book review of any book by william shakespeare

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Top 10 Shakespearean books

William Shakespeare’s influence on English literature is enormous, but from Dr Johnson to Germaine Greer, some outstanding works have explored his legacy and life story

T he world’s libraries contain thousands of books on England’s national poet, in every language under the sun. Writers such as Milton, Dryden, Pope, Dr Johnson, Keats, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Henry James and Virginia Woolf have all addressed the Shakespeare conundrum in one way or another. Additionally, since the millennium, there have been several new books devoted to Shakespeare’s life and work by scholars as diverse as Peter Conrad, Stephen Greenblatt, James Shapiro and Stanley Wells.

To write in this genre, I knew I would be putting myself at some risk. But I had a story to tell. In my mind, Shakespearean was inspired by watching a controversial Public Theatre production of Julius Caesar in June 2017 in New York which nightly staged the assassination of Donald Trump. From the moment the Roman dictator (in a Maga baseball cap) bounded on to the stage in Central Park wearing a white shirt and long red tie, I asked myself: how did a young man who grew up in rural Warwickshire, who did not go to university, and who died at the age of 52, far from court or cloister, become not merely “Shakespeare” but also the global icon for the quality we call “Shakespearean”? How, to put it another way, does he remain so effortlessly modern more than 400 years after his death?

By chance, the historical disruption that inspired this book only worsened from 2017 to 2020, culminating in the outbreak of the modern plague, coronavirus. Our times were turning out to be more Shakespearean than I had anticipated. There was also this literary dividend: Shakespeare left about 1m words of poetry and prose; he also bequeathed the legacy of his influence: novels, stories and essays inspired by his work. Here is my selection.

1. A Dictionary of the English Language by Dr Samuel Johnson If Shakespeare is famous for one thing, it’s his innovative brilliance with the English language, as many as 1,800 new words, including lacklustre , amazement , assassinate , hobnob and barefaced . These all appear in Johnson’s dictionary, which makes a point of using Shakespeare citations to establish English usage.

2. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville Melville did not just want to identify with Shakespeare – he wanted to compete with him, as an American. “If Shakespeare has not [yet] been equalled,” he wrote, “he is sure to be surpassed by an American born now, or yet to be born.” Melville’s edition of the complete works has about 500 passages marked for special study; and the writing of Moby-Dick became an extraordinary effort of literary oneupmanship.

3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Twain’s masterpiece offers a double-shot of Shakespearean influence. His comic duo of confidence men, the “rightful duke of Bridgewater” and his sidekick “the King of France” – two characters who could have stepped from The Merry Wives of Windsor or Falstaff’s Eastcheap – were inspired by the young Twain’s experience of wild west culture as a reporter during the California gold rush. Secondly, Twain’s famous parody of Hamlet (“To be or not to be; that is the bare bodkin”) displays an American master spoofing brilliantly at the top of his bent.

4. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley Many US novelists have been bitten by the Shakespeare bug: Toni Morrison ( Desdemona ), John Updike ( Gertrude and Claudius ) and Arthur Phillips ( The Tragedy of Arthur ) from contemporary fiction. More popular, perhaps, is Smiley’s modernisation of King Lear, in which Shakespeare’s plot and characters are relocated to the midwest. Smiley says that her novel grew out of her response to “the ways in which I found the conventional reading of Lear frustrating and wrong”. Part of Shakespeare’s eternal youth is that he always invites us to find new responses to his work.

5. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf This landmark in feminist thought was inspired by Woolf’s recollection of an old academic declaring that “women cannot write the plays of William Shakespeare”. Her portrait of “Judith Shakespeare” becomes a polemical fiction about a woman who, like Woolf herself, had to stay home, watch her brother go to school, and become imprisoned in domesticity. Eventually, Judith is shamed into a marriage of convenience. Her brother flourishes, while Judith’s genius remains unfulfilled. The poet’s sister eventually kills herself, but enables Woolf to review the creative beginnings of some great literary examplars, including Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the Brontë sisters.

6. Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer In a kind of homage to Woolf, Greer starts with a woman about whom almost nothing is known, married to a great poet, and reimagines the story of the Hathaway-Shakespeare marriage in its context, treating Anne (or Agnes) with the greatest sympathy. Greer rescues her life story from oblivion with wit and scholarship. It’s a good companion to Hamnet, below.

7. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell The 2020 winner of the Women’s prize for fiction, this poignant meditation on grief is characterised by O’Farrell’s outstanding immersion in the Elizabethan Stratford of the 1590s. Shakespeare is unnamed, and O’Farrell focuses on his wife Agnes (as Anne was known) to explore the death of their son Hamnet from plague in 1596. The luminous magic of this novel lies as much in what it omits as what it depicts, but the scene in which Agnes lays out her son’s body is one that few readers will forget.

8. The Lodger, Shakespeare on Silver Street by Charles Nicholl Nicholl made his reputation as a writer with The Reckoning, his brilliant investigation into the death of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare’s contemporary and rival. In a second foray into the court records of the age, Nicholl takes a forgotten lawsuit in which Shakespeare appeared as a witness (the only occasion on which his actual spoken words were recorded). In an enthralling weave of metropolitan social history, Shakespeare commentary and the Jacobean domestic romcom surrounding the marriage of Marie Mountjoy and Stephen Belott, Nicholl once again breathes new life into some very dusty archives. A delight.

9. Nothing like the Sun by Anthony Burgess Burgess’s fascination with Shakespeare was a lifetime’s obsession. His first foray into Shakespeare’s world occurred in 1964 with this exuberant novel about Will the poet’s love life, partly driven by the claim that Shakespeare’s imagination was inspired by syphilis. This became a film script, The Bawdy Bard, never produced, which morphed into his brilliant biographical essay, Shakespeare (1970).

10. Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being by Ted Hughes Shakespeare was obsessed with risk and originality, the key to drama. Hughes was also fascinated by the wellsprings of creativity. He devoted much of his life to rereading the complete works, and signed the contract for this magnum opus towards the end of his life. It was to offer the reader “a sort of musical adaptation”, a majestic song in which the plays become “a single titanic work, like an Indian epic”. Shakespeare and the Goddess became Hughes’s most sustained prose work, a book he claimed nearly killed him. On publication in 1992, it was poorly received, but is now becoming recognised as his prose masterpiece.

Shakespearean: On Life and Language in Times of Disruption by Robert McCrum is published by Picador. To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com .

• William Shakespeare
• Anthony Burgess
• Virginia Woolf
• Maggie O'Farrell
• Herman Melville

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The best Shakespeare books (for every type of reader)

Whether you're completely new to shakespeare and wondering where to start, the bard's biggest fan looking for a beautiful edition of your favourite work, or somewhere in between the two, here's our guide to the best shakespeare books..

There's a reason why Shakespeare's plays are still the most performed in the world, more than 400 years after they were written. Comedy, tragedy, romance , history , politics, murder: all of life (and death) is here. And there's no better way to really appreciate and immerse yourself in his language than by taking the time to read it at your own pace. If you're looking to buy some of Shakespeare's work in book form, you're in the right place. Here's our guide to the best Shakespeare books for every type of reader. 

For those new to Shakespeare

A midsummer night’s dream, by william shakespeare.

The perfect introduction to Shakespeare’s world of magic, exuberance, beauty and imagination, it’s no surprise A Midsummer Night’s Dream is his most performed play. The action takes place in an enchanted forest inhabited by fairies and sprites. Hermia’s father wants her to marry Demetrius, and Demetrius is in love with her. . . but Hermia loves Lysander, and he loves her. And then there’s Hermia’s friend Helena, who loves Demetrius. Their tangled love lives are made even more complicated by the interference of Oberon, King of the Fairies, his wife Titania and the impish sprite, Puck. There are spells, misunderstandings, disguises and love potions in this most entertaining of Shakespeare’s plays.  

Shakespeare's most romantic work

Romeo and juliet.

The ultimate love story: often copied, never bettered. In fourteenth-century Verona, a city torn apart by feuds and gang warfare, Romeo and Juliet fall madly in love. But their families are sworn enemies and the two young lovers are caught in a crossfire of hostility, revenge and intolerance. A heady mix of passion, violence, comedy and tragedy, this is a story that grips from start to finish. 

The Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets are the greatest exposition of love in all its guises ever written in the English language; meditations on love, longing, jealousy, betrayal and infatuation, conveyed in the most beautiful and moving poetry. Whether you want to shout out your love or worship from afar; your heart has been broken or you’re in the first flush of romance, you’ll find beauty, solace and inspirational beauty in this slender book. 

And the most tragic tragedies

And finally Hamlet , one of the most performed plays in the world. Hamlet, prince of Denmark, meets with his father's ghost, who alleges that his own brother, now married to his widow, murdered him. But is his father telling the truth? Tormented by doubt and introspection, Hamlet feigns madness to test the ghost’s accusation and plots brutal revenge against his uncle. But his apparent insanity wreaks havoc on innocent and guilty alike and by the end of the play, both Hamlet and his Uncle – and quite a few others –are dead.  

Elderly King Lear decides to divide his kingdom up between his three daughters, based on how much they can show that they love him. Cordelia, the youngest and most loving, refuses to play the game. The other two, the evil Regan and Goneril, vie for control of the kingdom. Fuelled by greed they eventually cast their own father out into a storm where he descends into madness. A shocking, wild and desperately moving play.

For history buffs

Demonstrating that Shakespeare's plays have plenty to say about contemporary life,  Henry V is set in the early fifteenth century when the English were restless and dissatisfied with the status quo. There’s a new king on the throne, the young Henry V, known for his wild adolescent years. So we have a disgruntled population, an untamed young royal and a new king. Sound familiar? Henry V, however, grows into his royal role to become a forceful and impressive leader. He wages war on France culminating in the famous battle of Agincourt, gaining victory over the French. Henry V is a magnificent study of both conflict and diplomacy. 

For fans of the supernatural

The tempest.

The Tempest weaves magic and the supernatural into a profound story about politics, power and human nature. Prospero has long been exiled from Italy and banished to a remote island with his daughter Miranda, where there lives an invisible sprite, Ariel, and the fearsome Caliban, son of a witch. Prospero harnesses his magical powers to conjure up a treacherous storm so that his sworn enemies, including his brother Antonio, are shipwrecked on the island. There follows a play filled with murderous plots, drunken confusion, love and redemption. 

The funniest Shakespeare play

Much ado about nothing.

Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare’s most mature comedy and perhaps that’s why it’s really endured. At the heart of the play is the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick. Theirs is a classic set up familiar to any rom com fan – with razor sharp wit, they bicker, they fight and they take verbal swipes at each other, but does all this squabbling mask their true feelings? Of course it does! It’s down to their friends to turn them around and have them fall in love. With the usual ingenious sub plots, here’s a hugely entertaining comedy with a message about misunderstandings, love and deception. 

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A Scholarly Analysis of Shakespeare’s Life That Reads Like a Detective Story

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By James Shapiro

• Nov. 23, 2021

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE By Lena Cowen Orlin

Much of the evidence documenting Shakespeare ’s life wasn’t discovered until the late 18th or early 19th century, and comes packaged in the assumptions of those who made these finds. We have been told that his marriage to an older woman was an unhappy one, that Shakespeare’s bequest to his wife of a “second-best bed” confirms how “little he esteemed her,” and that the “Birthplace,” his house on Henley Street, a mecca for literary pilgrims, has remained virtually unchanged since Shakespeare’s infancy. Over the past 200 years these and similar claims have hardened into fact and have become enshrined in popular biographies.

