Shakespeare is Hard, but so is Life

by Fintan O'Toole

Is Hamlet really mad or is the world mad? Is Othello merely gullible or is there something about his place in society that makes him vulnerable? Why can there be no happy ending to King Lear? In this radical approach to Shakespearean tragedy, Fintan O'Toole, Ireland's foremost theater critic, shows how Shakespeare's plays have been made unintelligible to modern students. O'Toole explains that the plays have been filtered through a series of ideas that have less to do with what Shakespeare actually wrote than with Victorian interpretations of the plots and characters. O'Toole challenges the traditional approach to the study of four key tragedies—Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth—and provides an entertaining appreciation of the dramatic qualities of each. This is a provocative and accessible guide for students, teachers, and anyone interested in gaining a fresh insight into the world's greatest playwright.

Genres: Nonfiction, Shakespeare, History, Literature, Literary Criticism, Theatre, Writing

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Fintan O'Toole is a columnist, assistant editor and drama critic for The Irish Times. O'Toole was born in Dublin and was partly educated at University College Dublin. He has written for the Irish Times since 1988 and was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001. He is a literary critic, historical writer and political commentator, with generally left-wing views. He was and continues to be a strong critic of corruption in Irish politics, in both the Haughey era and continuing to the present.

O'Toole has criticised what he sees as negative attitudes towards immigration in Ireland, the state of Ireland's public services, growing inequality during Ireland's economic boom, the Iraq War and the American military's use of Shannon Airport, among many other issues. In 2006, he spent six months in China reporting for The Irish Times. In his weekly columns in The Irish Times, O'Toole opposed the IRA's campaign during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fintan_O...

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the years, I've seen productions of all four of Shakespeare's major tragedies discussed in this book (including a totally scary production of "King Lear" in German, in Mönchengladbach, where Regan and Goneril roared onstage on choppers, in leather from head to toe - I had weird nightmares for weeks afterwards). With the exception of Hamlet, I have always found these plays powerful and disturbing, without necessarily understanding why.

I still don't get "Hamlet" - probably never will. But this relatively short book by Fintan O'Toole did actually offer fresh insights into where the power of these plays lies. In five clearly-written essays that are mercifully free of academic jargon, he analyzes the tragedies from a new point of view, which I found interesting and thought-provoking, without being completely persuasive.

The book consists of five essays:

Shakespeare is hard, but so is life.
Hamlet: Dying as an art.
Othello: Inside out.
King Lear: Zero hour.
Macbeth: Back to the future.

In the first, central, essay O'Toole lays out his objections to the 'standard' mode of interpreting the tragedies, and proposes an alternative viewpoint. This is then illustrated by application to each of the four tragedies in turn.

O'Toole opens with the assertion that we have all been sold a bill of goods were Shakespeare is concerned. The standard approach to interpreting the tragedies originated in Victorian England and is far more reflective of prevailing attitudes at that time than of the political and private realities that guided and influenced Shakespeare. To view the plays through this particular lens is to invite distortion. In particular, O'Toole calls out the following as being misguided:

1. The idea of the Tragic Flaw , which invites us to reduce the hero to a one-note character, and results in some 'witheringly useless' analyses (Macbeth is ambitious, Hamlet is indecisive, Lear is vain, Othello is jealous)
2. The idea of the Tragic Hero , which leads to an analysis in which the main character is viewed in isolation, rather than in terms of the interplay between characters.
3. The Victorian idea that the soliloquy is the 'heart of the tragedy', the place where the hero bares his true soul, and is thus the key to understanding the play.

Combining 1 and 2 leads to a view of the tragedy as a play in which the potentially noble hero, through some flaw in his character, helps to bring his own downfall, and by suffering, acquires self-knowledge, and so purges his own faults. As O'Toole points out, the problem with this notion, which is taken directly from Aristotle with no regard to the enormous differences between Greek tragic heroes and Shakespearean ones, is that Shakespeare's plays make no consistent sense when viewed in this way. It is reductionist in a way that ultimately makes the protagonists seem one-dimensional, not very bright, and not very interesting. Idea #3 is a Victorian distortion of how soliloquies actually worked in the Shakespearean theater.

