Gain Your Copy This Is Shakespeare: How To Read The World's Greatest Playwright Originated By Emma Smith Available Through Digital Format

was, for me, an engaging and occasionally daunting read, My last real exposure to Shakespeare was in college and I've not read or seen any of his plays since then.
The author here is an oxford shakespearean lecturer, so quite knowledgeable on the subject, and as well quite readable for the most part.
There are bits here and there where she introduces a word that she feels is needed for the ongoing discussion absolutely to her credit she takes the time to bring it in, provide a good definition, and then continues to use it multiple times.
To my shame, I typically read quickly and so don't always take the time to go back, reread the definition, and make sure I completely understand the point she is making.
So quite fairly, any failure of understanding is mine, not hers,

Dr Smith takes each play as a chapter, introducing a concept or two and discussing it within the context of the play and including others as needed but focusing the discussion using the specific play.
I read it all by reading in chapters over time, which worked out quite well for me.


If it's been a while since you've 'done' Shakespeare and even if not, this is a very good book to read and reintroduce oneself to the bards

plays as well as learning a lot about current updated Shakespearean literary leanings.
A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no others, A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality and literary mastery, Who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else,

Is this Shakespeare Well, sort of,

But it doesn't really tell us the whole truth, So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws.
This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality.
It introduces an intellectually, theatrically and ethically exciting writer who engages with intersectionality as much as with Ovid, with economics as much as poetry: who writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity and sex.
It takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting, as we watch him emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day flirting with and skirting round the cutthroat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval and technological change.
The Shakespeare in this book poses awkward questions rather than offering bland answers, always implicating us in working out what it might mean.


This is Shakespeare, And he needs your attention, A series of terrific chapters analyzing mini of Shakespeares plays, Listening to this audiobook was like taking and exceptional lecture course from a leading expert in the field.
The author does a great job of making her insides accessible to those who are familiar with the plays.
I love Emma Smiths The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide, so I was nothing short of excited to dive into this new book.
In this one, the author shows her critical views on a portion of the playwrights works, What I loved the most about This is Shakespeare is that Smith clings on the smaller plots for her chapters, for instance: the murder of Cinna, the poet, in Caesar which is a very short scene in the play the whole arc with Portias caskets in Merchant Shakespeares farewell to the theater with Tempest instead of focusing on the plays common postcolonialist discussions.
Her arguments might not be anything new to people who have been studying the Bard for a while, but as Im fairly new to the subject, a bunch of it felt very refreshing to me.
I learned a lot reading this it gave me a lot to think about and I got to see most plays through a new lens and even though it doesnt cover all of Shakespeares plays, it still ended up as one of my favorite books on his career.


Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for granting me a digital copy in exchange of an honest review! pippin doing english homework for fun again i'm nothing if not predictable

so i've readof theplays covered in this collectionand despite how this book markets itself, i think it's best enjoyed with a notinsubstantial amount of foreknowledge! but, if you've been around the shakespeare block a few times, emma smith takes some really interesting routes of inquiry here that i think will surprise you even if you've been exposed to other scholarship.
the subversive sexuality in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the challenge Comedy of Errors presents to the individual self, and the influence of celebrity in Antony and Cleopatra are just a sampling of the topics you'll encounter in this book.


also up for debate is whether the bear of "exit, pursued by a bear" fame was an Actual Bear On Stage A fantastically fun and fascinating audiobook.
I wouldnt usually pick up a lit criticism kind of book, but I heard Val McDermid rave about it on my favorite BBC radiopodcast and couldnt resist.
I love how Oxford prof Emma Smith looks at how much these plays are so open to interpretation, how they ask many more questions than give any answers, and she discusses each play in both the context of the day, and of todays world.
I learnt so much about the clever ambiguities, and about dramaturgy and creative artistic choices, Loved it This is one of those books where you get the impression that the author and the blurb writer never actually met.
Because one thing this book certainly isn't is a guide on how to read Shakespeare,

What we actually get is a series of essays or chapters on selected plays, A chapter on Romeo and Juliet, a chapter on Richard II and so on, In each chapter Emma Smith makes a point about the play in question,

For example in the chapter on Romeo and Juliet she focuses on the fact that the play starts with the prologue which basically tells the audience how the play is going to end.
No need for spoiler alerts here, And that gets us into a discussion about inevitability and audience expectations, And while it's all very interesting, it doesn't feel like an introduction to Shakespeare, It's a collection of moderately random essays based on something in each play that the author finds interesting.


Some of the chapters are more convincing than others, There's a discussion in the chapter on Comedy of Errors which points out that this play is more propheavy than other plays.
This then spins off into a discussion about how objects define individuality, And while that's all very interesting, I can't help wondering if a better explanation is that in a play about identical twins and mistaken identities, the props help the audience to work out who is who.
Part of the humour is that the audience knows more than the characters,

If this really was a guide on how to read Shakespeare, I would have expected that sort of point to be explained and not the fairly esoteric argument about individuality.


There's nothing much wrong with the book as long as you treat if for what it is.
It is a fairly random collection of essays on some elements of some of the plays, It's not an introduction to Shakespeare, It won't show you how to read the plays,

I've given iton the GR scale wheremeans "It was ok" and four means "I really liked it".
I did enjoy the book, Emma writes well and clearly knows her stuff, Some of her points resonated,

But that blurb writer really ought to exit pursued by a bear, Because this is a book that doesn't do what it says on the tin,



.