Customer Reviews

Shakespeare After All

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book on the strength of Marjorie Garber's excellent past Renaissance scholarship. I was expecting something more theoretically informed and original, but as it is this is a very worthwhile book, and I predict it will be an essential reference book for teachers and students. It's a BIG book with a substantial chapter on each play (but not the sonnets), as with Harold Bloom's book on Shakespeare. Garber, however, is less idiosyncratic than Bloom; She synthesizes the best of recent scholarship, but without footnotes or extensive theorizing a la Derrida and Lacan. Garber combines close attention to language with valuable historical background and context. For example, in her chapter on Macbeth, she relates a "new critical" analysis of the clothing imagery to sumptuary laws regarding clothing (laws which served to enforce the social hierachy of Renaissance England). The strengths of this book are her comprehensive discussions of the play, which sum up what we know for sure about the plays including the relevant historical contexts, and her brilliant analysis of Shakespeare's language, i.e., close reading. While her work is illuminated by recent scholarship, she avoids the Stalinesque imperatives of political correctness. Compare Garber's intelligent discussion of the problem of gender in Macbeth with Stephen Orgel's "introduction" in The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, in which he reductively reads the play as a "misogynist fantasy." The only reason I docked the book one star is that, based on the chapters I've read so far, she doesn't really make a major original contribution to Shakespeare studies (in contrast to, for example, Greenblatt's recent bio of Shakespeare, Will in the World) so much as synthesize what we already know. All in all, a very valuable reference book that I will be consulting regularly in my college teaching. Highly recommended for high school teachers, English majors (undergraduate and graduate), and all fans of Shakespeare.

My husband and I are lawyers who have recently returned to reading Shakesepare, decades after college. We wanted literary criticism that was qualitative superior to the plot summary readers guide--criticism that would help us explore the imagery, themes and metaphors of the plays. Marjorie Garber is the answer to our prayers. We recommend to readers returning to Shakespeare that they purchase a paperback edition of each play with good notes to help with line specific language issues--the Arden series is the best-and then supplement/enrich the experience with Garbers insights. It is a pleasure for us to carefully read each play and then see what treasures she has mined based on her own reading and that of prior critics. We considerably prefer Garber to Bloom as a single compendium. Garber packs an enormous amount of insight into a single 30 page chapter. Shakespeare is surely worth the detail she provides. I would also suggest that you purchase the Ambrose DVD set of tapes of the great BBC plays--after you have read the plays it is wonderful to watch Jacobi et al. The DVD format enables captions which is very helful to savoring every line.

This is a wonderful, rich, exploratory book that holds nothing back; a meditation about the Shakespeare canon that resonates in all planes at once. It is certain to be [...] by college teachers everywhere, and so it should be; together with Shapiro's 1599 as a biography and a solid encyclopaedia like the Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, this is one of the only supplementary volumes you'd ever want to shelf next to the Complete Works. This is the kind of full-service critical homage and investigation Shakespeare has been waiting for all these years. I hope he and Marjorie Garber meet in Heaven, and that someone leaks the resulting sonnets.

This is a monster of a book packed full of insight into the plays of William Shakespeare. Another reviewer has criticized the way Professor Gerber tackles each play, but I think she pitches her analyses pretty spot on. As she describes a play she will stop and detour into some aspect of the cultural mores of the England of Shakespeare's day and come back. I find ( as a layman ) that is exactly what I wanted. I wasn't looking for Heavy Textual Criticism that might only be understandable to other Eng Lit Professors. This is an excellent book for the layman - if you are prepared to concentrate and forgive Professor Gerber when she does occasionally throw in a semantics term that you have never heard of - USUALLY she explains them. But not always.

As a fan of Shakespeare (both on the stage/screen and written page), I have added to my appreciation by reading various works about this playwright. First there was Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, which was a well-written commentary on the historical contexts of the plays. Then, there was Harold Bloom's Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human, a scholarly work offset by a tone of high-toned intellectual snobbery and condescension. Now, there is Shakespeare After All, a work that fits between these two in quality.

In Shakespeare After All, Marjorie Garber's 900+ page tome on the Bard's plays, we are given an opportunity to learn more of what makes Shakespeare Shakespeare. As a long-time Harvard and Yale lecturer on Shakespeare, Garber certainly has the credentials and experience to back up her extensive essays on the plays. If there is a problem with the book, it is only that she is perhaps too familiar with the plays and is unable to be truly critical of them.

The book begins with a lengthy introduction which serves as a biography of Shakespeare and provides a bit of historical context for his body of work. Then we get a chapter on each of thirty-eight plays, including The Two Noble Kinsmen, which is not always included in Shakespeare collections. The plays are presented in rough chronological order and focus only secondarily on plot, with a greater emphasis on character and the use of language.