In “The Private Life of William Shakespeare,” Lena Cowen Orlin has re-examined all of the documentary evidence. She reads it afresh, along with thousands of contemporary wills and local records that provide context for those in which Shakespeare is mentioned. Anyone who has ever struggled to decipher Elizabethan “secretary hand” will know how daunting this task has been. The great and lasting result of her labors is how punishingly she demolishes shoddy claims and biased inferences that have distorted our understanding of Shakespeare’s life.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he married Anne Hathaway at the age of 18, had three children with her and left town — only returning for good late in life. He spent the intervening years, roughly half his lifetime, in London, where he acted and wrote plays. He didn’t travel back and forth much, reportedly once a year, and was unlikely, Orlin writes, to have attended the funeral in Stratford of his son, Hamnet, or of either of his parents.

Biographers confronted with the mystery of “How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?” split into two groups: those who see his early years in his hometown as formative, and those (myself included) who place greater weight on his experiences in London. Orlin, whose Shakespeare had a “persistent allegiance to his hometown,” and whose choices there, she argues, determined the trajectory of his life, belongs to the Stratford camp. Her title is somewhat misleading: “By ‘private life,’” she writes, “I mean Shakespeare’s family life in Stratford.” Readers eager for revelations about who were Shakespeare’s friends and lovers, or what were his religious and political convictions (what we ordinarily mean when we speak of someone’s private life), will not find answers here.

“Neither a literary biography nor a full biography,” this book looks more narrowly at what surviving documents tell us, and, when their trail runs dry, what documents about his neighbors might reveal about events that defined Shakespeare’s Stratford life: his father’s financial collapse, his marriage, his homes (including the “Birthplace,” likely damaged by fire in the 1590s, then rebuilt), his will and his memorial. Though most of it consists of dense scholarly analysis, it reads like a detective story in which a skilled investigator returns to a cold case.

It amounts to a revisionist portrait of the artist. The transgressive image of Shakespeare circulating in recent years — cosmopolitan, perhaps secretly Catholic, most likely gay or bisexual, eager to flee Stratford — is replaced here by a Shakespeare who is “a family man” in a close economic partnership with his wife. He is especially devoted to his father, whose fall from the height of Stratford’s leadership to a man who was afraid to leave his house for fear of arrest for debt was, for Orlin, “the defining event” of Shakespeare’s private life, from which “all else followed.” She interprets Shakespeare’s marriage at a young age (which would have brought to an end any apprenticeship and precluded as well a university education) as an act that helped restore his family’s fortunes. Most scholars have read Shakespeare’s last will and testament as at best chilly, especially when it came to his family. But Orlin sees it otherwise. While it was not, like many Jacobean wills, an “expressive” one, she shows how each gift that Shakespeare specifies, including apparel, sword, bowl and that notorious bed, shares “the imprint of an unnamed grief.”

She also shows that much of what we take as fact about Shakespeare’s life hangs by the slenderest of archival threads. Anne Hathaway’s baptismal record does not survive, and the only reason for believing she was eight years older than Shakespeare is the number that appears on her memorial brass — often enough, Orlin shows, imprecisely remembered or rendered. In her assiduous research Orlin came upon a baptismal record from 1566 for a Johanna Hathaway, daughter (as Shakespeare’s wife was) to a Richard Hathaway of Shottery. Orlin doesn’t push this possibility too hard, but if this was the woman Shakespeare married — her first name inaccurately transcribed — Anne might have been two years younger than her husband.

Three contemporary images of Shakespeare are widely accepted as authoritative. One is the awkwardly executed woodcut that appears in the 1623 First Folio. Another is the romantic Chandos portrait now in the National Portrait Gallery. These two are endlessly reproduced. Not the third, an effigy in painted limestone in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church, in which Shakespeare looks like — as the scholar John Dover Wilson put it — a “self-satisfied pork butcher.” Orlin’s account of this monument is definitive. She sends packing the “authorship skeptics” for whom a conspiratorial cover-up accounts for the differences between 17th-century sketches of this memorial and the frequently repaired and looted effigy (from which the actor David Garrick reputedly stole the “right forefinger”). She goes on to suggest that Shakespeare likely commissioned the effigy and had met Nicholas Johnson, the artist who made it. If so, like it or not, this is how Shakespeare wanted to be remembered. Her account, detailed and dazzling, also left me melancholy, for all too soon, given cutbacks in funding and training, this kind of scholarship may no longer be possible.

Shakespeare biography is often marked by overreach, and Orlin is not immune. An academic herself, she can’t help recasting Shakespeare as one, urging us to “picture Shakespeare participating in the intellectual culture of Oxford” and asserting that “Shakespeare is nearly certain to have taken in lectures and sermons in college chapels.” There is no hard evidence given for these claims. And having argued that Shakespeare had a study in New Place, the large house he purchased in Stratford, she can’t resist fantasizing that this is where he wrote his late plays: “How many of his characters and episodes developed out of the scenes that unfolded on the streets below him as he wrote in the western light of the study window?” Her source? The gossip-hunting vicar of Stratford from the early 1660s, John Ward. Orlin’s meticulous handling of archival material fails her here, as her eagerness to encroach upon the London Shakespeare upends her usual accuracy. Ward never wrote that Shakespeare “in his elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year.” He in fact jotted down two separate anecdotes, which Orlin then combines, linking them with a comma (those who are curious can consult a facsimile at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s site, “Shakespeare Documented” ). Orlin knows that late in his career Shakespeare collaborated with other dramatists, working with John Fletcher on his last three: “Henry VIII,” “The Two Noble Kinsmen” and the lost “Cardenio.” You don’t write plays with co-authors who live a three days’ ride away. These are unfortunate missteps in an otherwise impressive and valuable book, a biography that will lead many to revise their classroom lectures.

James Shapiro teaches at Columbia. His book “Shakespeare in a Divided America” was one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2020.

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE By Lena Cowen Orlin Illustrated. 430 pp. Oxford University Press. $40.

