the portrayal of More and the insight into the politics, censorship and mode of operation of playwrights of the period.
What we have is a playbook originally written by Munday dealing with the rise and fall of Thomas More, which was heavily criticised by the Master of the Revels who read all plays before performance and had the power to demand any alterations he deemed fit or suppress the play entirely. More was a controvercial figure in Elizabethan politics still, being considered a Catholic martyr by many and a champion of the working people to boot. Catholicism vs. Protestantism was inextricably mixed up with the right to the throne and international power politics. Nevertheless, the Master of the Revels didn't ban the play out-right but instead gave copious instructions for deletions and modifications that were written directly on the play-book.
Subsequently various authors, including Chettle, Heywood and Dekker as well as Shakespeare, revised the play, replacing passages and altering existing ones - it's a professional critic's wet dream. The demand for original material for the stage was difficult to keep up with and collaborations between playwrights were commonplace, as were revisions of extant plays. (Middleton appears to have revised two of Shakespeare's plays, for example.) Here we get a good look at an extreme example of attempting to rescue a play because writing a new one from scratch was too long a process, as well as an insight into the role and attitudes of the Master of the Revels, which clearly was considered politically important and taken seriously. Despite all of the effort by nearly everyone, it seems the play was never performed on the contemporary stage.
Which brings me to the character of More himself. Here he comes over as a trickster and humourist who uses pranks to teach more pompous folks and genuine fools various lessons but also a champion of mercy and restraint in keeping the peace between the lower classes and the aristocracy. He goes in humble and brave fashion to his martyrdom, refusing to break with his Catholic principles regarding Henry VIII's divorce.
In A Man for All Seasons More is presented as a much more serious but still saintly martyr who dies for his principles. A biography of William Tyndale that I once read, gives a different picture, by illustrating what some of those principles were: More had a network of agents who spied and informed on anybody connected with translating the Bible from Latin to English or printing or distributing such. Anybody found guilty of said "crimes" were burned alive at the stake - no mercy whatsoever.
All of these authors had a partisan agenda regarding More: Catholic martyr, champion of the unprivileged, murderer of anybody who opposed the Church's control of Christian thought. Could he have been all of these things?
Measure for Measure
The editors believe that this play was adapted somewhat by another writer and additionally that it was Thomas Middleton. The same view is widely held regarding MacBeth, which to my mind loses it's unity of view and expression in the scenes of the witches spell casting and giving cauldrons a bad reputation forever after. Here, though, any adaptation is more subtle and doesn't impair the play at all.
This is also the earliest of what are known as the "problem plays" so called, as far as I can tell, because they do not fit neatly into any of the three conventional genres of the time, namely, comedy, tragedy or history. Earliest problem play does not mean early play, however - we are in the second half of Shakespeare's career by now. This leads me to propose a simple solution to the "problem": By this time Shakespeare was successful and confident enough to dispense with convention and write whatever kind of play he wanted and it seems to me that this is a morality play.
This play attacks everything that was appalling about the status of and attitudes towards women of the period, making it a stark contrast with The Taming of the Shrew. The law that the plot hinges upon is an ass, along with the prevailing obsession with virginity prior to marriage and as some kind of morally pure state that gets you extra bonus points from the Heavenly authorities. The convention of dowries and concomitant "wife as chattel" is also attacked.
There are no really memorable speeches but the play gets its points across successfully and doesn't outstay its welcome.
Henry V
Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to be reading King Lear, but the BBC broadcast Brannagh's Henry V film and I thought I'd catch it on iPlayer before it disappears. Go here for the review because there isn't room left here for it all:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
King Lear (Quarto)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Tragedy of Richard III
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Timon of Athens
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
MacBeth
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
All's Well that Ends Well
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Pericles
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Coriolanus
Fierce warrior, great general, total prat.
The Winter's Tale
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Cymbeline
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Two Noble Kinsmen
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
September 28, 2020
The Oxford Complete served as my guide through Shakespeare's plays. Its introduction is highly recommended and very insightful. The book itself is rather bulky, so I often restored to Kindle or to paperbacks for some of the plays. The book collects all known Shakespeare plays and attributions including two copies of King Lear, Edward III, Henry VIII, and Two Noble Kinsman all in chronological order with a one-page introduction to each play. I did not really use the Glossary due to the book's bulk and the inconvenience of their having placed it at the end, and there are no notes in the text. This is a blessing (fewer distractions from the text) and a curse (fewer insights into the texts) so your mileage may vary.
