Shakespeare: A Complete Introduction

Shakespeare: A Complete Introduction is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key themes and critical concepts that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the ideas in clear jargon-free English, and then providing added-value features like key quotes, chapter recap sections, and even lists of questions you might be asked in your seminar or exam.

The book organizes Shakespeare’s work by genre and theme, in order to look closely at the individual plays. It opens with contextualizing information about the original texts, language usage, and how the plays were performed. The book is then grouped into the genres of early and romantic Comedies, Tragedies, Problem Plays, and the Histories. Each chapter will focus on one or two key plays, and foreground the themes and preoccupations that surround critical work on those plays. Throughout the book there will be an emphasis on the historical vs the contemporary approach, and the distinctions between literary and theatrical competencies.