Shakespeare: His Work and His World [Hardcover]

Michael Rosen (Author), Robert Ingpen (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2001

The Bard’s enduring genius is both explained and explored for young readers—a perfect companion for both students and teachers of Shakespeare.

Tongue-tied. Dull as dishwater. Without rhyme or reason. Leapfrog. Excellent. Gloomy. These words and phrases, so much a part of our daily language, were coined by William Shakespeare more than four hundred years ago. In what other ways has Shakespeare shaped and influenced our words and culture? Find out with Michael Rosen’s fascinating exploration of the enduring genius of the greatest playwright in the English language, SHAKESPEARE: HIS WORK AND HIS WORLD. Learn what theatre was like when Shakespeare created and acted in his plays. With dramatic illustrations by Robert Ingpen, the fluid text is sprinkled with Shakespearean quotations to re-create the Bard’s world of kings and queens, fairies and potions, and bloody beheadings. This sweeping account is a biography, a history, and a retelling of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays—all in one approachable volume.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rosen's (Classic Poetry) compelling text and Ingpen's (Who Is the World For?) dramatic paintings invite readers into the "extraordinary and dangerous times" in which the Bard wrote his famous plays. The narrative and design divide into distinct sections ideal for browsing. To set the stage, Rosen introduces "A Plot!" and details how, in 1598, to avoid paying their landlord, actors covertly pulled down the timber from the Curtain theater to reconstruct the Globe (a portion of which Shakespeare owned) on the opposite side of the Thames. Most chapters begin with engaging, chatty rhetorical questions (relayed, however, in a sometimes distracting typeface) such as "What's So Special About Shakespeare?" and "So How Does Someone Stay That Famous?" Some metaphors, such as comparing Shakespeare's plays to a "house full of many amazing rooms," become a bit strained, but the narrative benefits from liberal quotation of Shakespeare's plays. Rosen effectively sets the historical context and reconstructs and imagines the events and circumstances of Shakespeare's life, while also demonstrating the surprising and pervasive extent of his linguistic legacy. Ingpen's atmospheric paintings evoke the romance of the era and capture the pageantry of the plays. A strong and worthy companion for readers exploring Shakespeare. Ages 12-15.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 6 Up-With the exclamation point in the first chapter title and the contraction and present tense in the opening sentence, Rosen's text announces its lively and compelling colloquial style. In exceptionally fresh and vivid terms, the author plies readers with abundant, accurate information on the playwright, his theater, and the plays, looking closely at A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest. He presupposes some acquaintance with the best-known works (especially Macbeth), but the chief virtue of the text is the excitement that comes through the lucid descriptions-or evocations-of the plays, the poetry, and the period. He writes, too, about those parts of the bard's life that rouse curiosity: his schooling, marriage, will. The detailed time line is especially useful. The copious and engaging pencil-and-watercolor illustrations have the burnished look of old pictures and are as glorious as the text. They will lure many young people to read (and to brave the absence of paragraph indentation), as will the book's large, open typeface and attractive design. Better even than John Russell Brown's Shakespeare and His Theatre (Lothrop, 1982; o.p.), this volume justly serves its spectacular subject.

Patricia Lothrop-Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 104 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick (October 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763615684
• ISBN-13: 978-0763615680
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 9.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,358,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)