From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up-- A useful research tool that puts students in touch with a wide range of scholarship, allowing them to get their feet wet within a challenging, but manageable, format. This book should also be a handy study aid, providing quick access to the basics of the eight plays discussed. Critical essays share equal space with an overview of the play, an introduction of principle characters, plot synopsis, major topics, and character studies. Following the essays are an annotated bibliography and references to film and television productions. For those who have used other Gale literary criticism collections, the layout will be comfortably familiar. In fact, some of the material is distilled from their continuing multivolume Shakespearean Criticism . The editors' selections here concentrate on criticisms of this century and on the themes that might have the most appeal to students, such as "Disguise and Role-Playing," "Gender and Sex Roles," or "Supernatural Elements." The predictable textbooklike appearance with relentless columns of text is broken up only occasionally by small, low-intensity black-and-white photos of productions or old drawings. But the layout is generous, with good wide margins and eye-easy substantial typeface, and the binding permits full opening for ease at the copy machine. This book was made to be used. --Sally Margolis, Deerfield Public Library, IL
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