As for other versions of Shakespeare, I found that the Folger Shakespeare was more practical (numbered notes on even pages, Shakespeare's original on the odd pages) than the Signet Classics which I had read in high school (non-numbered notes at the bottom of the page). It was fun, however, to see my notes from thirty years ago as I was reading!
I would still recommend the Oxford for its completeness and the quality of the printing for the Shakespeare fan with a hefty bookshelf to store it. Regardless, the Bard is a pleasure in nearly any format.
As for other versions of Shakespeare, I found that the Folger Shakespeare was more practical (numbered notes on even pages, Shakespeare's original on the odd pages) than the Signet Classics which I had read in high school (non-numbered notes at the bottom of the page). It was fun, however, to see my notes from thirty years ago as I was reading!
I would still recommend the Oxford for its completeness and the quality of the printing for the Shakespeare fan with a hefty bookshelf to store it. Regardless, the Bard is a pleasure in nearly any format.
November 26, 2016
In just under a year, I made my way through Shakespeare's entire canon: plays, poems and collaborative efforts. Naturally, it was an impressive compilation, but Shakespeare is one of those authors best remembered, though not necessarily best served, by the "greatest hits" treatment. Viewing Shakespeare, as so many often do, by the best tragedies, comedies, histories and almost none of the collaborations or problem plays, one gets the impression of the immortal, demigodlike Bard of Avon, a divine creative force who could do no wrong and sprung fully grown from the brain of the gods. However, seeing his plays in context and in chronological order, it's clear to see the development of a truly gifted artist, one with his own process, foibles and occasional shortcomings. Strongly recommended for any fans of literature, poetry, cultural history or the arts in general.
June 6, 2017
A proper evaluation of this new edition of Shakespeare's (probably im)Complete Works from Oxford University Press would need at least 8000 words to explain, and I am not interested in writing that. Overall, the texts are well edited in the popular way of editor's changing the texts to what they believe Shakespeare actually wrote when they believe something was misprinted in the early editions. They also add lots of notes, and some that are perhaps less helpful than they are intended to be.
I am always grateful for glosses of obscure words and phrases, and these are mostly helpful. I am less grateful for the staging notes that coexist with the glosses. Those I have read are not inaccurate, but they discourage creative thinking by directing our attention to specific explanations which may or may not be correct.
I do not like the lack of introductions. In place of these are quotes about the plays from dozens of people. At best, these can hint at interpretations but really explain nothing. A well thought out interpretative introduction puts the play in context. We can agree or disagree with it, but it is an argument about the play, and a good introduction is of great value.
I deeply objected to the inclusion of the lyric "Shall I Die?" in the 1986 edition, but here I do not mind for it is in a section of poems attributed to Shakespeare in the seventeenth-century miscellanies. Fair enough. This will be a problem when I comment on the AUTHORSHIP COMPANION. The tiny section on the lost original version of SEJANUS, HIS FALL is another matter. There is no apparent warrant for it. It is just annoying to find it there.
I do not mind the controversial choice to note Shakespeare's co-authors on several plays and it is about time that ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM and other works made it into a supposedly complete Shakespeare. On the other hand, the 1994 Second Edition of the previous version had complete texts of EDWARD III and SIR THOMAS MORE. The current edition only excerpts the Shakespearean parts of those plays. The previous was a deeply flawed edition of Shakespeare, but these excisions might be even worse.
On the other hand, this is Shakespeare!
I am always grateful for glosses of obscure words and phrases, and these are mostly helpful. I am less grateful for the staging notes that coexist with the glosses. Those I have read are not inaccurate, but they discourage creative thinking by directing our attention to specific explanations which may or may not be correct.
I do not like the lack of introductions. In place of these are quotes about the plays from dozens of people. At best, these can hint at interpretations but really explain nothing. A well thought out interpretative introduction puts the play in context. We can agree or disagree with it, but it is an argument about the play, and a good introduction is of great value.
