For generations, students have been introduced to Shakespeare by being forced to spend a month copying down vocabulary words and diagraming iambic pentameter while listening to Hairy Nate, the mouth breather in the back row of their English class, read out loud from Julius Caesar at a rate of four words per minute. It’s no wonder that Shakespeare has a reputation for being boring! Well, the famous Smart Aleck Staff is ready to help all you back row hooligans go into class knowing more about Shakespeare than most of your teachers!
Whether you’re a Shakespeare newbie or a scholar who just enjoys cracking jokes about Harold Bloom, THE SMART ALECK’S GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE series is just as informative and hilarious as their acclaimed SMART ALECK’S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY (Random House 2009).
The Shakespeare 101 guide (included in the Hamlet guide) contains more than 20 illustrations and an ACTIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS, including chapters on….
… The important roles of sex, violence, and poop in Elizabethan life.
… Shakespeare’s mysterious “lost plays.”
… Shakespeare’s rowdy friends.
… The Elizabethan theatre scene
… What you need to know about the English language in Shakespeare’s era.
… Words you’re likely to run into in Shakespeare (“wherefore,” “anon,” “hie,” “fain,” “prithee,” “sluttery,” and others that are used differently now, when they’re used at all).
… Things modern scholars fight about (watch out for flying folding chairs!)
… Did Shakespeare really look like he always does in paintings?
… Tips on reading (and enjoying) the plays.
… How to spot the sex puns and fart jokes
… A few of our favorite monologues (mostly ones about corpses).
It’s everything you need to take over the class in one short (42,000 word) book - without resorting to showing drawings of Shakespeare wearing sunglasses or rewriting Hamlet to make it sound like the instructions to an NES skateboarding game from 1991!
Reading Shakespeare is hard. There's no point in lying and saying that it isn't, and rapping the sonnets won't really make it any easier. But Shakespeare never dreamed people would still be reading his stuff, and didn't care one bit about whether people in 400 years would understand his work. Learn the stuff he expected his audience to know, and understanding his work gets a LOT easier. We're the Smart Aleck Staff. We're here to help.
The HAMLET guide also has:
- The full play, with analysis of each scene
- Character Guide
- "What's Hamlet's Deal, Anyway?"
- Guide to film versions
- Our own picks for which Muppet should play which part.
- Several copies of a painting with Hamlet's butt on it.
- A "Hamlet Scorecard."
- "The Shakespeare Capers Vol. 3: A Quintessence of Dust" (a hard-boiled detective story starring "Duke" Stratford, private eye).
And more! Fully illustrated, with an active table of contents.
Praise for THE SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY:
"Speeding along on humor, Daily Show-style,…the irreverent, often laugh-out-loud approach should win over reluctant readers." - Publisher's Weekly
"In the style of acclaimed writers Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report), this witty, comedic and appealing volume is sure to appeal" - School Library Journal
"Wacky, irreverent….Mark Twain would have loved it" - Florida Times Union
