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Brush Up Your Shakespeare!: An Infectious Tour Through the Most Famous and Quotable Words and Phrases from the Bard (Paperback)

~ Michael Macrone (Author), Tom Lulevitch (Author)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is the perfect way to sound great at academic cocktail parties....A painless and fun way to broaden your knowledge." -- -- Dallas Morning News

Product Description

A Lively Compendium of Shakespeare's Wisest and Wittiest Words

From the doomed Othello, who first assumed a "foregone conclusion," to the impetuous Mercutio, who went off on the first "wild-goose chase," here are several hundred of the most famous lines and newly minted words from Shakespeare's canon. Each phrase is presented with background notes, explanations, and literary anecdotes that set it in its original context. With a new filmography of the finest Shakespeare movies, Brush Up Your Shakeapeare! is an accessible and entertaining guide for Bard aficionados and amateurs alike.

Did You Know?

The gargantuan Sir Falstaff was the first unwelcome guest to eat his hostess "out of house and home"

Juliet thought that parting from her Young Romeo was "such sweet sorrow"

Macbeth believed himself to be "a sorry sight"

It was Rosalind who desired "too much of a good thing"

Lady Macbeth realized that "what's done is done"

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Product Details

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; 1 Sub edition (January 5, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0062737325
ISBN-13: 978-0062737328
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #302,019 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover

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	81% buy the item featured on this page: Brush Up Your Shakespeare!: An Infectious Tour Through the Most Famous and Quotable Words and Phrases from the Bard 4.2 out of 5 stars (8)
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Customer Reviews

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4.2 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He hath been at a great feast of language...., June 7, 2001

By	tepi "tepi" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE. By Michael Macrone. With Illustrations by Tom Lulevitch. 235 pp. New York : Harper Perennial, 1990 and Reprinted.

There are many possible approaches to Shakespeare, and in the present book Macrone has hit on the new and interesting idea of giving us, not yet another standard anthology or ponderous critical study, but a lighthearted "tour through the most famous and quotable words and phrases from the bard."

Macrone writes : "We're here to give you a handle on the famous lines you already know are Shakespeare's, and to alert you to our quieter, less conspicuous borrowings. . . . In the meantime, you'll be offered an incidental introduction (or reintroduction) to famous passages, concisely explained. . . ." (page xii).

In other words, to paraphrase Moth in 'Love's Labor's Lost' - 'He hath been at a great feast of language, and stol'n the scraps.' The main body of the book - 'THE QUOTABLE AND THE NOTABLE : Famous Phrases from Shakespeare' - gives us well over one hundred of these glorious 'scraps,' scraps such as Othello's :

"My story being done, / She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; / She swore, in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; / 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful. / She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished / That heaven had made her such a man" (page 108). Each of the passages, which have been kept "as short as possible ... while still providing enough of the context to make the key phrase intelligible" (page xiii), has been chosen to highlight an original usage of Shakespeare - in this case "passing strange" - usages which seem to have set the course of the English language. They are accompanied, on average, by about two thirds of a page or so of Macrone's interesting comments, some of which may hold surprises even for the seasoned Shakespearean.

Despite his light touch, the book is a work of careful scholarship, and is rounded out with several interesting extras : a 10-page list of 'Common and Uncommon Words Coined by Shakespeare;' a list of 'Phrases Often Misattributed to Shakespeare;' and a list of famous 'Titles Borrowed from Shakespeare.' We have also been given two useful indexes : an 'Index of Words and Phrases,' and an 'Index of Characters by Play.'

Truly surprising is the first list. Who would have thought that we owe to Shakespeare such common words, for example, as - admirable, amazement, bloodstained, coldhearted, dewdrop, employment, eventful, hostile, laughable - and a whole host of others?

Finally, to further enrich what is already a rich mix, interspersed throughout are thirty-nine clever and amusing drawings by Tom Lulevitch, drawings which remind me a bit of Tenniel's illustrations to the Alice books, and which add to the cheerful atmosphere of the book.

Macrone seems to have spared no pains in making BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE as pleasing, useful, and interesting as he could. It would make a wonderful gift, not only for those who already like Shakespeare, but also for those who, probably as the result of an unpleasant earlier experience, think that they don't. Macrone's joy in Shakespeare is infectious. His touch is light, and he has the art of teaching without seeming to teach. His book is hugely entertaining, and can be read straight through or simply browsed in an idle moment.

It would, among other things, make a great book for the bathroom, and it might just lead at least a few anti-Shakespearians to rethink their position, and maybe even go on to savor the full feast by reading a play or two. In fact, I suspect that this was probably Macrone's secret aim. He wants others to fall in love with Shakespeare too. Let's hope his Love's Labor's weren't Lost!

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful addition to Shakespeare literature, August 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Brush Up Your Shakespeare! (Hardcover)

This short little tome is a wonderful and welcome addition to the body of literature that reviews and analyzes the Bard's work. It is not a deep analysis, by any means. But it makes a nice read in the sub-catagory of Shakespearean trivia. The book lists dozens of phrases common to our language, and gives a quick review of the quip's context in the play, followed by a critique of the modern usage of the same. A fun tribute to the continuing legacy of Bard's body of work.

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Will, September 29, 2000

By	Lisa Gansky "Book Lover" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Brush Up Your Shakespeare! (Hardcover)

This book proves it: William Shakespeare was a brilliant man. I'm a huge Shakespeare fan and I'd love to get the chance to meet Macrone. Brush Up Your Shakespeare is intelligently divided into sub sections including Famous Quotes, Words Coined by the Bard, Words often misattributed to Shakespeare, and Titles Borrowed From Shakespeare. Not only is this book easy to read, it also is concise. It's great for a student who's just curious to learn a little more about Will, who doesn't have the time to pore over hundreds of research papers on him. It was also extremely interesting to me (a Linguistics minor) because of all the lexicography. A great book to own--at a reasonable price!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hit, a Very Palpable Hit
This book is a great introduction to various plays of Shakespeare. Each couple of pages consists, first of a few lines of a play or sonnet, and then a few paragraphs describing... Read more

Published on May 23, 2005 by R. Schwartz

5.0 out of 5 stars Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be...
Buy and Keep this book only for thee!

The perfect size book to keep with you to brush up on your Shakespeare. Read more

Published on September 5, 2001 by Rebecca Johnson

4.0 out of 5 stars Whod thought we use so many phrases written by Shakespeare?
I wasn't all that sure until I read "Brush Up On Your Shakespeare" by Michael Macrone. Did you know that "Such stuff as dreams are made on" is from The Tempest, spoken... Read more

Published on July 3, 2000 by Julianne

3.0 out of 5 stars Ilustrative
I enjoyed reading this book, very short, took less than an hour to read it, the author introduce the phrase in the context of the play including the passage where it's mentioned,... Read more

Published on June 20, 1999

3.0 out of 5 stars For English junkies only
This book's main point is that a surprisingly large number of common expressions can be traced back to the quill of the Bard of Avon. Read more

Published on April 27, 1999

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