I deeply objected to the inclusion of the lyric "Shall I Die?" in the 1986 edition, but here I do not mind for it is in a section of poems attributed to Shakespeare in the seventeenth-century miscellanies. Fair enough. This will be a problem when I comment on the AUTHORSHIP COMPANION. The tiny section on the lost original version of SEJANUS, HIS FALL is another matter. There is no apparent warrant for it. It is just annoying to find it there.
I do not mind the controversial choice to note Shakespeare's co-authors on several plays and it is about time that ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM and other works made it into a supposedly complete Shakespeare. On the other hand, the 1994 Second Edition of the previous version had complete texts of EDWARD III and SIR THOMAS MORE. The current edition only excerpts the Shakespearean parts of those plays. The previous was a deeply flawed edition of Shakespeare, but these excisions might be even worse.
On the other hand, this is Shakespeare!
Currently Reading
January 1, 2026The Comedies
1. A Midsummer Night's Dream
2. All's Well That Ends Well
3. As You Like It
4. Love’s Labour ’s Lost
5. Measure for Measure
6. Much Ado About Nothing
7. The Comedy of Errors
8. The Merchant of Venice
9. The Merry Wives of Windsor
10. The Taming of the Shrew
11. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
12. Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
The Romances
13. Cymbeline
14. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
15. The Tempest (read in the past)
16. The Winter's Tale
The Tragedies
17. King Lear
18. Romeo and Juliet (read in the past)
19. The History of Troilus and Cressida
20. The Life and Death of Julius Caesar
21. The Life of Timon of Athens
22. The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
23. The Tragedy of Coriolanus
24. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
25. The Tragedy of Macbeth (read in the past)
26. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
27. Titus Andronicus
The Histories
28. The Life and Death of King John
29. The Life and Death of King Richard the Second
30. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third
31. The first part of King Henry the Fourth
32. The second part of King Henry the Fourth
33. The Life of King Henry V
34. The first part of King Henry the Sixth
35. The second part of King Henry the Sixth
36. The third part of King Henry the Sixth
37. The Life of King Henry the Eighth
Various
38. The Sonnets
39. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music
40. A Lover's Complaint
41. The Rape of Lucrece
42. Venus and Adonis
43. The Phoenix and the Turtle
44. The Passionate Pilgrim
1. A Midsummer Night's Dream
2. All's Well That Ends Well
3. As You Like It
4. Love’s Labour ’s Lost
5. Measure for Measure
6. Much Ado About Nothing
7. The Comedy of Errors
8. The Merchant of Venice
9. The Merry Wives of Windsor
10. The Taming of the Shrew
11. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
12. Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
The Romances
13. Cymbeline
14. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
15. The Tempest (read in the past)
16. The Winter's Tale
The Tragedies
17. King Lear
18. Romeo and Juliet (read in the past)
19. The History of Troilus and Cressida
20. The Life and Death of Julius Caesar
21. The Life of Timon of Athens
22. The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
23. The Tragedy of Coriolanus
24. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
25. The Tragedy of Macbeth (read in the past)
26. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
27. Titus Andronicus
The Histories
28. The Life and Death of King John
29. The Life and Death of King Richard the Second
30. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third
31. The first part of King Henry the Fourth
32. The second part of King Henry the Fourth
33. The Life of King Henry V
34. The first part of King Henry the Sixth
35. The second part of King Henry the Sixth
36. The third part of King Henry the Sixth
37. The Life of King Henry the Eighth
Various
38. The Sonnets
39. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music
40. A Lover's Complaint
41. The Rape of Lucrece
42. Venus and Adonis
43. The Phoenix and the Turtle
44. The Passionate Pilgrim
reference-notes
April 25, 2021GKC...
“Shakespeare has written us.”
“Shakespeare (in a weak moment, I think) said that all the world is a stage. But Shakespeare acted on the finer principle that a stage is all the world.”
Dr Johnson...
"What mankind have long possessed they have often examined and compared, and if they persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour.... He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit."
"The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing."
"The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare opens a ine which contains gold and diamonds in inexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals."
"Perhaps it would not be easy to find any author except Homer who invented so much as Shakespeare, who so much advanced the studies which he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age or country."
