William Shakespeare

This new edition focuses on the Sonnets as poetry - sometimes strikingly individual poems, but often subtly interlinked in thematic, imagistic and other groupings. Gwynne Evans and Anthony Hecht also address the many questions that cast a veil of mystery over the genesis of the Sonnets: to what extent are they autobiographical? What is the nature of the 'love', strongly expressed, between the 'poet', the 'youth' and the 'Dark Lady'? Can they, apart...

A pastoral comedy, William Shakespeare's "As You Like It," is the story of a Duke, who is unjustly deposed by his younger brother Frederick, and flees to the Forest of Arden. The Duke's daughter, Rosalind, remains behind at the court. When it is discovered that Orlando, the youngest son of the deceased Sir Rowland de Boys, has fallen in love with her, Orlando is forced to flee. Rosalind follows after him, with her cousin Celia, to the Forest of Arden...

First published in the "First Folio" in 1623 and likely written in the 1590s, "King John" is one of William Shakespeare's best historical plays. It centers on the events of King John's reign of England during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. King John, son of Henry I of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, inherits the throne after the death of his older brother, King Richard I. John's claim to the throne is challenged by the King of...

One of the last tragedies written by William Shakespeare, "Coriolanus" is the story of the legendary 5th century BC Roman general Caius Martius, later given the honorary name Coriolanus. Based largely on the biographical accounts of Plutarch and Livy, the play opens amongst riots over grain in which Coriolanus' contempt for the plebeians of Rome is exhibited. The general is drawn away from the riots to battle with the Volscian army. Following the...

You know that thing when you have an incestuous relationship with your daughter, but you don't want anyone to know about it, so you disguise the truth in a riddle and make her suitors guess its meaning? No? Well, that's what the king of Antioch is up to. Guess correctly and marry the princess, he says. Get it wrong and be killed. Today we might shake our heads and wonder why the King didn't just keep his mouth shut instead of broadcasting his dirty...

Hamlet is commonly, regarded as one of the greatest plays ever written. Drawing on Danish chronicles and the Elizabethan vogue for revenge tragedy, Shakespeare created a play that is at once a philosophic treatise, a family drama, and a supernatural thriller. In the wake of his father's death, Prince Hamlet finds that his Uncle Claudius has swiftly taken the throne and married his mother, Queen Gertrude. The ghost of the dead king then, appears and...

The second play in William Shakespeare's tetralogy of plays which also includes "Richard II", "Henry IV, Part 2", and "Henry V", "Henry IV, Part 1" is believed to have been written no later than 1597. A history play, the drama concerns the unquiet reign of Henry Bolingbroke. Following the usurpation of the throne, Henry IV is plagued with guilt over his role in the imprisonment and death of King Richard II. In order to resolve himself of this internal...

Villainy and Treachery-- Richard III tells of the story of how Richard steals the kingdom from his young nephew after the death of his brother Edward. There is much murder and treachery until Richmond leads a revolt against Richard. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

From off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale, My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale, Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain, Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

With the untimely death of England's great soldier-king, Henry V, the crown passes to his young and inexperienced son. While the nobles quarrel among themselves and compete for influence over the new monarch, the French seize the opportunity to reclaim their former territories from English possession. The success of the French armies rests upon an unlikely leader: the peasant girl Joan La Pucelle, known to history as Joan of Arc. The first of three...