Doing Shakespeare

by Simon Palfrey

Doing Shakespeare offers a fresh insight into the difficulties and excesses of Shakespeare's drama and language. Written primarily for students making the transition from school to university, it aims both to demystify and illuminate the study of Shakespeare, tackling many of the challenges students face as they move towards a more complex critical engagement with Shakespeare's work. Equally, it shows how recovering the layered energies within and between Shakespeare's words, and the role of such dense language in constructing character, is indispensable if we are to rediscover the plays' ethical, political and emotional punch. ..". brilliant, intelligent, engaging..." Bernard Richards, The English Review, September 2006 "Simon Palfrey's Doing Shakespeare is far more than a primer. Readers and watchers of Shakespeare, however experienced, will find a host of new insights here. Indeed, I cannot think of another critic since Empson who has teased out so much so lucidly and (usually) so persuasively from the intricacies of Shakespearean language. Sometimes wayward, frequently vertiginous, always provocative of serious thought" Jonathan Bate, International Books of the Year 2004, The Times Literary Supplement, October 2004.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2004

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Pádraic]

Abandoned at a bit over halfway. There's nothing massively wrong with it, just at some point I had to admit to myself that reading this felt like the bad kind of homework.

[Eileen Neeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

For masters classes

[John Fredrickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an awesome analysis of Shakespeare's language and his rhetorical techniques. It is different from many other Shakespeare books that focus on an individual play at a time. It approaches the plays from the standpoint of the techniques involved, which are very many indeed.

The author presents a host of ways to consider Shakespeare's use of language in the construction of the plays. One gets a much deeper sense for word usage in the plays, encompassing puns that would not have been evident to modern readers, but also the use and affect of things like verse as opposed to prose, or the use of hendiadys and other rhetorical devices. Attention is also paid to things like line construction techniques, where phrasing parallels within the text are presented. Similarly, the author shows how the lines can contain performance cues for the actors (this was a difficult section for me).

The close of the book looks at themes that recur in the plays, including Shakespeare's (very evident) pleasure in using doubles and disguises, but explores other subjects as well, such as what it means to 'constitute' a character like Hamlet or Cressida. The characters have immense depth.

The book is often somewhat of a challenge to keep up with, but it is worth it.

[Helen Mears · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me ages to read only because it's over 300 pages densely packed with small fonted text. It's been time well spent, though, because there is so much to take in and digest. I feel richer for having read it.

[Susan Williams]

This is a practical guide great to use while working on shakespeare and also while finding character in any play!