HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. 'The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven' Bassiano, a noble Venetian, hopes to woo the beautiful heiress Portia. However, he requires financial assistance from his friend Antonio. Antonio agrees, but he, in turn, must borrow from the Jewish moneylender Shylock. As recourse for past ills, Shylock stipulates that the forfeit on the loan must be a pound of Antonio's flesh. In the most renowned onstage law scene of all time, Portia proves herself one of Shakespeare's most cunning heroines, disguising herself as a lawyer and vanquishing Shylock's claims; meanwhile, Shylock triumphs on a humanitarian level with his plea for tolerance: 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' Viewed paradoxically as anti-Semitic, while at the same time powerfully liberal for its time, The Merchant of Venice is at its core a bittersweet drama, exploring the noble themes of prejudice, justice and honour.

This volume explores the relationship between the emphasis on performance in Elizabethan humanist education and the flourishing of literary brilliance around the turn of the sixteenth century. This study asks us what lessons we can learn today from Shakespeare's Latin grammar school. What were the cognitive benefits of an education so deeply rooted in what Demosthenes and Quintilian called "actio"-acting? Because of the vast difference between educational practice then and now, we have not often followed one essential thread: the focus on performance. This study examines the connections relevant to the education offered in schools today. This book will be of great interest to teachers, scholars, and administrators in performing arts and education.

Love and marriage are the concerns of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Lucentio's marriage to Bianca is prompted by his idealized love of an apparently ideal woman. Petruchio's wooing of Katherine, however, is free of idealism. Petruchio takes money from Bianca's suitors to woo her, since Katherine must marry before her sister by her father's decree; he also arranges the dowry with her father. Petruchio is then ready to marry Katherine, even against her will. Katherine, the shrew of the play's title, certainly acts much changed. But have she and Petruchio learned to love each other? Or is the marriage based on terror and deception? The authoritative edition of The Taming of the Shrew from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An up-to-date annotated guide to further reading Essay by Karen Newman The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.' One of Shakespeare's most witty and enjoyable comedies, Much Ado About Nothing is a play that explores courtship, romance and marriage through a number of relationships. Most famously, that of the irrepressible Beatrice and Benedick as they trade their wits against one another, criticising the notion of marriage, yet slowly falling in love with one another as they do so.

WARWICK. I wonder how the King escap'd our hands. YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the north, He slily stole away and left his men; Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland, Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat, Cheer'd up the drooping army, and himself, Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast, Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in, Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.

The authoritative edition of The Comedy of Errors from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers. Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors is the slapstick farce of his youth. In it, the lost twin sons of the old merchant Egeon--both named Antipholus--find themselves in Ephesus, without either one even knowing of the other's existence. Meanwhile, Egeon has arrived in search of the son he thinks is still alive--and has been sentenced to death for the "crime" of being from Syracuse. To add to the confusion, the two Antipholuses have twin servants, both named Dromio. As the four men unwittingly encounter each other, the play is crammed with wildly escalating misunderstandings before the truth emerges and Egeon is pardoned. Shakespeare bases his story on Plautus's Menaechmi, a play about identical twins who accidentally meet after a lifetime apart. He borrows from another Plautus play by having Adriana, the wife of one Antipholus, entertain the other. The spirited Adriana often gives speeches evoking strong emotions--as do other characters at times. Even here, Shakespeare suggests complexities beyond the farce. This edition includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Arthur F. Kinney The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.

SUFFOLK. As by your high imperial Majesty I had in charge at my depart for France, As procurator to your Excellence, To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace; So, in the famous ancient city Tours, In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil, The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alencon, Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops, I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd; And humbly now upon my bended knee, In sight of England and her lordly peers, Deliver up my title in the Queen To your most gracious hands, that are the substance Of that great shadow I did represent: The happiest gift that ever marquis gave, The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.

