Customer Reviews

The Taming of the Shrew (No Fear Shakespeare)

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I would highly recommend any of the books from the "No Fear Shakespeare" series. As someone who has never quite understood what Shakespeare was trying to say, having both his version and a "normal speak" version of the play side by side was very beneficial. Great for any student! A word of advice though - don't let your teacher know you have them. Any instructor teaching Shakepeare will likely frown upon them, though in my experience my peers rushed to buy them as well. What's the point of reading Shakespeare if you can't understand him?

I teach Shakespeare classes to middle- and high-school aged students and have come to rely on the great series of No Fear Shakespeare texts. They truly do take away the "fear" that keeps people of all ages from enjoying Shakespeare's plays.

So many people, when they hear the very word "Shakespeare" immediately think, "Oh, that's not for me. There's no way I can understand what those characters are talking about."

With No Fear Shakespeare, they can. The plays are presented in their original Elizabethan English on the left hand page with the modern English version on the facing page. Incidentally, I also use The Taming of the Shrew (Cliffs Notes) with my students, teaching them to read the summary of each act before reading in their texts. The final step is watching the play on DVD -- there's lots of good Shakespeare on DVD at Amazon.com, both in the regular DVD store and in the Marketplace. Check out this great commedia dell'arte version by the American Conservatory Theater: The Taming of the Shrew (Broadway Theatre Archive)

As a professional educator, I really feel that a student can't go wrong with these handy books.

No Fear Shakespeare is absolutely the best series for teachers, directors and students of Shakespeare!

This book was a great entertainment, and the no fear side was very useful in translating the garbled Shakespeare Language.

I love Taming of the Shrew, don't get me wrong. However, I hated this modern English translation. Shakespeare is rich and full of innuendo, but this version takes it directly to the gutter. I had to return all nine copies that I bought for my high school English students, since the translation rendered it unreadable for teenagers. Amazon's return policy took away the sting of having to send everything back. The process was easy and I received my refund quickly.