Brown" and "Shakespeare in Love" "What the film Shakespeare in Love has done to make Shakespeare the man accessible to a general audience, this book will do to make Shakespeare the writer enjoyable." --Charlotte J.Headrick, PhD, Professor and Director, Theater Arts, Oregon State UniversityDoes the thought of sitting through A Midsummer Night's Dream give you nightmares? Did Romeo and Juliet seem like a foreign film--without the subtitles? As John Doyle and Ray Lischner prove in this uniquely accessible guide, Shakespeare is not only the greatest writer who ever lived, he's also a great entertainer--once you get a handle on his wild plots and witty wordplay. Under their guidance, you'll:Go inside an Elizabethan theater--and find out how they managed with almost no seats, no roof and no women onstage Get a handle on Shakespeare's language--including all those racy puns and jokes Maximize your enjoyment of his plays and poetry Identify contemporary idioms and phrases that come from Shakespeare's plays Find Shakespeare festivals and performances in your area Catch ten of the best show ever made of the Bard's plays and meet ten of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time In simple, straightforward language, this friendly guide eases you into the wild, wonderful world of Shakespeare. With the help of snappy summaries and scorecards that help you keep track of who's who, who's in love with whom, and who's killed whom in every play, it helps you:Understand Shakespeare the person, his life and times and what makes him so special Make sense of Shakespearean language and why it sounds the way it does Get the inside track on the kinds of stories, characters and settings found in Shakespeare's plays Appreciate Shakespeare's sonnets and other non-dramatic poetry A royal feast for the head and heart, Shakespeare's works have been thrilling audiences for four centuries, as they will four hundred years from now. Now let Shakespeare For Dummies help you to enjoy one the world's great literary treasures.

    His ‘natural supernaturalism’, personal mythology and vision can leave readers dazzled by the intensity and passion of his verse. In this outstanding work, Chesterton goes right to the heart of the matter and addresses the question of whether Blake’s genius was tainted by madness or whether his peculiar outlook on the world was the key to his success. With a detailed exposition of Blake’s life, and by weaving lucid explanations of his philosophy and religion into a discourse on his poetry, Chesterton has produced a remarkable and sensitive biography.

    New features include: a new chapter on queer theory; every chapter has been revised with new introductions with appropriate new critical vocabulary, critical terms, further readings sections, and web sites; new student essays; structuralism and deconstruction have been combined into one section to make the material clearer and more streamlined; and the addition of Plotinus, Giovanni Boccaccio, Joseph Addison, Percy Pysshe Shelley, and Mikhail Bakhtin.

    This widely used undergraduate text is now available in a new edition. Thoroughly updated, the fourth edition includes expanded sections on numerous topics, among which are samurai values, Zen Buddhism, the tea ceremony, Confucianism in the Tokugawa period, the story of the forty-seven ronin, Mito scholarship in the early nineteenth century, and mass culture and comics in contemporary times.

    Now, BBC Books has rediscovered notebooks, long thought lost, compiled by the Bard in which he divulges the influential role the Doctor played in his creative life. Here are the original notes for Hamlet, including a very different appearance by the ghost; early versions of great lines (“To reverse or not to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”); the true story of how the faeries of A Midsummer Night’s Dream were first imagined; stage directions for plays adjusted to remove references to a mysterious blue box; and much, much more.

    Tragedy permits us to come face to face with what we do not know about ourselves but that which makes those selves who we are. Having Been Born is a compelling examination of ancient Greek origins in the development and history of tragedy--a story that represents what we thought we knew about the poets, dramatists, and philosophers of ancient Greece--and shows them to us in an unfamiliar, unexpected, and original light.

    Her glory was to have no glory. In Greek tragedy, however, women die violently and, through violence, master their own fate. It is a genre that delights in blurring the formal frontier between masculine and feminine. Through the subtlety of her reading of these powerful and ambiguous texts, Nicole Loraux elicits an array of insights into Greek attitudes toward death, sexuality, and gender.