No Hamlets is the first critical account of the role of Shakespeare in the intellectual tradition of the political right in Germany from the founding of the Empire in 1871 to the 'Bonn Republic' of the Cold War era. In this sustained study, Andreas Hoefele begins with Friedrich Nietzsche and follows the rightist engagement with Shakespeare to the poet Stefan George and his circle, including Ernst Kantorowicz, and the literary efforts of the young Joseph Goebbels during the Weimar Republic, continuing with the Shakespeare debate in the Third Reich and its aftermath in the controversy over 'inner emigration' and concluding with Carl Schmitt's Shakespeare writings of the 1950s. Central to this enquiry is the identification of Germany and, more specifically, German intellectuals with Hamlet. The special relationship of Germany with Shakespeare found highly personal and at the same time highIy political expression in this recurring identification, and in its denial. But Hamlet is not the only Shakespearean character with strong appeal: Carl Schmitt's largely still unpublished diaries of the 1920s reveal an obsessive engagement with Othello which has never before been examined. Interest in German philosophy and political thought has increased in recent Shakespeare studies. No Hamlets brings historical depth to this international discussion. Illuminating the constellations that shaped and were shaped by specific appropriations of Shakespeare, Hoefele shows how individual engagements with Shakespeare and a whole strand of Shakespeare reception were embedded in German history from the 1870s to the 1950s and eventually 1989, the year of German reunification.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Canadians have enjoyed a long history of encounters with Shakespeare, from the visual arts to creative new adaptations, from traditional and nontraditional interpretations to distinguished critical scholarship. We have in over two centuries remade Shakespeare in ways that are distinctly Canadian. The Oxford Shakespeare Made in Canada series offers a unique vantage on these histories of production and encounter with attention to accessibility and presentation. These editions explore how a given country can inform the interpretation and pedagogy associated with individual plays. Canadians, or more properly British North Americans from both Upper and Lower Canada, have been interacting with Shakespeare since no less than the 1760s in a tradition that is at once rich and robust, indigenous and international. The Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare project at the University of Guelph has created a multimedia database of hundreds of adaptations, developed from Guelph's world-class theatre archives and a host of independent sources that reflect on a long tradition - from pre-Confederation times and heading vibrantly into the future - of playing Shakespeare in Canada.These are the first editions of the plays of William Shakespeare to place key insights from the world's best scholarship alongside the specific contexts associated with a dynamic Canadian tradition of productions and adaptations. Specially research images, never printed before, from a range of Canadian productions of Shakespeare will be featured in every play In additional to a scholarly edition of the playtext complete with original new annotation, these books will include both short introductions by noted scholars and prefaces by well-known Canadians who have experience with Shakespeare. In addition, each play will include act and scene summaries, dramatis personal, and recommended reading/resources.

BEDFORD. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky And with them scourge the bad revolting stars That have consented unto Henry's death! King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long! England ne'er lost a king of so much worth. GLOUCESTER. England ne'er had a king until his time. Virtue he had, deserving to command; His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams; His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings; His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire, More dazzled and drove back his enemies Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces. What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech: He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.

The authoritative edition of Antony and Cleopatra from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers. Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a major event in world history: the founding of the Roman Empire. The future first emperor, Octavius Caesar (later called Augustus Caesar), cold-bloodedly manipulates other characters and exercises iron control over himself. At first, he shares power with Mark Antony, Rome's preeminent military leader, and the weaker Lepidus. Caesar needs Antony to fend off other Roman strongmen like Pompey; he even offers his sister Octavia to him as a bride, despite Antony's reputation as a libertine and his past rivalry with Caesar. Once Caesar defeats Pompey, however, he needs no allies. He brings charges against Lepidus, denies Antony his spoils from Pompey's defeat, and seizes cities in the eastern Roman colonies that Antony rules. The play's emphasis, however, is on those whom Caesar defeats: Antony and his wealthy Egyptian ally, Queen Cleopatra. The play does not sugarcoat Antony and Cleopatra's famous love affair, including her calculated attempts to seduce Antony from his duties and his rage when he thinks she has betrayed him to Caesar. Nonetheless, the lovers find such sensual and emotional satisfaction that Caesar's world conquest seems smaller than what they find in each other. This edition includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Cynthia Marshall The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

