1 Introduction: Shakespeare, Poet and Playwright
2 Shakespeare’s Early and Late Verse
2.1 Early Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew and the Question of Authorship
2.2 Henry the Sixth, Part Three
2.3 Later Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra
3 Elements of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Poetry
3.1 Macbeth: Poetry and the Expansion of Meaning
3.2 Wordplay and Imagery
3.3 Hamlet: Variations of Style and Significance
3.4 Julius Caesar and Simplicity
4 Variations between Quartos
4.1 Romeo and Juliet: The Marriage Scene in Q1 (1597) and Q2 (1599)
4.2 Romeo and Juliet: Romeo’s Last Speech in Q1 (1597) and Q2 (1599)
4.3 Romeo and Juliet: Variant Prologues
4.4 Hamlet Q1 (1603) and Q2 (1604/5): The Queen’s Account of Ophelia’s Death
4.5 Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be’ in Q1 and Q2
5 Shakespeare and his Co-authors
5.1 Timon of Athens: Shakespeare and Middleton
5.2 Pericles: Shakespeare and Wilkins
5.3 All Is True (Henry VIII) and The Two Noble Kinsmen: Shakespeare and Fletcher
6 The Play On Shakespeare Project
6.1 As You Like It: The Duke on Life in Arden
6.2 Henry the Fifth: The Chorus on the English Fleet’s Voyage to France
6.3 Duncan and Banquo Arrive at Macbeth’s Castle
6.4 The Tempest: Prospero’s Monologue on his ‘potent art’
6.5 The Two Noble Kinsmen: Arcite’s Death
6.6 Conclusion
Appendix: Iambic Pentameter Verse
Biography
MacDonald P. Jackson is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland.
"Jackson’s critical analyses of Shakespeare’s poetry are thoroughly informed by current scholarship; indeed the author has played an important part in the revolution, since the 1980s, in textual editing and rethinking of the canons of both Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton... [T]his excellent book... seems to me to explain a puzzling fact: although Shakespeare’s plots have been immensely fruitful for other writers and works in other media, attempts to imitate his language have been mostly disastrous. As he unpicks one gorgeous passage after another, MacDonald P. Jackson shows us why... To write like Shakespeare you have to start by having Shakespeare’s mind. It is into that mind that this book gives its most important insight."
--Lois Potter, Times Literary Supplement