How does O'Toole suggest we approach the plays, if not through the Victorian reformulation of Aristotle's lens? To get the full story, you'll have to read the essays yourself, but the following observations are relevant to his suggested approach:

Successful tragedy .... gets written only at certain times, when there is on overwhelming tension between two sets of values, two world views, two ways of thinking about how individuals related to their societies. The tragic figures are those who get caught in the middle between these two world views, and who can therefore literally can do nothing right.

O'Toole goes on to make a case for viewing the tragedies as examples of what he terms 'secular rituals', but it is the observation above that I found most useful. That is, he invites us to reinterpret the plays, not in terms of a specific character flaw of a single indivual, but as expressions of the tension between two competing views of the world in which a given play is set.

Obviously, understanding the particular tensions which prevailed in Shakespeare's world when the plays were written, and how these may have shaped the playwright's thinking and influenced his writing, is likely to be important in trying to understand the tragedies. This is an obvious invitation to read, or re-read, Stephen Greenblatt's excellent Will in the World : How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, which is less a standard 'biography' than it is an exploration of the factors at play in Shakespeare's world and how they may have combined to form the poet's worldview.

Each of the four tragedies is analyzed within the framework proposed in the first essay. The analyses, though not always fully convincing, are clearly and persuasively argued. I couldn't be further removed from the world of Shakespeare scholarship, so I have no idea how O'Toole's ideas are viewed by academics within that community. All I can say is that he explains them clearly and articulately, and that I found them helpful and thought-provoking. I still don't get "Hamlet", though.

I highly recommend this book.

[MH · Rating 3 out of 5]

O'Toole cheerfully admits in his afterwords that "every year about one thousand books and articles on Shakespeare are published. As I read hardly any of them, I do not know how much, if any, of this book is really original" (163). He's right - there isn't a lot that's new, especially nearly two decades on, in his look at Shakespeare's four greatest tragedies and how their Victorian uses as moral lessons have distorted our understanding of them, but his book is still a quick, enjoyable analysis of Hamlet, Othello, Lear and Macbeth. His central argument - that Shakespeare's England was in a transitory place, and these figures are all men whose tragedies come from their inability to navigate their liminal spaces - is solid and his analysis (more literary than dramatic) is clear and entertaining, but he has a frustrating tendency to offhandedly dismiss elements that don't support his thesis as things "clearly considered unimportant" by Shakespeare (71) and really, there isn't a lot that's 'radical' in suggesting that Hamlet's actually quite decisive or that Lear lives in an unjust world.

[Ann Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this different look at the tragedies, so much so that it’s informed the way I’m teaching them this year.

[Barry Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, thoroughly mulled-over reading of Shakespeare. It was funny to read the opening section of the book, dissecting the rather boring way Shakespeare is taught in schools and realizing that I was very much still taught that way -- over a decade after this was written!

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

In wrapping up another surprisingly enjoyable unit involving the Merchant of Venice and Hamlet, I am struck by how much I rely upon O'Toole's framework. Not for the students, but for me. Every year, I come back to "Dying As An Art," and I'm drawn in again. Next year, I'm thinking of teaching Macbeth just so I can begin frame the first unit around "The Witches are an embarrassment."

[nilab · Rating 3 out of 5]

absolutely breaks my heart to say this was a whole bag of nothing. president of the nothing burger society if u will.

i’m holding onto this though and hoping that as i revisit the rest of shakespeare’s work, this book comes back to me.

[Nick Shears · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkably convincing, beautifully written, and entertaining new take on Shakespeare’a four major tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
Enough to make me want to reread those plays with Mr O’Toole’s viewpoints in mind. I suspect I will then come away thinking, ‘Why did I never think of these things before’, despite having studied three of these plays during three years of English Literature at uni and the other at high school.

I agree with the TLS quote on the cover: ‘A lively and intelligent work of criticism’, and highly recommend this fascinating book to anyone interested in Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Important caveat: After the introductory chapter, the four subsequent chapters each assume the reader is familiar with the play it covers, be that from reading it or seeing it performed. Not having done so for any one of them would make its chapter less interesting and probably frustrating.
But if, for example, you’ve not read Othello, this book is still worth reading and perhaps just skipping the chapter about that play.

