A Preface To Shakespeare S Tragedies

This book is a study of four of Shakespeare's major tragedies - "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear" and "Macbeth". It looks at these plays in a variety of contexts - both in isolation and in relation to each other and to the cultural, ideological, social and political contexts which produced them.

This is an informative and interesting guide to the comedies of love - The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like it and Twelfth Night - which were written in the early part of Shakespeare's career. As well as supplying dramatic and critical analysis, this study sets the plays within their wider social and artistic context. Michael Mangan begins by considering the social function of laughter, the use of humour in drama for handling social tensions in Elizabethan and Jacobean society and the resulting expectations the audience would have had about comedy in the theatre. In the second section he discusses the individual plays in the light of recent critical and theoretical research. The useful reference section at the end gives the reader a short bibliographic guide to key historical figures relevant to a study of Shakespeare's comedies and a detailed critical bibliography.

Reproduction of the original: Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson

Published in 1908, this book considers the work of William Shakespeare. Providing notes and commentaries on some of his poems and plays, as well as context from English history, and analysis from his contemporaries and successors, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher and Massinger, this book will be an interesting read for those interested in his work.

Challenging the long-held view that Johnson's criticism of Shakespeare is of historical interest only, having been assimilated and superseded by later work, this study argues that Johnson's interpretaion of Shakespeare as "the poet of nature" is actually a radical and provocative proposition. Parker provides an illuminating series of contrasts of the leading Romantic critics--Coleridge, Schlegel, and Hazlitt--arguing that the dichotomies that emerge from their writings reflect tensions exhibited by or explored within the plays themselves. He relates Johnson's feeling for general nature to the characteristic scepticism of his thought, and concludes with a fresh discussion of Johnson's response to the "unnatural deeds" of Shakespearean tragedy. Parker also includes the central portion of the Preface to Shakespeare, as well as critically interesting notes, offering a fully developed anthology of Johnson's criticism and commentary on Shakespeare.

Excerpt from Shakespeare's Tragedy of Othello: With Preface, Glossary, &C Dreams, Books, are each a world: and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round them with tendrils strong as esh and blood. Our pastime and our happiness will grow. There find i personal theme, a plenteous store, Matter wherein nght voluble i am. To which i listen with a ready ear; Two shall be named pre-eminently dear, The gentle Lady married to the Moor; And heavenly Una, with her milk-white Lamb.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."