Garber is a good writer, and each chapter is insightful. As this is written more as a collection of essays, there is not always perfect continuity between chapters and there is more than a little redundancy (which I suppose does make this easier to read this work in portions or out of order). As stated before, however, the principal flaw in her writing is that she refuses to say anything really critical about any of the plays. In Garber's view, Shakespeare batted 1.000, all hits and no misses. Henry VIII seems to be just as worthy of merit as Othello or Hamlet. Furthermore, there are no mistakes; any apparent contradictions or omissions are cleverly intended, not just an error.

Certainly, Shakespeare is worth a lot of praise. When you consider what he did - writing over three dozen plays with an adeptness that is readily apparent - he is definitely deserving of the title "genius," but he wasn't perfect. It would be nice if Garber acknowledged this, but her strengths clearly outweigh her weaknesses, and if you are interested in learning more about Shakespeare's plays, this is a worthwhile way to get that education.

William Shakespeare's immortal words will live forever. In this excellent book of criticism Professor Garber of Harvard
examines each of the 38 plays from "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" through "The Two Noble Kinsman." Her work is detailed and insightful for anyone who seeks more knowledge and understanding of Shakepeare and his plays. As we explore Shakespeare we also learn more about what it is to be human being in the world!
Garber writes about each play as she analyzes the characters and their motivation; the history of the play's production and how the play is related to other plays and characters in the Shakespearean canon. Along the way we learn the derivation of words used by the bard; what was going on in England and the world at the time the play was written and such various topics as sumptuary laws (dealing with clothing); class structure and the growth of the English language.
Shakespeare's life is covered in an insightful introduction.
Marjorie Garber must be a brilliant person to listen to in the lecture hall! I wish these insighful looks at each play would be available in tape format! Her book is a classic which should be required reading for anyone teaching Shakespeare in high school, college and adult education classes.
I was fascinated by her depth of scholarship and ability to relate Shakespeare to our day. My highest appreciation to this wonderful book on our great treasure of poetry and the art of
drama William Shakespeare!

I have had this book for about a year, and I keep it right on my end table along with "The Complete Works of Shakespeare"- that's how often I refer to it. The book is simply phenomenal. The author, Marjorie Garber, provides intriguing analysis and insight into the Bard's works. For instance, she discusses how the play would have looked when presented to Elizabethan audiences, which we often forget about when reading the plays. As an example, I was disappointed in "Love's Labour Lost", the only play so far I have disliked. But the book pointed out that in this play Shakespeare used themes and jokes that an audience of the times would have understood and probably found hilarious.
The book starts with a wonderfully written bio of the Bard and then discusses each work in a separate chapter. This is no mere recap of the material here but an in-depth look at the work from psychological, historical, and literary angles. What I like about it is that it makes you think, and to appreciate Shakespeare's works more. For instance, a deeper meaning and themes can be found in all of the plays and poems- the interpretation of them is endless, and has provided me with endless fodder of analytical fun.
Highly recommended for the true lover of Shakespeare and of books that make you think.

I have recently purchased this book, based on positive reviews I've read here and in other places. After reading the introduction, I am even more certain that this is a book worth having. But, the Kindle edition of this book does not containt a table of contents, making it very difficult to find the specific chapter you want to read. I just finished reading Kind Lear, and I tried locating the chapter about the play using the search function. I received 57 pages of results, and it was a laborious task finding the one which brought me to the opening of the chapter about the play.

Garber's book is an excellent resource for anyone seeking an overall appreciation and understanding of the Shakespeare's plays. The chapters, one per play, are not laden with the usual scholarly apparatus and jargon, but are clearly written and offer intelligent interpretations and insights into the plays. The book's value lies in its usefulness for anyone interested in Shakespeare--the seasoned scholar or the newly interested reader. Recommended.

Marge Garber has thought long and hard about Shakespeare's work, but her book has a fatal flaw: it is too long, and (like Bloom's execrable, self-indulgent fantasy),it lacks linear drive and cogency. Each essay meanders through its play without a clear thesis or argument, skipping (often brilliantly) from topic to topic like a butterfly. Bloom begins his chapters with a hypothesis, then (self-admittedly) circles and circles it, finally announcing "see!I was right!" at the chapter's end - never haveing documented a fragment of evidence along the way; it's a con game. Garber's chapters are like a walk through a garden; the flowers are beautiful, but you never know where you're going, and it's easy to get lost in the maze.
Compare these works to Frye's On Shakespeare, or Mack's Everybody's Shakespeare, or Empson's Essays, and you can see what a good writer pack into a small space.