[Horatian (amy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knocked a star off because no references or footnotes are given. The author mentions a small number of works in the acknowledgments after declaring “Every year about one thousand books and articles on Shakespeare are published. As I read hardly any of them, I do not know how much, if any, of this book is really original.” To me, this comes across as arrogant and dismissive of the wealth of Shakespearean studies that no doubt were consulted for the creation of this book.

Title is also a strange choice - sounds like a self help book which it isn’t.

[Claire Baxter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure why I finished it to be honest.

[Books By Your Bedside · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Apollo for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

I had not heard of Fintan O'Toole before, but after some Googling I can see he's a man of high esteem in the literary critique world so I was keen to read his thoughts.

Like any bibliophile, wordsmith or English student, I adore Shakespeare and am the proud owner of a very old, very beautiful leatherbound copy of all his works. I saw a First Folio last year and it nearly brought me to tears. And I'm also interested in how others see his plays and how they critique them, so I was very intrigued by this book. But to be honest, it wasn't my thing.

I was confused as to what this book was. A piece of literary criticism? A non-fiction story? A piece for evaluating in an English class? An essay? Opinions or fact? I just couldn't grasp what it was meant to be and what point he was trying to make with it.

Nothing felt new or fresh. I accept that everything that could be said about Shakespeare over the last 400+ years has been said, and so there probably isn't anything new, but this felt really obvious, more like a regurgitation of opinions. And he is quite often dismissive of things that are important but don't line up with the point he's trying to make. There was nothing fresh to keep me interesting.

Whilst Shakespeare and English Literature scholars may enjoy it and get something out of it, in my option, for the average reader it just isn't that great.

It is well researched, and it's clear he has a passion for Shakespeare, I just felt it had all been done before.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made teaching Macbeth again this year so much more fun. Worked really well as extension reading for some of my best kids and helped me to think about the text in new and interesting ways!

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was at high school – a lifetime ago – we did Macbeth in Year 11. I don’t know what I was expecting – but almost certainly not that I was going to understand it. So, it all came as a kind of revelation to me when I actually enjoyed it. I’ve seen Macbeth on stage a few times now, but never enjoyed it nearly as much as I did in reading it back then. We were shown the Polanski film too, you’ve got to make Shakespeare relevant to 17 year olds – but I can remember nothing of that at all other than were told it a very blood-thirsty film – but other than having been told that, all else is lost to me. This book focuses on the tragedies. And he says things that I’ve thought for some time, but he does so in such simple prose I kept thinking– yes, that, yes, yes, just that.

The first thing to say is that Shakespeare ought to be understood as existing in a very particularly time and place. This isn’t the only way to understand him, and probably not even the way most people like to understand him – but the paradox is that that time and place are so long ago that we only really have access to it through works by people like Shakespeare. So, to understand Shakespeare you have to understand his time and are main access to that time is through Shakespeare. The tendency to see Shakespeare as somehow eternal and outside of space and time is also too often taken for granted – even while we complain about how old the language is.

The main thing about his time is that the enlightenment was just taking hold, but hadn’t yet triumphant. England was building its empire, but the centre of Europe was still Italy. That England had been shuffling between religions and was worried that the new king, James, would shift the country back to Catholicism was a real fear. The War of the Roses still troubled the place, even if it had been 100 years previously – in much the same way that World War One still troubles us today, 100 years later. So, he was living in messy times. But messy in lots of ways. James the First (or Sixth, if you count in Scottish) believed in witches, like, really believed in them. When his wife was coming over from Norway to marry him there had been a storm at sea. James blamed witches for it and had lots of killed. You know – there are no such thing as witches, so the people he killed are better understood as having been random women. The double thinking involved here (where women are both women and witches) is a theme the author plays with throughout this book to help us understand Shakespeare.

And capitalism was just starting to kick off too. So, there were lots of ‘new rich’ people and the fixed hierarchies of feudalism were breaking down – but all of that was only just getting started too. It was a time of flux. The old certainties were starting to be anything but certain, the new world was struggling to be born – as my mate Gramsci would say, it was a time of monsters.