Dryden...
"Shakespeare was the man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily. When he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned: he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, i should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comic with degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him. No man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. (like cypresses above the slow viburnums)"
Pope...
"The poetry of Shakespeare was inspiration indeed: he is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him."
"...he seems to have known the world by intuition, to have looked through human nature at once glance, and to be the only author that gives ground for a very new opinion, that the philosopher and even the man of the world, may be born, as well as the poet."
"...with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his drama, one may look upon his works, in comparison of those that more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majestic piece of Gothic architecture, compared with a neat modern building: the latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more strong and more solemn. It must be allowed, that in one of these there are materials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments; though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur."
Coleridge...
"...truths of nature and the human heart... can only be felt in perfection under the full play of those powers of mind, which are spontaneous rather than voluntary, and in which the effort required bears no proportion to the activity enjoyed."
"He entered into no analysis of the passions or faiths of men, but assured himself that such and such passions and faiths were grounded in our common nature, and not in the mere accidents of ignorance or disease. This is an important consideration, and constitutes our Shakespeare the morning star, the guide and the pioneer, of true philosophy."
"Shakespeare is an author of all others the most calculated to make his readers better as well as wiser."
“Shakespeare has written us.”
“Shakespeare (in a weak moment, I think) said that all the world is a stage. But Shakespeare acted on the finer principle that a stage is all the world.”
Dr Johnson...
"What mankind have long possessed they have often examined and compared, and if they persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour.... He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit."
"The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing."
"The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare opens a ine which contains gold and diamonds in inexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals."
"Perhaps it would not be easy to find any author except Homer who invented so much as Shakespeare, who so much advanced the studies which he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age or country."
Dryden...
"Shakespeare was the man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily. When he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned: he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, i should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comic with degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him. No man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. (like cypresses above the slow viburnums)"
Pope...
"The poetry of Shakespeare was inspiration indeed: he is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him."
"...he seems to have known the world by intuition, to have looked through human nature at once glance, and to be the only author that gives ground for a very new opinion, that the philosopher and even the man of the world, may be born, as well as the poet."
"...with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his drama, one may look upon his works, in comparison of those that more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majestic piece of Gothic architecture, compared with a neat modern building: the latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more strong and more solemn. It must be allowed, that in one of these there are materials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments; though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur."
Coleridge...
"...truths of nature and the human heart... can only be felt in perfection under the full play of those powers of mind, which are spontaneous rather than voluntary, and in which the effort required bears no proportion to the activity enjoyed."
"He entered into no analysis of the passions or faiths of men, but assured himself that such and such passions and faiths were grounded in our common nature, and not in the mere accidents of ignorance or disease. This is an important consideration, and constitutes our Shakespeare the morning star, the guide and the pioneer, of true philosophy."
"Shakespeare is an author of all others the most calculated to make his readers better as well as wiser."
April 23, 2018
The New Oxford Shakespeare is not a complete waste of time, but there are many features about the book that I found disappointing. First, I think the choice to feature a "bricolage" of critical opinions about each play, instead of a scholarly essay introducing each play, seems lazy to me. Almost all of my other annotated editions of the Complete Works introduce each play with scholarly analysis that really helps the student of the plays; simply giving a bunch of quotes from various scholars gives a bit of background, but may leave the student feeling more confused than anything else. Second, the "performance notes" that accompany some lines are, of necessity, few and far between, but I fail to see the point. After all, there is no way a simple note can really give a complete idea of how many different ways there are to read a particular line. So what's the point of such notes? I suppose the performance notes are there to encourage the reader to view the plays as dramatic works, rather than literature. Third, regarding the controversial author attributions of some of the plays, I don't have a problem with seeing Shakespeare as a collaborator, but to simply state that George Peele or Thomas Nashe (or whoever) is the co-author, as if the subject were simple and decided, strikes me as a bit arrogant. These kinds of assertions would better be put into an introduction to the plays that the editors see as collaborations, but of course, as mentioned above, the NOS editors chose to go with a bricolage, instead of an introduction. Finally, regarding line readings chosen by the editors, it often seems as if the NOS editors deliberately chose some of the most unlikely possibilities (e.g. Hamlet refers to Gertrude as "cold mother," rather than "good mother," in 1.2 of Hamlet). Is this simply to justify having a separate edition? Do they have to make their text just different enough from earlier editions, to convince people to shell out the money for a new edition? Or am I being too cynical.
