Books

Studying Shakespeare

Sanyat Sattar

Will in the World
Stephen Greenblatt
W. W. Norton & Company; September 2004

A young man from the provinces--a man without wealth, connections, or university education--moves to London. In a remarkably short time he becomes the greatest playwright not just of his age but of all time. How is such an achievement to be explained?

Will in the World interweaves a searching account of Elizabethan England with a vivid narrative of the playwright's life. We see Shakespeare learning his craft, starting a family, and forging a career for himself in London's wildly competitive theatrical world, while at the same time grappling with dangerous religious and political forces that took less-agile figures to the scaffold. Above all, we never lose sight of the great works--A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and more--that continue after four hundred years to delight and haunt audiences everywhere. The basic biographical facts of Shakespeare's life have been known for over a century, but now Stephen Greenblatt shows how this particular life history gave rise to the world's greatest writer.

Essential Shakespeare Handbook
Leslie Danton, Doner & Alan Riding
D.K Publishing Inc; April 2004

Offering a user-friendly, beautifully illustrated guide to every play in the Shakespeare canon, as well as a portrait of the Bard's life and the world of Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre, the Essential Shakespeare Handbook is an innovative and entertaining book which unravels the complexities of Shakespeare's plays and poems. Written in a clear and engaging style, this book will enrich the experience of the Bard's work on the page, stage, and screen.

Shakespeare's Songbook
Ross W. Duffin
W. W. Norton & Company; April 2004

Shakespeare lovers have long lamented that so few songs in his plays survive with the original music; of about sixty song lyrics, only a handful have come down to us with musical settings. For over 150 years, scholars have aspired--without success--to fill that gap. In Shakespeare's Songbook, Ross W. Duffin does just that. Eight years in the making, Shakespeare's Songbook is a meticulously researched collection of 160 songs--ballads and narratives, drinking songs, love songs, and rounds--that appear in, are quoted in, or alluded to in Shakespeare's plays. Drawing substantially on the unmatched resources of the Folgers Shakespeare Library, Duffin brings complete lyrics (many newly recovered) and music notation together for the first time, and in the process sheds new light on Shakespeare's dramatic art. Shakespeare's Songbook is the perfect gift for lovers of Shakespeare.

(sanyatsattar@hotmail.com)