Everybody's Shakespeare

by MacK, Maynard

• ISBN13: 9780803282148
• ISBN10: 0803282141
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-06-28
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

"These are compelling, thoughtful essays that will encourage any attentive reader to think afresh about familiar plays."-Library Journal. "Beautifully written, deeply meditated essays. . . . The book is a pleasure-jargon-free and clearly organized. It is also wise. Like Coleridge, sometimes Mack opens up sudden illuminations we wonder we never saw before."-Choice. "This is a sane, hugely compassionate book that captures much of what is great about Shakespeare's dramatic vision of human vicissitude. What Mr. Mack thinks about the current state of criticism is untimately less important than what he thinks about Shakespeare's largeness of heart. These essays make up a whole book and richly deserve to be rescued from the oblivion that threatens any writer of occasional essays. By speaking of the comforts of art, they teach us, in Antony's phrase, to contend even with the 'pestilent scythe' of Death itself."-Washington Times.Everybody's Shakespeare brings the insights and wisdom of one of the finest Shakespearean scholars of our century to the task of surveying why the Bard continues to flourish in modern times. Mack treats individually seven plays-Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Cesar, and Antony and Cleopatra-and demonstrates in each case how the play has retained its vitality, complexity, and appeal.Maynard Mack is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. Among his publications are King Lear in Our Time, Rescuing Shakespeare, and Alexander Pope: A Life.

Author Biography

Maynard Mack is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. Among his publications are King Lear in Our Time, Rescuing Shakespeare, and Alexander Pope: A Life.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Everybody's Shakespeare	1	(12)
Audience and Play	13	(26)
Play and History	39	(30)
The Ambiguities of Romeo and Juliet	69	(22)
The Modernity of Julius Caesar	91	(16)
``The Readiness Is All'': Hamlet	107	(22)
``Speak of Me as I Am'': Othello	129	(22)
``We Came Crying Hither'': King Lear	151	(32)
The Many Faces of Macbeth	183	(14)
The Stillness and the Dance: Antony and Cleopatra	197	(34)
What Happens in Shakespearean Tragedy	231	(32)
Notes	263	(12)
Index	275