Shakespeare Alive! [Mass Market Paperback]

Joseph Papp (Editor), Elizabeth Kirkland (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1988

From Joseph Papp, American's foremost theater  producer, and writer Elizabeth Kirkland: a  captivating tour through the world of William Shakespeare.  Discover the London of Shakespeare's time, a  fascinating place to be--full of mayhem and magic,  exploration and exploitation, courtiers and  foreigners. Stroll through narrow, winding streets crowded  with merchants and minstrels, hoist a pint in a  rowdy alehouse, and hurry across the river to the  open-air Globe Theater to see that latest play  written by a young man named Will Shakespeare.  Shakespeare Alive! spirits you back  to the very years of that London--as everyday  people might have experienced it. Find out how young  people fell in love, how workers and artists made  ends meet, what people found funny and what they  feared most. Go on location with an Elizabethan  theater company to learn how plays were produced,  where Shakespeare's plots came from and how he  transformed them. Hear the music of Shakespeare's  language and words we still use today that were first  spoken in his time. Open the book and elbow your  way into the Globe with the groundlings. You'll  be joining one of the most democratic audiences the  theater has ever known--alewives, apprentices,  shoemakers and nobles--in applauding the dazzling  wordplay and swordplay brought to you by William  Shakespeare.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

From Joseph Papp, American's foremost theater producer, and writer Elizabeth Kirkland: a captivating tour through the world of William Shakespeare. Discover the London of Shakespeare's time, a fascinating place to be--full of mayhem and magic, exploration and exploitation, courtiers and foreigners. Stroll through narrow, winding streets crowded with merchants and minstrels, hoist a pint in a rowdy alehouse, and hurry across the river to the open-air Globe Theater to see that latest play written by a young man named Will Shakespeare. Shakespeare Alive! spirits you back to the very years of that London--as everyday people might have experienced it. Find out how young people fell in love, how workers and artists made ends meet, what people found funny and what they feared most. Go on location with an Elizabethan theater company to learn how plays were produced, where Shakespeare's plots came from and how he transformed them. Hear the music of Shakespeare's language and words we still use today that were first spoken in his time. Open the book and elbow your way into the Globe with the groundlings. You'll be joining one of the most democratic audiences the theater has ever known--alewives, apprentices, shoemakers and nobles--in applauding the dazzling wordplay and swordplay brought to you by William Shakespeare.

From the Inside Flap

From Joseph Papp, American's foremost theater  producer, and writer Elizabeth Kirkland: a  captivating tour through the world of William Shakespeare.  Discover the London of Shakespeare's time, a  fascinating place to be--full of mayhem and magic,  exploration and exploitation, courtiers and  foreigners. Stroll through narrow, winding streets crowded  with merchants and minstrels, hoist a pint in a  rowdy alehouse, and hurry across the river to the  open-air Globe Theater to see that latest play  written by a young man named Will Shakespeare.  Shakespeare Alive! spirits you back  to the very years of that London--as everyday  people might have experienced it. Find out how young  people fell in love, how workers and artists made  ends meet, what people found funny and what they  feared most. Go on location with an Elizabethan  theater company to learn how plays were produced,  where Shakespeare's plots came from and how he  transformed them. Hear the music of Shakespeare's  language and words we still use today that were first  spoken in his time. Open the book and elbow your  way into the Globe with the groundlings. You'll  be joining one of the most democratic audiences the  theater has ever known--alewives, apprentices,  shoemakers and nobles--in applauding the dazzling  wordplay and swordplay brought to you by William  Shakespeare.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (January 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553270818
• ISBN-13: 978-0553270815
• Product Dimensions: 4 x 0.5 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #331,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Elizabethan times come alive for high school students., December 28, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Seoul, South Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shakespeare Alive! (Mass Market Paperback)

I teach a Shakespeare class to 11th and 12th grade high school students. The class is an elective, no one is required to take it, but it is consistently maxed out (I have 34 students next semester). One of the reasons for this is the format of the class which always begins with readings from "Shakespeare Alive!". The kids enjoy this book because it speaks directly to them as teenagers. The students have a sense of transporting themselves back in time. I highly recommend this book as a classroom set for teachers who teach Shakespeare classes or even a unit on Shakespeare; it really does bring Shakespeare Alive!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction to Shakespeare, April 24, 2001

By 

WifeofBath3 (Hattiesburg, Mississippi United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shakespeare Alive! (Mass Market Paperback)

Shakespeare Alive makes a good introduction to Shakespeare not just for high schoolers, but for anyone who's new to Shakespeare. The book is well-written, being both informative and a pleasure to read. Its relatively light tone is not intimidating to the novice, and the authors don't assume knowledge that a newcomer might not have.