The author starts off by saying the obvious, that Shakespeare wasn’t really writing tragedies that Aristotle would recognise as tragedies. For Aristotle, a tragedy happens in a single day, inevitably involves someone very high up the totem pole, and this character falls due to a fatal flaw in their character. This isn’t true of any of the characters in Shakespeare’s tragedies. I know people like to say that the fatal flaw of Hamlet was that he hesitates, but an awful lot of people in that play die, and that’s a lot of death to blame on a little bit of hesitation. And if you think of the play in terms of the dawn of the enlightenment, maybe hesitation isn’t such a terrible thing when the reason for your acting is due to something the ghost of your dead father says to you to get you to kill your uncle. Hamlet is a kind of philosopher – fresh out of university – so, hesitating over something a ghost told him might be expected.

And since Shakespeare was living in a time of nearly maximum ambiguity, much as we are today, his characters are equally ambiguous – never quite one thing or another – never quite black and white. Recently, I took my youngest daughter to see a production of Hamlet. In other productions of the play, I leave feeling a deep sense of affection for Hamlet – but this production highlighted all of his negative characteristics. I came away, not exactly thinking he got what he deserved, but certainly not feeling unequivocally on his side. The author here makes it clear that such feelings are quite natural. Hamlet isn’t all good. He isn’t all bad. That we normally forgive him for his failings doesn’t take him out of the shades-of-grey world he inhabits.

A lot of time in this book is spent discussing characters not only in their complexity, but also in relation to the positive and negative aspects of the worlds they essentially represent in Shakespeare’s world. The old certainties of fixed relationships are breaking down, but while those certainties had bad parts, they also had real appeal. And what they were being replaced with have obvious benefits, but they also had costs. His discussion of Othello is particularly interesting in this case – talking of black and white. Iago is seen as a man of the fixed world of the past with its hierarchies and proper roles and places, while Othello breaks those roles, a black man marrying a white woman, a hero who otherwise ought to have been little more than a slave, the opposite of ‘proper places and roles’. All the same, I would doubt anyone would come away from watching Othello thinking Iago was the hero of the play – but as the author points out, he has a key role and speaks directly to the audience in ways that are often, in other plays by Shakespeare, reserved mostly for the central character.

As the author says at one point in this, if Macbeth is all about vaulting ambition, Macbeth himself struggles with his vaulting ambition in ways we would hardly credit for someone to whom this is his fatal flaw. I so often miss the obvious in things. It is clear that Macbeth needs to kill Banquo’s son – but instead ends up killing Banquo, making the murder meaningless for his ambition for his own children to take his place. But he also needs to kill Macduff, but instead kills his son. Where he means to kill the son, he kills the father, where he means to kill the father, he kills the son. Such are the symmetries. We think we have control over our destiny, and what more modern delusion is there? But our destinies mock us with their ironic twists. I also liked his point that Macbeth is obsessed with a future that constantly becomes impossible for him – one where he would even no longer exist (a future where his children would be kings) – and that his obsession with the future extends to the moment here he hears that his wife had died and his first thought is to wish that too had happened in the future.

This is a nice book and it has made me want to revisit the plays. And that alone is praise enough.

[Courtney Johnston]

For a solid 20 years now I've enjoyed reading criticism of things I have little intent of reading. Whether it's been the TLS, the LRB, the New Yorker, or local publications that I won't name for self-shame: reading what other smart people think about stuff I'll likely never get around to reading myself is a total joy.

I don't think I've ever actually read one of Shakespeare's plays. I *feel* like I have, because I've read so many books that involve them - from Hamnet to Ballet Shoes - and yet, I think even for 7th form English there's a solid chance I only watched the Kenneth Brannagh version of "As You Like It". Didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying this book.

O'Toole's argument is that Victoria-era critics sought to make Shakespeare understandable in the framing of classical Greek tragedy, so as to draw a beautiful through-line from colonial Britain to classical Greece, and this is wrongeheaded, as interpreting Shakespeare's tragedies through the lens of the Tragic Hero or the Tragi Flaw reduces both their strangeness and their truth to their own times.

