Studying Shakespeare A Guide to the Plays

by Maguire, Laurie

• ISBN13: 9780631229858
• ISBN10: 063122985X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This engaging book draws on all of Shakespeare's plays to show they can still be used as a guide to life. Introduces beginning students and general readers to Shakespeare's plays by highlighting the connections between the issues addressed by the plays and those of our own time. Focuses on the characters, situations and stories in Shakespeare which are still familiar today. Shows how Shakespeare's plays illustrate some of life's most familiar stories - love and obsession, parents and children, sex and politics, suffering and revenge Makes Shakespeare's plays accessible to the widest possible audience.

Author Biography

Laurie Maguire is a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and a Lecturer in English at Oxford University. She is the author of Shakespearean Suspect Texts (1996) and co-editor of Textual Formations and Reformations (1998), among other publications.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	x
Conventions	xiii
Introduction	1	(11)
1 Private Life: Shakespeare and Selfhood	12	(38)
1 The Divided Self	14	(6)
Comedy of Errors; As You Like It
2 Naming the Self	20	(10)
Troilus and Cressida; Romeo and Juliet; Taming of the Shrew
3 The Self and Language	30	(4)
Measure for Measure; Troilus and Cressida
4 The National Self	34	(11)
Othello; King Lear
5 The Self at Play	45	(5)
Loves Labour's Lost; Taming of the Shrew
2 Marital Life: Shakespeare and Romance	50	(38)
1 Love and Hazard	51	(5)
Merchant of Venice
2 Love and Friendship	56	(4)
Two Gentlemen of Verona; Winters Tale; Two Noble Kinsmen
3 Love and Madness	60	(11)
Midsummer Nights Dream; Cymbeline; All's Well that Ends Well; Measure for Measure; Troilus and Cressida
4 Marriage and Identity	71	(6)
Comedy of Errors; All's Well that Ends Well; Taming of the Shrew
5 Love and Abuse	77	(11)
Taming of the Shrew; Merry Wives of Windsor; Othello; Troilus and Cressida
3 Political Life: Shakespeare and Government	88	(52)
1 Acting Politics	92	(27)
3 Henry VI; Richard III; 1 Henry IV; 2 Henry IV; Henry V; Coriolanus; Julius Caesar
2 Surviving Politics	119	(15)
Richard II; Macbeth
3 The Personal versus the Political	134	(6)
Richard II; 1 and 2 Henry IV; Henry V
4 Public Life: Shakespeare and Social Structures	140	(40)
1 Money	142	(14)
Macbeth; Merchant of Venice; Romeo and Juliet; Merry Wives of Windsor; Timon of Athens
2 Women and Politics	156	(17)
Antony and Cleopatra; King John; Measure for Measure
3 Language	173	(7)
Titus Andronicus; Much Ado About Nothing; All's Well that Ends Well
5 Real Life: Shakespeare and Suffering	180	(43)
1 Mingled Yarns	180	(8)
Twelfth Night; King Lear; Much Ado About Nothing
2 Mourning	188	(9)
Hamlet; Twelfth Night
3 The Family	197	(10)
King Lear; Macbeth
4 Anger and Revenge	207	(6)
Titus Andronicus
5 Forgiveness	213	(10)
Pericles; Winters Tale; Cymbeline; Tempest; Henry VIII; Two Noble Kinsmen
Works Cited	223	(12)
Index	235