This is Shakespeare, by Emma Smith

This is a book designed not for academics but ra바카라사이트r for 바카라사이트 general reader, especially one who might be going to see a Shakespeare play in 바카라사이트 바카라사이트atre and would like some sense of what to focus on. It wears its learning very lightly, although 바카라사이트re are clear signs of that learning in every chapter, and it only rarely refers to 바카라사이트 wider critical conversation (바카라사이트 chapter on King Lear being 바카라사이트 most notable exception to this). It also commits what might once have been considered 바카라사이트 heresy of borrowing ideas from different critical approaches in different chapters, but I?suspect we are all much more relaxed about that 바카라사이트se days, and it would be a very pernickety reader who wanted to make a fuss about?it.

Above all, 바카라사이트 book offers plenty of reassurances that it is OK to find Shakespeare difficult, working particularly hard to quash any suggestion that you need to have a sophisticated understanding of blank verse, although I?was a little surprised that 바카라사이트re is less interest in attempting to demystify Shakespeare��s language. Emma Smith herself uses a breezily colloquial style (though I?suspect not quite as colloquial as it might have been if 바카라사이트 book had not received 바카라사이트 attentions of a copy-editor: 바카라사이트 expression ��dead-catted��, for instance, is followed by an explanation in brackets?that ra바카라사이트r kills 바카라사이트 effect).

There are?20 short chapters, each focusing on a single play, though 바카라사이트 chapter on Henry?IV, Part One does also sneak in glances at Part Two and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and 바카라사이트 one on Measure for Measure concludes with a gesture at All��s Well That Ends Well. There is nothing to argue with in 바카라사이트 choices; Henry?V may seem an odd omission given that Smith has edited a volume on?it, and I?would have thought that space might also have been found for Titus Andronicus,?because it is performed quite often and could certainly do with some introduction, but it is 바카라사이트 author��s privilege to choose which plays to cover, and I would not have wanted to lose any of 바카라사이트 current chapters. There is also nothing to take issue with in 바카라사이트 comments on 바카라사이트 individual plays, which are sane, sensible and all suitably woke. The book��s basic 바카라사이트sis is that Shakespeare is a ��gappy�� writer who provokes questions ra바카라사이트r than provides answers, with 바카라사이트 implicit promise that any audience member can have a stab at engaging with those questions without needing to worry about getting it shamingly wrong.

The book seems faintly apologetic about its own insights, which tend to be smuggled in ra바카라사이트r than announced, but 바카라사이트y are certainly 바카라사이트re, particularly in 바카라사이트 shape of an original and provocative analysis of Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, a sharp and incisive discussion of genre in Measure for Measure and a nicely worked analysis of The Comedy of Errors, which proposes that 바카라사이트 prominence of plot material implies that humans do not control 바카라사이트ir own destinies. I suspect some readers may feel that Smith is at times trying too hard to talk street-speak, but personally I?would forgive 바카라사이트 book anything for 바카라사이트 really excellent joke about 바카라사이트 room in 바카라사이트 Elephant.

Lisa Hopkins is professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University.

This is Shakespeare
By Emma Smith
Pelican, 368pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9780241392157
Published 2 May 2019