The book is conveniently divided into sections. After a prologue which does a good job of getting the reader to imagine Elizabethan England, we have a section on Elizabethan English life and then a section on Shakespearean theater. The Elizabethan history section provides a lot of general information spiced with intriguing details on everything from how children greeted their parents to the standards of beauty and the status of foreigners. The theater section starts in pre-Shakespeare English theater and ends in today's theater. In between is covered everything from who was in Shakespeare's audience (nearly everybody) and why (for one thing, it was the second cheapest form of entertainment available) to that student bugaboo, Shakespearean language. This section of the book no doubt benefits greatly from having its authors be connected with the theater.

A few people might object to the authors' use of imagination (for example, in showing how Shakespeare used and changed his sources, the authors invite us to imagine a Shakespeare who is leafing through a book for inspiration and dismayed by some of what he finds), but I can recall no instance of such imaginings not being clearly marked as such. Besides which, it would take a real stick-in-the-mud or a fiery anti-fantasist to be offended by the invitation to imagine Shakespeare joyfully tossing his quill in the air. Another possible objection, that it is not thorough enough, is silly, as the book is not intended to be exhaustive.

Shakespeare Alive is a worthwhile book, either for someone who wants a starting point for further study of Elizabethan life and literature or for one who just wants a taste of the background to Shakespeare's plays. As an introduction, I would recommend it even above Norrie Epstein's The Friendly Shakespeare. Shakespeare Alive has more information about the time period than The Friendly Shakespeare does (while the works can be enjoyed without historical knowledge, they'll be appreciated more with than without). Also, Shakespeare Alive has a more coherent whole than The Friendly Shakespeare, which is designed for dipping into rather than reading straight through. I believe the smoother reading and the difference in focus make Shakespeare Alive the better introduction for most people. Buy this book for yourself or for the student in the family.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Companion to Shakespeare - Engaging Style, November 5, 2000

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shakespeare Alive! (Mass Market Paperback)

"Shakespeare Alive!" is an intriguing and enjoyable visit to Shakespeare's London. Joseph Papp, founder and producer of the prestigious New York Shakespeare Festival, and Elizabeth Kirkland, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, created not a scholarly tome, but a delightful and often humorous examination of Elizabethan culture and its impact on Shakespeare.

Other reviewers exclaim how their high school students related to "Shakespeare Alive!'. I only wish I had encountered this little book during my school years. Hat's off to Papp and Kirkland for an excellent introduction to Shakespeare's England.

A prologue casts the reader into 16th century England as a young lad wrestling with a decision to leave his familiar rural setting in search of better opportunities. Daily rural life is a struggle, food is scare, a recession makes things worse, and you have little hope. London is far away and frightening, but you have no other choice. You begin your long trek on foot.

It is an uncertain world. England is in change, emerging from an inward looking isolation, to one in which the world's boundaries seem to expand with the return of each ship from the New World. The Renaissance moved from Italy to England at an almost imperceptible pace, but it did arrive, and nothing remains the same.

"Shakespeare Alive!" explores how the English theater emerged within this cauldron of change. In 1576 James Burbage builds the first structure dedicated to housing plays and calls it the "Theater", the first time this word was used to denote a building. Within just a few years Burbage has competition - the Curtain, the Swan, the Rose, the Fortune, and Shakespeare's Globe - and all were presenting daily comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances.

In an engaging, amusing style Papp and Kirkland provide a broad understanding of Shakespeare's world, his language, his sources, his creativity. I thoroughly enjoyed (and found most useful) their sections on Shakespeare's vocabulary, his creative use of rhetoric, and his near obsession with puns. "Shakespeare Alive!" is a uniquely fascinating book.