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BOOK REVIEW: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

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This is one of Shakespeare’s most famous works, if not the most famous love story in the history of love stories. The central challenge of this couple’s love affair isn’t the usual fare of Shakespeare’s works – e.g. unrequited love, love triangles, or class differences. [There is an issue of unrequited love early in the play between Romeo and Rosaline, but Romeo gets over that girl in a hot minute once he meets Juliet.] The problem is that he meets Juliet by crashing her father’s party while wearing a disguise (a disguise that ultimately doesn’t fool the right people,) and the reason Romeo needs a disguise is because Romeo’s father and Juliet’s father are archenemies. Otherwise, the couple meets all requirements for wooing to commence: they each have feelings for the other, and they are of similar class status. In short, they would be a marriageable couple if their families didn’t hate each other.

[Warning: My Shakespeare reviews are far more spoiler-laden than usual because the stories are well-known to most readers and some find a detailed synopsis useful to make sense of the archaic language.] After an opening that establishes the enmity between the Montagues and Capulets, Romeo and Juliet fall for each other fast and hard, and with lightening speed have wed and consummated the marriage. However, no one other than the priest who married them, Friar Laurence, knows of the wedding. They have to keep the marriage secret because it would get back to the heads of the feuding households immediately.

Soon after the wedding, Tybalt (Juliet’s hot-headed kinsman) goes out looking for Romeo. Tybalt had recognized Romeo at the party, and wanted to fight him then, but Mr. Capulet (Juliet’s father) made him chill out because he didn’t want blood spilled during his party. But the next day Tybalt goes out intent on fighting. Tybalt finds Romeo’s friend (Mercutio) and his kinsman (Benvolio,) and Mercutio ends up crossing blades Tybalt. When Romeo comes on the scene, he steps into the middle of the fray to separate the men, and Tybalt finds an opening to thrust into Mercutio. As Mercutio dies, he famously wishes a “plague on both houses” (meaning Tybalt’s Capulets and Romeo’s Montagues.) Mercutio is but one of many who are completely fed up with the feud between these two families. The Prince of Verona has had it up to his neck with the bickering.

While Romeo is generally more a lover than a fighter, he duels and kills Tybalt immediately after Mercutio’s death. After killing Tybalt, Romeo flees the scene, later to find out he’s been banished from Verona upon threat of death. (Lady Capulet petitions the Prince for Romeo to be executed but the Prince won’t go for it, figuring Tybalt got what was coming to him for picking a fight and stabbing Mercutio. Then Lady Capulet plots to have a hit put out on Romeo, but events outpace her plot.) After meeting with Friar Laurence, Romeo flees to Mantua.

When her family informs Juliet that Tybalt has been slain by Romeo, they think she is broken up about her kinsman’s death. However, she’s really worried about her husband Romeo (who, of course, none of the family knows she’s married to.) When it seems like Juliet’s sadness for Tybalt has gone on long enough, her father sets a post-haste wedding date between Juliet and County Paris (the young man that Capulet favors for his daughter.) This is a problem for Juliet because: a.) she’s already married; and, b.) she deeply loves Romeo and finds Paris sort of Meh! She gets into a tiff with her father who thinks she’s an ungrateful whelp. [In Shakespeare’s day, the debate was whether a girl’s feelings about to whom she should be wed should be empathized with or ignored altogether. The idea that her feelings should be a major consideration was deemed laughable. Her mother comes down on the former side, but Lady Capulet accepts her husband’s conclusion of the alternative.]

Juliet goes to see Friar Laurence, who is a botanical mad scientist on the side. The Friar develops an elaborate scheme. Juliet is to go home, apologize to her father for not jumping on board the marriage train with the boy that her father so dearly loves (but to do so without sarcasm,) and then before going to sleep she will take a potion. This potion, not uncommon in Shakespearean works, will make her appear dead for a time, and then she’ll wake up perfectly fine. The family will take her to their crypt, pending the funeral. Friar Laurence sends a note to Romeo explaining the plan. Romeo is to meet Juliet when she wakes up, and they can then flee to Mantua — their families none the wiser.

Up to this point, this play could be a comedy just as easily as it is a tragedy. Sure, there have been a couple stabbing fatalities, but that’s actually pretty calm stuff compared to some of the comedies. (The dead are secondary characters.) What makes it a tragedy, is that Friar Laurence’s messenger can’t get through to deliver the memo in time because of some Black Death scare. Instead, Romeo’s (the Montague family’s) servant gets there first, and, because he’s not in on the Friar’s plot, tells Romeo the truth as he understands it – i.e. that Juliet is dead. Romeo sneaks back to the Verona cemetery with some poison he got at a shady apothecary on the way. Friar Laurence doesn’t know Romeo didn’t get the priest’s message until Romeo is already rolling up on the crypt, intent on dying with is beloved and so Laurence is late arriving to the scene.

To add to the tragedy, Paris is visiting Juliet’s grave and thinks Romeo is a villain. Romeo and Paris battle it out, and Romeo kills Paris. Romeo – knowing that Paris was betrothed to Juliet but without knowledge of Romeo and Juliet’s marriage – places Paris in the crypt near Juliet. But then he takes up position immediately beside her, and drinks the poison. As soon as Romeo dies, Juliet regains consciousness. She finds Romeo dead, and discovers that there’s not enough of the poison left for her. She tries kissing some poison off him, but when that doesn’t work, she plunges a dagger into her own chest.

After Juliet dies, authorities arrive on the scene having been summoned by a person who heard the duel between Romeo and Paris. The Prince arrives and calls for the heads of the Montague and Capulet households so that they can see what tragedy their feud has caused. The sight of the two dead star-crossed lovers (plus Paris, whom Capulet seemed to love) moves Montague and Capulet to end hostilities.

This is a must read for all readers.

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1 thought on “ BOOK REVIEW: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare ”

I’ve been a Shakespeare fan since high school and have played a witch in Macbeth. It helps to learn the old English language and the history to really understand him and his humor. If more folks would do so they would love his work so much more than they do.

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Romeo and Juliet

By william shakespeare.

Shakespeare creates an absolute masterpiece here with his groundbreaking ideas underpinned by his legendary writing skills. 

About the Book

Article written by Lee-James Bovey

P.G.C.E degree.

