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The Essential Shakespeare Handbook
By Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding
480 pages
Published by Dorling Kindersley at £16.99
Dateline: 8th August, 2004
The difference between this incredibly heavy almost hardback and A
Pocket Guide to Shakespeare's Plays (reviewed last
week) is like that between "The Shakespeare Experience"
and "The Shakespeare Museum".
The writing style is reminiscent of magazine journalism, with two-columned
pages packed with pictures adding to the impression. The whole is largely
formed from a collation of hundreds of very well researched, articles
on different aspects of the plays and poems.
No section is terribly long and there are many mini-articles in coloured
box-outs to lighten the academic load. There are two pages of explanation
of how to use The Essential Shakespeare Handbook. These assist
with layout, colour coding, symbols used to delineate the roles of dramatis
personae (for example villain, comic role and - most commonly - dies)
and plot development.
The book starts with background on the man, his writing and his times.
From there, it is straight into the plays, which are divided by genre
and then chronology so that Henry VI Part 1 is the starting point
on a journey that ends the 39 plays (including Edward III, which
like much of Pericles may well be misplaced in this book) with
The Two Noble Kinsmen. Finally we move on to the poetry and a
final chapter entitled Global Shakespeare.
Each theatrical genre receives a short introduction, once again in
200-300 word sections. These are often most informative, for example,
Origins of the Comedy or Death and the Theatre.
The analysis of individual plays generally uses simple language and
follows a regimented format giving background (Behind the Play);
a handful of lines - if that - on each of the dramatis personae; an
act by act plot summary containing many quotes; advice on reading the
play and on seeing the play; and lastly, in some cases, Beyond the
Play, which provides some comments on productions, especially the
more outlandish such as operas and musicals.
Then the fun starts with all kinds of weird and wonderful devices such
as timelines and graphs showing the proportion of verse in a play and
its length, both when compared with the others and act by act.
A strength is the always sumptuous and generally appropriate images.
These might be old paintings (Millais' Ophelia for Hamlet), pictures
of, say, roses (for the Wars) o, most commonly, production photos, ancient
and modern.
For real anoraks, the book even gives the number of lines for each
character. The star, Hamlet at 1,495 has over ten times as many as,
say Julius Caesar. The only man that can beat him is Falstaff (but it
takes him four plays to do so).
You
can buy The
Essential Shakespeare Handbook from our Bookshop for £11.89
Articles Indices:
Articles from 2004
Articles from 2003
Articles from 2002
Articles from 2001
Articles from 2000
Articles from 1999
Articles from 1998
Articles from 1997
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