    The author, editor, or translator of nearly three dozen books of criticism and works of literature, Keene now offers an enjoyable and beautifully written introduction to traditional Japanese culture for the general reader.The book acquaints the reader with Japanese aesthetics, poetry, fiction, and theater, and offers Keene's appreciations of these topics. Based on lectures given at the New York Public Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the University of California, Los Angeles, the essays -though written by a renowned scholar- presuppose no knowledge of Japanese culture. Keene's deep learning, in fact, enables him to construct an overview as delightful to read as it is informative.His insights often illuminate aspects of traditional Japanese culture that endure today. One of these is the appreciation of "perishability." this appreciation os seen in countless little bits of Japanese life: in temples made of wood instead of durable materials; in the preference for objects -such as pottery- that are worn, broken, or used rather than new; and in the national love of the delicate cherry blossom, which normally falls after a brief three days of flowering. Keene quotes the fourteenth-century Buddhist monk Kenko, who wrote that "the most precious thing about life is its uncertainty."Throughout the volume, Keene demonstrates that the rich artistic and social traditions of Japan can indeed be understood by readers from our culture. This book will enlighten anyone interested in Japanese literature and culture.

    s/t: Essays on Shakespeare and Goethe; Hegel and Kierkegaard; Nietzsche, Rilke and Freud; Jaspers, Heidegger and ToynbeeExplores such themes as philosophy versus poetry, post-World War II German thought, art, tradition, and truth in a collection of essays.

    The text itself is an alphabetical listing of the terms that pertain to literature in English. Now in its eighth edition, it has been used by more than one million students.

    Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and analysis to explain how each work has shaped our very existence as readers, students, teachers, and Americans.Foster illuminates how books such as The Last of the Mohicans, Moby-Dick, My Ántonia, The Great Gatsby, The Maltese Falcon, Their Eyes Were Watching God, On the Road, The Crying of Lot 49, and others captured an American moment, how they influenced our perception of nationhood and citizenship, and what about them endures in the American character. Twenty-five Books That Shaped America is a fun and enriching guide to America through its literature.

    All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dust cover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels.Some of our books may have slightly worn corners, and minor creases to the covers. Please note the cover may sometimes be different to the one shown.

    The teaching of poetry languishes, and that region of youthful neurological terrain capable of being ignited only by poetry is largely dark, unpopulated, and silent, like a classroom whose shades are drawn. This is more than a shame, for poetry is our common treasure-house, and we need its vitality, its respect for the subconscious, its willingness to entertain ambiguity, its plaintive truth-telling, and its imaginative exhibitions of linguistic freedom, which confront the general culture's more grotesque manipulations. We need the emotional training sessions poetry conducts us through. We need its previews of coming attractions: heartbreak, survival, failure, endurance, understanding, more heartbreak.—from "Twenty Poems That Could Save America"Twenty Poems That Could Save America presents insightful essays on the craft of poetry and a bold conversation about the role of poetry in contemporary culture. Essays on the "vertigo" effects of new poetry give way to appraisals of Robert Bly, Sharon Olds, and Dean Young. At the heart of this book is an honesty and curiosity about the ways poetry can influence America at both the private and public levels. Tony Hoagland is already one of this country's most provocative poets, and this book confirms his role as a restless and perceptive literary and cultural critic.

    Drawing from the full spectrum of plays and sonnets to mark each day of the year, whether it's a scene from Hamlet to celebrate Christmas or a Sonnet in June to help you enjoy a summer's day. There are also passages to mark important days in the Shakespeare calendar, both from his own life and from his plays: You'll read a pivotal speech from Julius Caesar on the Ides of March and celebrate Valentine's day with a sonnet. Every passage is accompanied by an enlightening note to teach you its significance and help you better appreciate the timelessness and poetry of Shakespeare's words. Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year will give you a thoughtful way reflect on each day, all while giving you a deeper appreciation for the most famous writer in the English language.

    Lewis's classic analysis springs from the conviction that literature exists for the joy of the reader and that books should be judged by the kind of reading they invite. Crucial to his notion of judging literature is a commitment to laying aside expectations and values extraneous to the work, in order to approach it with an open mind.