Discovering Shakespeare's Meaning: An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare's Dramatic Structures [Textbook Binding]

Leah Scragg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0582229308 | ISBN-13: 978-0582229303 | Publication Date: August 1994

In this useful guide, Leah Scragg indicates some of the ways in which meaning is generated in Shakespearian drama and the kinds of approaches that might lead to a fuller understanding of the plays. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of the dramatic composition, such as verse and prose, imagery and spectacle, and the use of soliloquy, and explores how this contributes to the overall meaning. Written in a clear and helpful style, Discovering Shakespearian Meaning enables students to discover the meaning for themselves.

Product Details

• Textbook Binding: 237 pages
• Publisher: Longman Pub Group (August 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582229308
• ISBN-13: 978-0582229303
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #295,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Best if you know the plays, November 28, 2010

By 

Gary Sprandel (Frankfort, Kentucky) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Discovering Shakespeare's Meaning: An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare's Dramatic Structures (Textbook Binding)

This books attempts to see the plays as more than just story and character, and search for richer meaning in chapters as Verse and Prose; Imagery and Spectacle; Shakespeare's Expositions; Plays within Plays; Parallel Actions; The Treatment of Character; The Use of the Soliloquy; Art and Artifice. The variety of plays discussed in each chapter was welcome when I was familiar with the plays, but was largely lost on me for plays I did not know (such as Cymbeline, Pericles, Richard II).

In each chapter Scragg, provides examples where the structure provides deeper meaning, for example patterns of rhyme in Coriolanus "are functioning very like the background music in a television drama". Shakespeare's use of Plays within Plays is legendary, and this chapter really shines in showing how these are more than mere diversion, but notably in Love's Labour's Loss that "the events of the play-within-the play act as commentary upon the events of the `real' world". I thought the chapter on character was weak, but it seeks to emphasize her point "the meaning of a Shakespearian play does not derive exclusively from the progress of its central figures; it is also a product of the kind of dramatic language that is employed, the disposition of the characters of the play, the degree of distance between play and spectator, and the relationship between the levels of action.".