Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Shakespeare

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

To put this in perspective, I'm a 47-year-old professional totally unconnected to the literary world, but reading is my favorite hobby. I have made many attempts over the years to "get into" Shakespeare and reading The Compete Idiot's Guide to Shakespeare is part of my latest (and possibly most successful) attempt.

The Guide is just what I needed. It frames Shakespeare's world perfectly giving historical background, addressing the Shakespeare myths (e.g., who really wrote the Shakespeare plays?), explaining the poems and Sonnets and, finally, giving a succinct and amusing rundown of all the plays by type (tragedy, history, comedy, romance and "problems"). I love Dr. Laurie Rozakis' writing style. Not only is the book extremely easy to read, her clarity and humor make it great fun. I also think she really knows her stuff. Dr. Rozakis is a prolific wonder (check out her website at http://www.members.aol.com/Rozakile/).

I read the book cover to cover and intend to use it as a reference as I read the plays. It sure helped destroy Shakespeare's pompous mystique for me!

This is an insouciant, several-laughs-a-page look at the life, times and works of Shakespeare. The author has done a commendable job of thoroughly covering all the plays as well as the sonnets and other poems. It's as delicious and easy to digest as partly melted ice cream. I highly recommend it for high school and college students, and for all literate readers who might be in a little awe of Shakespeare's towering genius. This book will get you hooked on the best writer in the English language!

Even people who aren't idiots may appreciate this book. It's funny, cute, informative, and gives lots of easy-to-understand tips and translations. This is way better than Cliffs' Notes, especially since it gives you plenty of reasons to read the actual plays.

The first few chapters are devoted to Shakespeare's life, the who-was-Shakespeare-really? debate, his theaters, and some stuff about Elizabethan slang terms. Then it goes to the plays themselves. It gives background info on the time period and how it shaped the plays (for example, views on marriage for "Taming of the Shrew"), a cast list, a pretty good plot summary, and then some mild literary analysis.

Sprinkled on every page are bits of trivia about the plays, the writing, and the time period -- they're not really part of the reviews, just side tidbits. Additionally, they include a chart of Shakespeare's dirty language, a lot of funny jokes, and even reviews of the various movie adaptations (all the major ones -- good, bad, and really, really weird!). There are also pics from various movies/plays, featuring major actors like Patrick Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, and the all-star cast of the fantastic recent "Much Ado About Nothing."

This is a must-read for Shakespeare buffs and newbies (especially if you don't understand what's going on). Even glaze-eyed schoolkids may be suckered in by the promise of learning some exotic dirty words!

The book is not only informative, but so humorous, easy and fun to read. First part of the books which sets the stage for the plays and explores history, background and some on-going controversies about the authorship of the plays reads like an engaging spy novel.

There is a section dealing with the differences between the Old English, Middle English and Modern English, even an amusing guide for creating your own insults using Shakespeare's English - as in "oh, you bawdy, dizzy-eyed giglet!"

The second part of the book takes you through the plays: comedies, "problem plays", histories and tragedies - the cast, the plot, performances, movies and actors worthwhile checking out (if you haven't yet).

At the end of the book is an overview of Shakespeare's poems and sonnets.

Once, you're done with this book, you can move on to actually reading the entire Shakespeare's plays. You may find them more appetizing.

This book is the ultimate way to get acquainted with Shakespeare's works while having fun every step of the way. The author comes off not only as very knowledgeable about the topic, but as a wit who would have given Shakespeare himself a laugh or two. Her coverage is comprehensive and insightful, and the book provides a wonderful way for young and old alike to gain access to Shakespeare's meaning and beauty.

...I found this book practically useless. Its summaries of the plays leave out major portions, the analyses are over-simplified, (even for high schoolers) and the "extras" are usually useless info about 20 year old film versions no one is interested in. It is funny, and at times provided an interesting tidbit or two, but for something meatier, REALLY read the sparknotes version free online or at Barnes and Noble.

I'm really lazy so when forced to take a class on Shakespeare (which I still have problems spelling) I decided to take the easy way out and buy this book instead of reading his actual plays. I was just going to watch the movies they were all based on but I figured it would be a little bit less lazy if I actually incorporated some reading in with my studies. While I am not recommending this strategy for everyone it worked really well for me.

This gives you the finer points of all of his major plays, King Lear, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, etc. So you don't have to read them at all! It sums up the plots, tells you the deeper meaning and symbolism and gives you information on other stuff you might have missed if your attention span is like mine, four seconds long, and you have a hard time focusing on the writing style that Shakespeare used. Plus its actually kind of funny in some parts.

While I am not an advocate of using this book for cheating in any way it actually allowed me to get an A- in the class without opening my text book and my teacher never said no study guides, so there. Works great for college courses or if you just don't get what all of those thous and thees mean. It helps you keep track of all of the characters in his many plots and dumbs it down really nicely.

Okay, being a profound NON-lover of Shakespeare I never attended to lessons about him in school, and pointedly avoided him out of school. Then I decided to get a Master's in English Lit... I passed the GRE, and all the Shakespeare I had to go on I got from this book. Higest recommendation I can give it.

The dealer was fine, but the book is a waste of time , containing too many things that seem to be put in as filler. If you are interested in using this in the classroom, forget it!