Romeo and Juliet almost speaks for itself. However, in keeping with the other articles on Book Analysis , we will try and review it honestly. (As honest as can be from a self-proclaimed Shakespeare fanboy!)

Characterization

It is not as straightforward to show characters in a play. Often the actors themselves help bring a text to life. However, having done some amateur theatre what I can say categorically is that with a dull script the talent of the actors is irrelevant. That is not an issue here. There is a range of characters and they all feel distinct from one another.

We see a range of motivations and people adapting the way they behave to suit their situation. Take for instance the character Lord Capulet who is defensive about the idea of Juliet marrying given her age but in the wake of Tybalt’s death and facing her showing a rebellious side he transforms completely appearing to threaten violence against her.

It is well known that Shakespeare borrowed plot ideas liberally from ancient Greek plays . However, with Romeo and Juliet , he broke new ground. Of course, it wasn’t the first tragedy but it was the first to use love as the hero’s fatal flaw. Up until this point, of course, we had seen love in plays but usually in comedy. It was considered not serious enough to warrant being a factor in a tragedy. The impact of this has shaped culture immeasurably.

But is the plot any good? It is not his most complex. There are no multiple side plots at play. However, it is such a good story. It truly is timeless and has been borrowed and liberally ripped off for centuries since. Personally, it is one of my favorites.

Language use

There is no doubt that Shakespeare was a master of his craft. So much of what he has written has shaped and bled into modern society. What he always did beautifully is use speech patterns to denote class or changes in status. Or in the case of Rome and Juliet to signify love. You know how they say when people are in love they “complete one another” Shakespeare subconsciously shows us that. When Romeo and Juliet first talk to one another their words form a perfect Shakespearean sonnet. Isn’t that beautiful? Plus looking beyond that you have the subtle difference in the way Romeo describes Juliet compared to Rosaline.

His metaphors are all about war and misery with Rosaline signifying his inner turmoil while his imagery when describing Juliet draws on religion and light. These skills combined with the masterful use of foreshadowing and the beautifully crafted witty exchanges between Romeo and Mercutio prove just how good the bard was.

It might not be the literary critic’s favorite. That honor seems to lie with Hamlet but can you really argue with the lasting appeal of Romeo and Juliet ? Here is a play that is still discussed and performed more than 400 years after it was written in an era where the language has developed so much that people struggle to understand everything which is said and yet it maintains its mystique. Some could point to the literary canon and suggest that it is full of dead white men and of course that is correct. I would suggest that not all of those dead white men deserve their place either.

However, I do not believe that you can extend that critique to the works of Shakespeare who was clearly ahead of his time in terms of the issues he was tackling. He also consistently displayed a masterful use of language and was as good at turning a phrase as anyone who has ever picked up a quill or sat in front of a typewriter. So, yes while I do display a certain degree of bias towards Shakespeare I still believe that Romeo and Juliet is an absolute masterpiece.

Should you read it?

This is a slightly more complex question to answer than you might expect. Yes, Shakespeare was a phenomenal writer but he was not an author. You can read his works and get enjoyment from them but truly to see them brought to life I’d recommend going to the theatre and seeing them performed and if you can’t bring yourself to do that watch one of the movies adaptations. So yes by all means read it. But if you ever get the opportunity to see it performed, do that! Especially if it is by somebody who does it well like the RSC in the UK.

Romeo and Juliet: Still as relevant today as it was in its day

• Writing style
• Lasting effect on reader

Romeo and Juliet Review

• Impeccable use of language
• Iconic story
• The music scene near the climax is dated
• Some of the humour is lost on a modern audience
• Language can be tricky to understand

About Lee-James Bovey

Lee-James, a.k.a. LJ, has been a Book Analysis team member since it was first created. During the day, he's an English Teacher. During the night, he provides in-depth analysis and summary of books.

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Bovey, Lee-James " Romeo and Juliet Review ⭐ " Book Analysis , https://bookanalysis.com/william-shakespeare/romeo-and-juliet/review/ . Accessed 9 April 2024.

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William Shakespeare | 4.36 | 724,830 ratings and reviews

Ranked #1 in Drama , Ranked #1 in Theater — see more rankings .

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Hamlet from the world's leading experts.

Ryan Holiday Author Philosophy runs through this play–all sorts of great lines. There are gems like “..for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” which I used in my last book and “Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it, that the opposed may beware of thee.” was a favorite of Sherman. (Source)

Tim Lott I love the speech when Hamlet’s uncle Claudius admits to being inflicted with the primal eldest curse for killing his brother, and begs on his knees for forgiveness for this ultimate violation of the law of nature. (Source)

Rankings by Category

Hamlet is ranked in the following categories:

• #94 in 10th Grade
• #33 in 11th Grade
• #4 in 12th Grade
• #92 in 15-Year-Old
• #33 in 16-Year-Old
• #4 in 17-Year-Old
• #4 in 18-Year-Old
• #25 in Academia
• #45 in Acting
• #23 in Archives
• #81 in Betrayal
• #32 in Broadway
• #54 in Bucket List
• #59 in Character
• #75 in Character Development
• #12 in Class
• #37 in Classic
• #28 in Classical
• #55 in Death
• #52 in Dramatic
• #23 in English Vocabulary
• #18 in English Writer
• #33 in Existential
• #57 in Existentialism
• #12 in Family Law
• #71 in Ghost
• #79 in Ghost Story
• #59 in Gilmore Girls
• #10 in High School
• #12 in High School Reading
• #77 in Human Nature
• #91 in Influential
• #93 in Ireland
• #71 in Literary
• #38 in Literature
• #20 in Murder
• #42 in Period
• #55 in Poster
• #19 in Procrastination
• #70 in Project Gutenberg
• #35 in Public Domain
• #2 in Renaissance
• #2 in Revenge
• #86 in Royalty
• #14 in Screenplay
• #2 in Shakespeare
• #70 in Soul
• #33 in Suicide
• #87 in Top Ten
• #3 in University
• #67 in Used
• #24 in Vocabulary

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Book Review: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Books: Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb Picture This! Shakespeare: Macbeth by Philip Page and Marilyn Petit Macbeth: A Retelling by Adam McKeown Macbeth by William Shakespeare, annotated by Burton Raffel

Genre: play Publication date: from the 1623 Folio, probably first produced in 1606, according to Burton Raffel’s Introduction

Summary: Macbeth, a Scottish baron, and his wife plot regicide after witches predict that Macbeth is to become king.  Macbeth is of two minds about the whole affair, but does the deed with the help of Lady Macbeth. They frame the king’s guards, who Macbeth then kills in his supposed outrage at the king’s murder. The king’s sons doubt that the guards are to blame and flee in the fear that they will be next on the murderer’s list. Macbeth uses their escape to spread the story that the king’s sons paid the guard to murder their father and, thus, Macbeth takes over the throne.