As the blurb says, O'Toole "shows how the plays have been made unintelligible to modern students by being filtered through a series of ideas that have nothing to do with what Shakespeare wrote, and often have everything to do with keeping the world safe for conservative values." O'Toole's thesis, that Shakespeare's "tragic heroes" are actually best understood as characters teetering on the brink of change - a rapidly growing commercial political class, a sea-change from feudal to individual systems of value - is fascinating. The opening chapter is honestly electrifying, and even if all my knowledge of Macbeth, King Lear, Othello and Hamlet are second-hand, the chapters on each are still easy to follow and full of insight. Despite originally being published over 30 years ago, still a terrific read.

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellently researched and argued, a whole new and entirely believable context for the four major tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, Lear and Macbeth. A very quick and worthwhile read.

[Colin Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and compelling ideas here, but the whole thesis is in the end not really convincing. Definitely worth the read though!

[Lisa-Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using a provocative angle to analyze Shakespeare’s tragedies, O’Toole urges a re-examination of our views of them. “Hamlet is a slob, a shirker.” “[Othello] can talk up a storm, but he’s not much for thinking.” “The witches in Macbeth are an embarrassment.” O’Toole writes cleverly and incisively but, wow. He asserts that four Shakespeare tragedies are seriously misunderstood and misused by today’s academics. He is especially disappointed with the concept of a fatal flaw. “Like most cliches, it perpetuates assumptions, not just about Shakespeare, but about the world: your ruinous end is of your own making.” Instead, O’Toole wants us to rethink our assumptions about tragedies and consider broader themes, such as the “large historical, social and political forces” encountered by these characters in the 16th century.

I’m no Shakespeare scholar, so I don’t have strong opinions. I am fully open to new interpretations. I realize many readers know only a handful of Shakespeare’s familiar quotes and most are used wildly out of context. I am fascinated by O’Toole’s witty barbs and want to re-read all the plays myself just to see what he is going on about. I took a literature class in college entitled “The Tragic Flaw” and I drank the Kool-Aid of which O’Toole is so disdainful. But now, having reconsidered, I agree that the whole concept sounds reductive and dull. I want to understand the historic and political forces and draw my own conclusions about what Shakespeare might have said.

O’ Toole goes further. “So, what does Shakespeare teach us? Nothing. His tragic theatre is not a classroom. It is a fairground wall of death in which the characters are being pushed outwards by the centrifugal force of the action but held in place by the friction of the language.” And the language is what I’ve always loved about Shakespeare. Reading this book reminded me that I never focused much on the plots. I usually sat in awe of the language. I was sobered by the “fairground wall of death” and remembered just how many people die in each of these plays -- bloody, gory deaths. “As audiences or as readers, we are left in a no-man’s land where what we feel does not map onto what we have seen, and where extreme ugliness of action alternates with extreme beauty of language.”

O’Toole writes that “It is nice to imagine a time when these plays could be loved for their poetry alone…But there is not yet a world that does not know the violence of these plays or the fury with which reality responds to all attempts to force it to obey one man’s will.” He encourages us to look at the whole mess. “We return to the tragedies, not in search of behavioural education, but because the wilder the terror Shakespeare unleashes, the deeper is the pity and the greater the wonder that, even in the howling tempest, we can still hear the voices of humanity so amazingly articulated. They do not, when they speak, reduce the frightfulness. They allow us, rather, in those bewildering moments, to be equal to it.” Read that again.

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read from May 22nd, 2024 to June 6th, 2024. Written on June 6th, 2024.

For a book with (in my digital edition) 110 pages, this was one of the hardest books I have read. It felt like I was going one page forward and three pages back. I didn't quit though!

I have only read Romeo and Juliet from Shakespeare, so my choice to read this book, having never read Hamlet, Othello, King Lear or Macbeth, was maybe not a smart one. Nevertheless, I have broaden my horizons of the Shakespearean world and have new views to when I do finally read these four plays. (I am proud to say that I do know the 'To be or not to be' speech from Hamlet)

This is a very well-written book, incredibly polished and, maybe at times, a bit too English for me (if that even makes sense). I love the title, it is engaging and fun, and the cover is also quite appealing.