Anyway, overall, I don't consider the NOS to be a complete waste of money, but I think, compared to some other annotated editions of the Complete works, such as the Norton or Bevington editions, the NOS is a bit disappointing.
Anyway, overall, I don't consider the NOS to be a complete waste of money, but I think, compared to some other annotated editions of the Complete works, such as the Norton or Bevington editions, the NOS is a bit disappointing.
August 9, 2026
Thus ends my summer of Shakespeare - 38 plays and his sonnets read through May to August. I can now say I have "read Shakespeare."
3 stars seems appropriate for Shakespeare. He is the most uneven author. He has written some of the most sublime plays, but he has also written some of the most abhorrent, dullest trash that would have faded into history had it not the name of William Shakespeare as the author. The quality of his oeuvre can be measured on a standard bell curve, 10 percent being sublime, 10 percent not worth the paper it's printed on, and the other 80% being somewhere in between, combining parts of great genius with some supreme faults.
Shakespeare's tragedies overall are much better than his comedies, with his histories in between. What was funny back in 1600, Elizabethan slang and Latin allusions for examples, just are not funny in 2026. But tragedy is timeless. Melancholy was Shakespeare's great Muse, who under that great dark depressive fog, created some of the brightest jewels that adorn the literary canon.
Nobody can create a metaphor or simile quite like Shakespeare. He creates metaphors that I could never think of and drives home the rhetorical/poetic statement he is trying to make. Prospective writers or orators should study this aspect of Shakespeare’s works especially. When it comes to crafting a plot, Shakespeare fails; each play is filled with many a plot hole and most of his plays are lifted from ancient authors and even other contemporaries - this was a time before intellectual copyright. In regard to the poetry in his plays, there is passages of the most beautiful passages in English but then there are parts which any layman that gets a handle of iambic pentameter would be able to replicate. Then there is the travesty of whatever lines from Pistol from Falstaff’s crew uttered. When, in the future, I feel the need to read Shakespeare again, I would just read the highlights.
When going on your own Shakespearean journey, expect some magnificent heights, lots of middling plains, and some truly dreary valleys.
3 stars seems appropriate for Shakespeare. He is the most uneven author. He has written some of the most sublime plays, but he has also written some of the most abhorrent, dullest trash that would have faded into history had it not the name of William Shakespeare as the author. The quality of his oeuvre can be measured on a standard bell curve, 10 percent being sublime, 10 percent not worth the paper it's printed on, and the other 80% being somewhere in between, combining parts of great genius with some supreme faults.
Shakespeare's tragedies overall are much better than his comedies, with his histories in between. What was funny back in 1600, Elizabethan slang and Latin allusions for examples, just are not funny in 2026. But tragedy is timeless. Melancholy was Shakespeare's great Muse, who under that great dark depressive fog, created some of the brightest jewels that adorn the literary canon.
Nobody can create a metaphor or simile quite like Shakespeare. He creates metaphors that I could never think of and drives home the rhetorical/poetic statement he is trying to make. Prospective writers or orators should study this aspect of Shakespeare’s works especially. When it comes to crafting a plot, Shakespeare fails; each play is filled with many a plot hole and most of his plays are lifted from ancient authors and even other contemporaries - this was a time before intellectual copyright. In regard to the poetry in his plays, there is passages of the most beautiful passages in English but then there are parts which any layman that gets a handle of iambic pentameter would be able to replicate. Then there is the travesty of whatever lines from Pistol from Falstaff’s crew uttered. When, in the future, I feel the need to read Shakespeare again, I would just read the highlights.
When going on your own Shakespearean journey, expect some magnificent heights, lots of middling plains, and some truly dreary valleys.
June 8, 2017
It is my dream to have an edition of Shakespeare that is not a facsimile, but that gives me everything a facsimile gives: The plays and poems with virtually no editorial interference so the inconsistencies in the originals remain, but in an edition that does not have dark gray print on a lighter gray background, which makes facsimile editions so hard to read.
