Bloom S How To Write About Shakespeare S Histories

Provides students with information about composing an effective essay about Shakespeare's histories, suggesting sample paper topics and providing an overview of each work covered.

Presents a collection of critical essays on the works of William Shakespeare.

Arguably the most revered and researched author of all time, William Shakespeare has forever changed the face of literature.

Discusses plots, characters, and themes in four of Shakespeare's history plays

One of the most frequently read and performed of all stage works, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is unsurpassed in its complexity and richness. Now the first fully annotated version of Hamlet makes the play completely accessible to readers in the twenty-first century. It has been carefully assembled with students, teachers, and the general reader in mind. Eminent linguist and translator Burton Raffel offers generous help with vocabulary and usage of Elizabethan English, pronunciation, prosody, and alternative readings of phrases and lines. His on-page annotations provide readers with all the tools they need to comprehend the play and begin to explore its many possible interpretations. This version of Hamlet is unparalleled for its thoroughness and adherence to sound linguistic principles. In his Introduction, Raffel offers important background on the origins and previous versions of the Hamlet story, along with an analysis of the characters Hamlet and Ophelia. And in a concluding essay, Harold Bloom meditates on the originality of Shakespeare’s achievement. The book also includes a careful selection of items for “Further Reading.”

Well-known essayist and Cuban historian Rafael Rojas presents a collection of his best work, one which focuses on - and offers alternatives to - the central myths that have organized Cuban culture from the nineteenth century to the present. Rojas explores the most important themes of Cuban intellectual history, including the legacy of José Martí, the cultural effect of the war in 1898, the construction of a national canon of Cuban literature, the works of classical intellectuals of the republican period, the literary magazine Orígenes, the ideological impact of the Cuban Revolution, and the possibilities of a democratic transition in the island at the beginning of the twenty-firstcentury.

Shakespeare's history plays are central to his dramatic achievement. In recent years they have become more widely studied than ever, stimulating intensely contested interpretations, due to their relevance to central contemporary issues such as English, national identities and gender roles. Interpretations of the history plays have been transformed since the 1980s by new theoretically-informed critical approaches. Movements such as New Historicism and cultural materialism, as well as psychoanalytical and post-colonial approaches, have swept away the humanist consensus of the mid-twentieth century with its largely conservative view of the plays. The last decade has seen an emergence of feminist and gender-based readings of plays which were once thought overwhelmingly masculine in their concerns. This book provides an up-to-date critical anthology representing the best work from each of the modern theoretical perspectives. The introduction outlines the changing debate in an area which is now one of the liveliest in Shakespearean criticism.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most read and beloved of all stage works. Now the most extensively annotated version of the play to date makes it completely accessible to readers in the twenty-first century. The new edition is a rich resource for students, teachers, and the general reader. Eminent linguist and translator Burton Raffel offers generous help with vocabulary and usage of Elizabethan English, pronunciation, prosody, and alternative readings of phrases and lines. His on-page annotations provide readers with the tools they need to comprehend the play and begin to explore its many possible interpretations. This version of Romeo and Juliet is unparalleled for its thoroughness and adherence to sound linguistic principles. In his introduction, Raffel provides historical and social contexts that increase the reader’s understanding of the play. And in a concluding essay, Harold Bloom argues that Romeo and Juliet is unmatched in the world’s literature “as a vision of an uncompromising love that perishes of its own idealism and intensity.”