Macbeth’s friends and countrymen begin to suspect Macbeth’s guilt. Banquo, who was with Macbeth during the conversation with the witches, received a prediction as well: that it would be his progeny, not Macbeth’s that hold the throne in the future. Macbeth fears Banquo’s suspicion and realizes that if all the witches’ predictions come true, Macbeth has committed murder to benefit Banquo’s son.  Macbeth sends ruffians to fix the problem. They kill Banquo but his son escapes.

Banquo’s ghost, visible only to Macbeth, shows up at a banquet, unnerving Macbeth visibly which causes his guests such discomfort that they leave the table.

Macbeth visits the witches again (“double, double toil and trouble”). With visions, they offer some advice (beware Macduff) and assurances (“none of woman born shall harm Macbeth” and “Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him”) but they also continue to predict that it will be Banquo’s descendants, not Macbeth’s, who inherit the throne.

Macbeth receives word that Macduff has gone to England to help Malcolm, King Duncan’s son, regain the throne. He sends troops to Macduff’s home where they kill his wife and children.

Lady Macbeth, attended by a maid and physician, is witnessed sleepwalking and obsessively rubbing her hands (“Out, damned spot!”).

Macduff and Malcolm, the prince, march toward Macbeth’s stronghold at Dunsinane with a force of English and Scottish soldiers. They gather in Birnam Wood and order everyone to cut down branches and use them to disguise their presence and number as they proceed across the field to Dunsinane, thus fulfilling the prophecy that Birnam Wood will move against Dunsinane.

The Queen, Lady Macbeth, dies and Macbeth makes this famous speech:

Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

The battle commences. The castle is lost, but Macbeth fights on, believing that he can not be killed because all men are of women born. Macduff, who demanded of his fellow fighters that he be allowed to kill Macbeth in retaliation for the deaths of his wife and children, seeks out Macbeth and fights him declaring, “Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.” Macbeth is slain, fulfilling the last of the witches’ prophecies about him.

The battle ends. Macduff presents Macbeth’s head to Malcolm with the greeting “Hail, King of Scotland,” a cry that is taken up throughout the castle.

The other three books, I read concurrently, one scene at a time. I started with the Picture This! Shakespeare version of Macbeth , a graphic novel. Then, I read the relevant chapter in Macbeth: A Retelling  by Adam McKeown, part of The Young Reader’s Shakespeare series. According to the library catalog, The School Library Journal deemed McKeown’s retelling suitable for Grades 5 to 10. It’s a large format chapter book with dramatic drawings, sharp angles and expressive faces, by Lynne Cannoy. And, finally, I read the actual play using the one from The Annotated Shakespeare series by Yale University Press, annotated by Burton Raffel.

Armed with three versions, I worked my way through and I have learned it well enough that I can retell it, as above, and to Rick so that he will also be prepared to see the play tonight.

Appeal: Macbeth is a timeless tale of political intrigue interspersed with witches and battle scenes to entertain all of us who like our stories with a dash of adventure.

Reviews: Here are a couple of other book blogger reviews of Macbeth : Macbeth at Becky’s Book Reviews Macbeth by William Shakespeare  at Rebecca Reads

Have you read Macbeth or seen the play? What did you think?

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Book Review: Macbeth by William Shakespeare — 20 Comments

What a good system for working through the play! I have a very, very hard time with Shakespeare, but I think reading the play along with a more narrative version might work well for me.

I’m planning to read a couple of Shakespeare plays, hopefully in the near future, and I like your approach! Sometimes I do get lost reading the originals, and a familiarity with the story going in would definitely help.

I was actually in a version of Macbeth in school and have always meant to read it again!

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this play sucks!

LOL! Sorry about that Lilia. Do you have to read it for a class? That often makes literature harder to like than it needs to be.

which one is correct ? Dunisnane or Dunsinane….

Looks like Dunsinane. Thanks! I’ll fix that.

Dunsinane is the correct one. I am 100% sure!

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nice way to read drama of shakesphere………. ……………….. thankyou.

thank u so much for your help

I’m planning to read a couple of Shakespeare plays, hopefully in the near future, and I like your approach! Sometimes I do get lost reading the originals, and a familiarity with the story going in would definitely help.

Nice review It helped me a lot do complete my homework

it helped to complete my homework and the summary

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Thanks this really helped me.

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Book Reviews on...

The tempest, by william shakespeare.

The Tempest  is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays; it is all about imagination and conjuring worlds, which is also what science does.

Recommendations from our site

“Ariel sings a song about the death of the king in the storm and the transformation of his body in the shallows into a kind of treasure. ‘Of his bones are coral made/Those are pearls that were his eyes,/Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a Sea-change/Into something rich, & strange.’ No lines are more famous but everything about the edge of the sea, which is both full of destruction and rich with a wonderful glimmery glamour, is in those lines.” Read more...

The best books on Tides and Shorelines

Adam Nicolson

“There is a kind of allegory about scientific endeavour in The Tempest which I enjoy. It’s magical, and it is an allegory of human knowledge.” Read more...