The new CRITICAL REFERENCE EDITION comes much closer to this than the previous Oxford OLD SPELLING EDITION, but fixes what the editors deem mistakes. The original readings are in the glosses, but that is not good enough. I want to see the Shakespeare first printed without the human filters, but Gary Taylor and his team do not give us that.
I do not see the advantage of printing the texts in the order they were originally printed, though I do not object to it. It is odd to include the excerpt from the Book of Sir Thomas More since that play is in a very complicated manuscript and was never published, since these volumes emphasize publication order. It is also damn irresponsible in an edition that emphasizes Shakespeare's collaborative work to only print the portions written by him from such plays as THE SPANISH TRAGEDY, EDWARD III, and More. Thank goodness all of HENRY VI, PART ONE is included, another absurd inconsistency.
This set is a conceptual mess, but if you want an edition with less editorial interference than the others it is probably the best you will find for many years. I'll have to stick with my facsimiles.
The new CRITICAL REFERENCE EDITION comes much closer to this than the previous Oxford OLD SPELLING EDITION, but fixes what the editors deem mistakes. The original readings are in the glosses, but that is not good enough. I want to see the Shakespeare first printed without the human filters, but Gary Taylor and his team do not give us that.
I do not see the advantage of printing the texts in the order they were originally printed, though I do not object to it. It is odd to include the excerpt from the Book of Sir Thomas More since that play is in a very complicated manuscript and was never published, since these volumes emphasize publication order. It is also damn irresponsible in an edition that emphasizes Shakespeare's collaborative work to only print the portions written by him from such plays as THE SPANISH TRAGEDY, EDWARD III, and More. Thank goodness all of HENRY VI, PART ONE is included, another absurd inconsistency.
This set is a conceptual mess, but if you want an edition with less editorial interference than the others it is probably the best you will find for many years. I'll have to stick with my facsimiles.
February 1, 2014
It's good to have an understanding of where Shakespeare's works are with respect to each other chronologically, clearing away assumptions of what's early, what's late, realising he pursued tragedy, comedy and history equally throughout his writing career. The link between the late comedies is also more easily seen. Pericles and The Winter's Tale may always have seemed similar but that they are is more understandable when one closely follows after the other and to Cymbeline and The Tempest not long after, the last being a magical culmination of the trend. The Two Noble Kinsmen is not so easily related to its preceders.
I was mischievously asked which was the best play. Per se, Antony and Cleopatra which has the most laugh-out-loud scene of all as Cleopatra clips the messenger for his bad news. Psychologically Shakespeare may be tailoring it to the puerility of a boy player while keeping it authentic to a queen used to having her own way. The most interesting is Hamlet because Shakespeare there is dealing with the relation of consciousness to the unconscious, Hamlet being the former and the writer, Will, doing the plotting, the latter. It's a play of deflected action.
I'm not going through the whole thing. You'd lose interest and the point is to recommend this complete work which includes the lost plays. I'm teasing; but the apparatus criticus does refer to them and puts everything succinctly into perspective.
I was mischievously asked which was the best play. Per se, Antony and Cleopatra which has the most laugh-out-loud scene of all as Cleopatra clips the messenger for his bad news. Psychologically Shakespeare may be tailoring it to the puerility of a boy player while keeping it authentic to a queen used to having her own way. The most interesting is Hamlet because Shakespeare there is dealing with the relation of consciousness to the unconscious, Hamlet being the former and the writer, Will, doing the plotting, the latter. It's a play of deflected action.
I'm not going through the whole thing. You'd lose interest and the point is to recommend this complete work which includes the lost plays. I'm teasing; but the apparatus criticus does refer to them and puts everything succinctly into perspective.
May 14, 2024
I finished reading all of Shakespeare's plays and also poetry! So, I mean, obviously five stars for the content. That feels relatively uncontroversial. But what about the Oxford versions specifically?
This edition comes with two different kinds of footnotes. First there are the traditional explanations of words that are no longer in the language, like "Sneap." It means "chide," and we should bring it back because it looks fun to say. But also there are "performance footnotes," which describe various ways the scenes have been played onstage through the years.