Not sure what else to say, but I believe I will reread this once I do read each of the plays the author analises in the book, hopefully that will help my experience with both the original play and the book.

(Free ARC from NetGalley and Head of Zeus | Apollo that I chose to review after reading)

[Tumblyhome (Caroline) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really very much enjoyed the Hamlet chapter

A bookish post. Five essays.. an introduction to suggest that how we interpret Shakespeare today has a lot to do with the Victorian’s, who wanted to force the plays into a classical mould where they don’t really belong. And how that kills the joy to an


The Hamlet essay was brilliant and made the play feel very different and more real. It was a real shake up of the myths and dogma surrounding Hamlet. But then it got a bit boring and slightly dictatorial.. i agreed with most but I didn’t agree with it all.. but, valuable for the Hamlet essay, the rest, a little less so.
That’s it.

[Hannah Rappell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure O'Toole's approach to Shakespeare is particularly 'radical' but I did enjoy his discussion of four of Shakespeare's tragedies as I painted windows in my house. As someone who has taught Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear, and finds Shakespearean tragedies incredibly personally compelling, I enjoyed O'Toole's analysis. It's very accessible. While I am familiar with the historical perspective, I liked O'Toole's interpretation of the ways many of our tragic characters are between worlds ideologically. I also enjoyed O'Toole's rejection of the notion that Shakespearean tragedies must (inexplicably) comform to Aristolean conventions.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover of this is kinda misleading bc this is 100% an academic thesis disguised to look like a fun lil book about Shakespeare.

Listen that could be my bad - I don’t read blurbs and always judge by the cover so on me if the marketing team got it right and my inner crow just picked up something shiny

Anyway I did like the thesis and found it interesting (if u don’t wanna read the book he basically says English teachers talk shite and a-level lit ain’t gonna school u on the bard) but would I have picked this if I knew I was gonna have to whip out the entire works of Shakespeare on a random thursday and spend 50 minutes on Google every other chapter? Probs not.

[Sarahlovesbooks76 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life is a series of essays, offering an interesting idea - the study of Shakespeare is done in a way that it would have been taught many, many years ago, but is it actually what he meant? My current exam-taking teen often argues this, so I enjoyed the read!

It was easy to read, with well researched ideas, and it's definitely something to think about. I'm not sure I totally agreed with the author, but it was a fresh approach for me.

[Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had some interesting arguments about the tragedies which I liked but tended to fall into the line of ‘everything that seems like a mistake or flaw in Shakespeare play is actually a part of his genius master plan which only I have fully understood’ when some things, ie inconsistencies in Othello, sort of just seem like mistakes

Generally I think his analysis of Hamlet and Lear holds up better than Othello and Macbeth but who am I to judge

[Olwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love texts that can explain Shakespeare and bring his works to life in a way that explains the relevance for modern day experiences. Even better, it's an engaging read that makes you want to actually study Shakespeare's works!

This book would be really helpful for a novice student of Shakespeare in secondary school or tertiary studies; a head start to navigating your studies of the works of Shakespeare.

I read the 2024 edition in hardback form.

[Verity Halliday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering how short this book is, it took me a long time to read it. Maybe I’m not the intended audience, although I’ve seen all of the plays, I’m no Shakespeare scholar and wasn’t familiar with the Victorian ideas that the author is rebutting.

Some interesting ideas, particularly if you’re studying one or more of the plays that O’Toole discusses.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shakespeare is a topic I needed to review but felt bleh about doing so - O'Toole's voice made this not only bearable, but rather fantastic. Well written, fresh ideas, and the title itself makes me love this book.

[Marg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A curiosity of a book - not sure who the audience is intended to be, but as a lifetime Shakespeare consumer, it was right up my alley. Refreshing in its upending of long-held theories, brainy and utterly readable.

[Matas Roda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable read. Offers insights that most high schoolers and even college students probably missed. This will benefit me in my study of Othello.

It does just recount the plays, though. Nothing special in that regard.

[Rhondda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting ideas and perspectives

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Angry. Angry at lazy teaching, angry at Aristotelian crap being applied to and vitiating Shakey, angry at four hundred years of racists reading Othello. Ra ra raar.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Close reading.