The best books on The Emergence of Understanding

Peter Atkins , Scientist

Other books by William Shakespeare

Titus andronicus (arden shakespeare) by jonathan bate & william shakespeare, all the sonnets of shakespeare by paul edmonson, stanley wells & william shakespeare, the art of shakespeare's sonnets by helen vendler & william shakespeare, shakespeare's sonnets by katherine duncan-jones & william shakespeare, illustrated stories from shakespeare by anna claybourne, rosie dickins & william shakespeare, hamlet by william shakespeare, our most recommended books, on liberty by john stuart mill, war and peace by leo tolstoy, middlemarch by george eliot, nineteen eighty-four by george orwell, the confessions by augustine (translated by maria boulding), the odyssey by homer and translated by emily wilson.

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A Remarkable Discovery of a Document Shatters One of William Shakespeare's Biggest Mysteries

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

This story is a collaboration with PopularMechanics.com .

In the annals of William Shakespeare ’s legacy, a twist has emerged that’s practically as dramatic as any of the Bard’s plays: the real “Shakespeare” behind a centuries-old family document has been revealed... and it’s not the man we expected.

In 1757, a bricklayer found a religious document hidden in the rafters of the Shakespeare House in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Historians have long attributed the document, which was signed, “ J. Shakespeare ,” to William’s father, John.

But a new study in Shakespeare Quarterly, from scholars at the University of Bristol, claims John wasn’t actually the writer of the scrutinized document. Instead, the researchers say it was William’s relatively unknown younger sister, Joan Shakespeare Hart, who is mentioned by name in only seven surviving documents from her lifetime. Study author Matthew Steggle said in a statement :

“ Virginia Woolf wrote a famous essay, Shakespeare’s sister , about how a figure like her could never hope to be a writer or have her writing preserved, so she has become something of a symbol for all the lost voices of early modern women. There are hundreds of thousands of works surviving from her brother, and until now, none at all, of any description, from her.”

In the tucked-away document, which heavily cites an obscure 17 th century Italian religious tract called The Last Will and Testament of the Soul, the writer pledges to die a good Catholic death. If the writer was indeed John Shakespeare , who remained a devout Protestant until his death in 1601, it would have indicated a major shift in his beliefs and suggested a clandestine life during an era when secret allegiance to the Catholic Church in Elizabethan England could have been dangerous. For this reason, many experts have suspected the document to be forged.

But in the new study, Steggle used internet archives to track down early editions of The Last Will and Testament of the Soul in Italian and six other languages and concluded the document could have only been written after John Shakespeare’s death. That left Steggle with just one other “J. Shakespeare:” Joan.

Joan, who was five years younger than William, survived for 30 years after her brother’s death, and long resided in the family home where the document was found.

“Even 30 years ago, a researcher approaching a problem like this would have been based in a single big research library, using printed catalogues and even card catalogues to try to find copies of this text,” Steggle said in the statement. “But research libraries have now made many of their resources available digitally, so that it is possible to look across many different libraries in different countries at once, and what’s more, you can look through the whole text, not just at the title and other details.”

Steggle emphasized the importance of this approach in aligning the document’s quotes with the original timing of the composition of The Last Will and Testament of the Soul. Joan, who outlived her tradesman husband and had four children in the old Shakespeare family house, then had to have been the secret Catholic supporter.

The mystery flourished for centuries, in part, because William Shakespeare himself was a secretive figure, Biography has previously written .

Shakespeare, who lived from 1564 to 1616, left behind no letters, no handwritten manuscripts, few contemporary accounts, and only six signatures, all spelled differently. It seems almost unbelievable to scholars and critics that the country boy from Stratford-upon-Avon who never attended university wrote 37,000 words for his plays and added roughly 300 words to the English vocabulary.

Yet, the scarcity of Shakespeare’s personal artifacts does little to dim the luster of his legacy, which stands in stark contrast to his modest, mysterious origins.

The early years of Shakespeare’s life are murky. He was born to a father, John, who managed a portfolio as a landowner, moneylender, local official, and glover and leather craftsman. Instead of pursuing higher education, Shakespeare’s knowledge was gleaned from life experiences, absorbing wisdom from his dad’s civic engagements and perhaps gaining insights from his son-in-law, who was a doctor.

The idea that Shakespeare kept his London-based professional life separate from his personal life in Stratford-upon-Avon plays into the recent findings regarding his sister, Joan. “This secretive attitude,” Biography has reported, “may have been because much of his family were known Catholic sympathizers and chose to live quietly in Protestant Elizabethan England. In fact, some believe Shakespeare himself received Catholic communion on his death bed.”

Shakespeare wasn’t known to be loud and boisterous; instead, he carried an air of mystery, relishing the relative anonymity provided by Stratford life. Following his marriage to Anne Hathaway and the birth of their children, there’s a seven-year gap in his historical record. These are known as the “lost years.”

Speculation about William Shakespeare’s “lost years” varies widely; some suggest he may have been in hiding due to accusations of poaching, while more substantiated theories propose he was making a living as an actor and playwright in London. But despite this period of obscurity, Shakespeare’s reputation flourished through his poetry, sonnets, and plays.

As a prominent member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a renowned London acting company, Shakespeare invested in his craft, and his financial success allowed him to buy New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare’s theatrical endeavors didn’t stop there; in collaboration with fellow actors, he started the iconic Globe Theater, which became synonymous with his celebrated playwriting and solidified his legacy.

As Shakespeare grew his name in London’s theaters, he simultaneously established himself as a prominent figure in his hometown of Stratford. Acquiring the family estate in 1601 and subsequently purchasing 107 acres the following year, he strategically invested in additional properties. Experts suggest that the income from leasing these lands gave him the financial stability to pursue his writing.

Meanwhile, Joan resided in the Shakespeare family home amidst speculation and secrets. And its rafters served as a vault for her Italian-inspired religious writings—a hidden gem that’s still sparking scholarly intrigue, and revealing new layers to the Shakespeare legacy today.