The performance footnotes are fun, although they're sometimes written weirdly casually. "Falstaff could be all like, yeah, whatever," really? I mean, sure, he could, but that feels like an informal way to write about Shakespeare in a book published by Oxford, you know? On the other hand, it really is helpful to stop and consider what isn't said explicitly in the text. Sometimes the performance notes call out that a character will not speak for the rest of the scene, which encourages the reader to think about what they're doing.
This edition comes with two different kinds of footnotes. First there are the traditional explanations of words that are no longer in the language, like "Sneap." It means "chide," and we should bring it back because it looks fun to say. But also there are "performance footnotes," which describe various ways the scenes have been played onstage through the years.
The performance footnotes are fun, although they're sometimes written weirdly casually. "Falstaff could be all like, yeah, whatever," really? I mean, sure, he could, but that feels like an informal way to write about Shakespeare in a book published by Oxford, you know? On the other hand, it really is helpful to stop and consider what isn't said explicitly in the text. Sometimes the performance notes call out that a character will not speak for the rest of the scene, which encourages the reader to think about what they're doing.
March 24, 2023
Hamlet (03/23/2023)
Henry IV, Part 1 (03/25/2023)
Henry IV, Part 2 (03/26/2023)
Othello (03/28/23): Had a very different experience with this compared to the previous two. I had little to no difficulty in reading, and the dramatic situation was always clear to me. Was extremely riveting.
King Lear (03/29/2023)
Macbeth (03/30/2023)
Antony and Cleopatra (04/05/2023)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (07/22/23): Launce and Crab the dog!
The Taming of the Shrew (07/26/23)
The Comedy of Errors (07/31/23)
1 Henry VI (08/02/23)
2 Henry VI (08/07/23)
3 Henry VI (08/08/23)
King John (09/04/23)
Richard III (09/07/23)
Henry IV, Part 1 (03/25/2023)
Henry IV, Part 2 (03/26/2023)
Othello (03/28/23): Had a very different experience with this compared to the previous two. I had little to no difficulty in reading, and the dramatic situation was always clear to me. Was extremely riveting.
King Lear (03/29/2023)
Macbeth (03/30/2023)
Antony and Cleopatra (04/05/2023)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (07/22/23): Launce and Crab the dog!
The Taming of the Shrew (07/26/23)
The Comedy of Errors (07/31/23)
1 Henry VI (08/02/23)
2 Henry VI (08/07/23)
3 Henry VI (08/08/23)
King John (09/04/23)
Richard III (09/07/23)
August 20, 2021
Only my Goodreads friends can understand my joy and excitement about finding this book which closely resembles the one I got 50 years ago at Brooklyn College. It was required for Professor Daniel C. Boughner's Shakespeare class - an experience I will never forget: spending an hour a week with a true Shakespeare scholar.
The original text was lost somewhere among my 15 changes of address - but never forgotten. Now, I can again turn to the Bard whenever I want or need to do so!
The original text was lost somewhere among my 15 changes of address - but never forgotten. Now, I can again turn to the Bard whenever I want or need to do so!
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July 31, 2025Read Various Poems:
A Song, Poems from The Passionate Pilgrim, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, The Phoenix and Turtle, Threnos, On Ben Johnson, An Epitaph on Elias James, Another Epitaph on John Combe, Upon the King, Epitaph on Himself.
A Song, Poems from The Passionate Pilgrim, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, The Phoenix and Turtle, Threnos, On Ben Johnson, An Epitaph on Elias James, Another Epitaph on John Combe, Upon the King, Epitaph on Himself.
March 10, 2008
read them all! I love the history plays, Macbeth, Winter's Tale... amazing, timeless.
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December 10, 2012so goood!
January 10, 2013
I love Shakespeare. If you are a fan, you must have this in your collection!
December 27, 2015
This kept me busy for hours as a teenager. Loved it.
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July 11, 201611 July 2016
Twelfth Night or, What You Will: 4 stars
Twelfth Night or, What You Will: 4 stars
March 25, 2022
This book is actually exellent. I love it
March 29, 2022
As the title described, The complete works, it is. It was my MA module "European Shakespeare"'s primary book
May 27, 2026
After nearly 1 1/2 years I‘m finally done. I will never shut up about this.
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