The authoritative edition of Coriolanus from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers. Set in the earliest days of the Roman Republic, Coriolanus begins with the common people, or plebeians, in armed revolt against the patricians. The people win the right to be represented by tribunes. Meanwhile, there are foreign enemies near the gates of Rome. The play explores one reason that Rome prevailed over such vulnerabilities: its reverence for family bonds. Coriolanus so esteems his mother, Volumnia, that he risks his life to win her approval. Even the value of family, however, is subordinate to loyalty to the Roman state. When the two obligations align, the combination is irresistible. Coriolanus is so devoted to his family and to Rome that he finds the decision to grant the plebians representation intolerable. To him, it elevates plebeians to a status equal with his family and class, to Rome's great disadvantage. He risks his political career to have the tribunate abolished--and is banished from Rome. Coriolanus then displays an apparently insatiable vengefulness against the state he idolized, opening a tragic divide within himself, pitting him against his mother and family, and threatening Rome's very existence. This edition includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Heather James The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

The authoritative edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.Shakespeare's "merry wives" are Mistress Ford and Mistress Page of the town of Windsor. The two play practical jokes on Mistress Ford's jealous husband and a visiting knight, Sir John Falstaff. Merry wives, jealous husbands, and predatory knights were common in a kind of play called "citizen comedy" or "city comedy." In such plays, courtiers, gentlemen, or knights use social superiority to seduce citizens' wives. The Windsor wives, though, do not follow that pattern. Instead, Falstaff's offer of himself as lover inspires their torment of him. Falstaff responds with the same linguistic facility that Shakespeare gives him in the history plays in which he appears, making him the "hero" of the play for many audiences. This edition includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Natasha Korda The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

The authoritative edition of Titus Andronicus from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.Titus Andronicus is the earliest tragedy and the earliest Roman play attributed to Shakespeare. Titus, a model Roman, has led twenty-one of his twenty-five sons to death in Rome's wars; he stabs another son to death for what he views as disloyalty to Rome. Yet Rome has become "a wilderness of tigers." After a death sentence is imposed on two of his three remaining sons, and his daughter is raped and mutilated, Titus turns his loyalty toward his family. Aaron the Moor, a magnificent villain and the empress's secret lover, makes a similar transition. After the empress bears him a child, Aaron devotes himself to preserving the baby. Retaining his thirst for evil, he shows great tenderness to his little family--a tenderness that also characterizes Titus before the terrifying conclusion. This edition includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Alexander Leggatt The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal. King Lear has been widely acclaimed as Shakespeare's most powerful tragedy. Elemental and passionate, it encompasses the horrific and the heart-rending. Love and hate, loyalty and treachery, cruelty and self-sacrifice: all these contend in a tempestuous drama which has become an enduring classic of the world's literature. In the theatre and on screen King Lear continues to challenge and enthral. This Wordsworth edition of King Lear provides a comprehensive, integrated text of the play.

The authoritative edition of Henry IV, Part 1 from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers. Family relationships are at the center of Henry IV, Part 1. King Henry IV and Prince Hal form one major father-son pair, with Henry in despair because Hal lives a dissolute life. The father-son pair of Hotspur (Lord Henry Percy) and his father, the Earl of Northumberland, is in seeming contrast; the king envies Northumberland "his Harry," wishing he could claim the gallant Hotspur as his own. Meanwhile, Hal has entered into a quasi-father-son relationship with a disreputable but amusing knight, Sir John Falstaff. Another strand of action centers on still more family relationships. Hotspur's stand against Henry focuses on Hotspur's brother-in-law, Mortimer. Mortimer, who fought against the Welsh magician Owen Glendower, was defeated and captured and has married Glendower's daughter. King Henry pronounces Mortimer a traitor whom he will not ransom. Hotspur, in declaring war on Henry, sees himself as fighting for Mortimer, his wife's brother. This edition includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Alexander Leggatt The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

Ties in with #metoo movement so has very broad potential appeal Blends contemporary examples with Shakespearean texts so will appeal to students Written in a very accessible style so appropriate for courses Focuses on three of Shakespeare's most commonly studied texts so will slot easily into courses