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By William Shakespeare Written between 1594 to 1596

General Note: In January 2009 I decided that I�d like to go back and read all the plays of William Shakespeare, perhaps one a month if that works out. I hadn�t read a Shakespeare play since 1959, 50 years ago! But I had read nearly all of them in college. I wanted to go back, start with something not too serious or challenging, and work my way through the whole corpus. Thus I began with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. At this time I have no idea how the project will go, nor if it will actually lead me through the entire corpus of Shakespeare�s plays. However, I will keep a separate page listing each play I�ve read with links to any comments I would make of that particular play. See: List of Shakespeare�s play�s I�ve read and commented on

COMMENTS ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT�S DREAM

Nonetheless, while there are few surprises, and not many great insights into human emotions and feelings as we find in the histories and tragedies, they are still light-hearted and grand fun. A Midsummer Night�s Dream is no exception. Certainly not great, but fun and fluff, and even on a third or four read, a good time.

A Remarkable Discovery of a Document Shatters One of Shakespeare's Biggest Mysteries

A secret parchment has resurfaced, rewriting the Bard’s sketchy family history.

In the annals of William Shakespeare ’s legacy, a twist has emerged that’s practically as dramatic as any of the Bard’s plays: the real “Shakespeare” behind a centuries-old family document has been revealed ... and it’s not the man we expected.

In 1757, a bricklayer found a religious document hidden in the rafters of the Shakespeare House in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Historians have long attributed the document, which was signed, “ J. Shakespeare ,” to William’s father, John.

But a new study in Shakespeare Quarterly, from scholars at the University of Bristol, claims John wasn’t actually the writer of the scrutinized document. Instead, the researchers say it was William’s relatively unknown younger sister, Joan Shakespeare Hart, who is mentioned by name in only seven surviving documents from her lifetime, study author Matthew Steggle said in a statement :

“Virginia Woolf wrote a famous essay, Shakespeare’s sister , about how a figure like her could never hope to be a writer or have her writing preserved, so she has become something of a symbol for all the lost voices of early modern women. There are hundreds of thousands of works surviving from her brother, and until now, none at all, of any description, from her.”

In the tucked-away document, which heavily cites an obscure 17 th century Italian religious tract called The Last Will and Testament of the Soul, the writer pledges to die a good Catholic death. If the writer was indeed John Shakespeare, who remained a devout Protestant until his death in 1601, it would have indicated a major shift in his beliefs and suggested a clandestine life during an era when secret allegiance to the Catholic Church in Elizabethan England could have been dangerous. For this reason, many experts have suspected the document to be forged.

But in the new study, Steggle used internet archives to track down early editions of The Last Will and Testament of the Soul in Italian and six other languages and concluded the document could have only been written after John Shakespeare’s death. That left Steggle with just one other “J. Shakespeare”: Joan.

Joan, who was five years younger than William, survived for 30 years after her brother’s death, and long resided in the family home where the document was found.

“Even 30 years ago, a researcher approaching a problem like this would have been based in a single big research library, using printed catalogues and even card catalogues to try to find copies of this text,” Steggle said in the statement. “But research libraries have now made many of their resources available digitally, so that it is possible to look across many different libraries in different countries at once, and what’s more, you can look through the whole text, not just at the title and other details.”

Steggle emphasized the importance of this approach in aligning the document’s quotes with the original timing of the composition of The Last Will and Testament of the Soul. Joan, then, who outlived her tradesman husband and had four children in the old Shakespeare family house, had to have been the secret Catholic supporter.

The mystery flourished for centuries, in part, because William Shakespeare himself was a secretive figure, Biography writes .

Shakespeare, who lived from 1564 to 1616, left behind no letters, no handwritten manuscripts, few contemporary accounts, and only six signatures, all spelled differently. It seems almost unbelievable to scholars and critics that the country boy from Stratford-upon-Avon who never attended university wrote 37,000 words for his plays and added roughly 300 words to the English vocabulary.

Yet, the scarcity of Shakespeare’s personal artifacts does little to dim the luster of his legacy, which stands in stark contrast to his modest, mysterious origins.

The early years of Shakespeare’s life are murky. According to Biography , he was born to a father, John, who managed a portfolio as a landowner, moneylender, local official, and glover and leather craftsman. Instead of pursuing higher education, Shakespeare’s knowledge was gleaned from life experiences, absorbing wisdom from his dad’s civic engagements and perhaps gaining insights from his son-in-law, who was a doctor.

The idea that Shakespeare kept his London-based professional life separate from his personal life in Stratford-upon-Avon plays into the recent findings regarding his sister, Joan. “This secretive attitude,” Biography writes, “may have been because much of his family were known Catholic sympathizers and chose to live quietly in Protestant Elizabethan England. In fact, some believe Shakespeare himself received Catholic communion on his death bed.”

Shakespeare wasn’t known to be loud and boisterous; instead, he carried an air of mystery, relishing the relative anonymity provided by Stratford life. Following his marriage to Anne Hathaway and the birth of their children, there’s a seven-year gap in his historical record. These are known as the “lost years.”

Speculation about William Shakespeare’s “lost years” varies widely; some suggest he may have been in hiding due to accusations of poaching, while more substantiated theories propose he was making a living as an actor and playwright in London. But despite this period of obscurity, Shakespeare’s reputation flourished through his poetry, sonnets, and plays.

As a prominent member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a renowned London acting company, Shakespeare invested in his craft, and his financial success allowed him to buy New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare’s theatrical endeavors didn’t stop there; in collaboration with fellow actors, he started the iconic Globe Theater, which became synonymous with his celebrated playwriting and solidified his legacy.

As Shakespeare grew his name in London’s theaters, he simultaneously established himself as a prominent figure in his hometown of Stratford. Acquiring the family estate in 1601 and subsequently purchasing 107 acres the following year, he strategically invested in additional properties. Experts suggest that the income from leasing these lands gave him the financial stability to pursue his writing.

Meanwhile, Joan resided in the Shakespeare family home amidst speculation and secrets. And its rafters served as a vault for her Italian-inspired religious writings—a hidden gem that’s still sparking scholarly intrigue, and revealing new layers to the Shakespeare legacy today.

Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland. 

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