Shakespeare: The Basics is a lively and accessible introduction to reading and studying Shakespeare. Exploring all aspects of Shakespeare’s plays, Sean McEvoy considers the language, cultural contexts, and modern interpretations.
This essential guide to a range of contemporary Shakespearean criticism explores and unpacks the different dramatic genres in which he wrote--comedy, history, tragedy and romance. It also provides a wealth of relevant and concise information on the historical, social and political contexts in which the plays were produced and have been understood. Extensively updated throughout, the fourth edition provides:
· A comprehensive account of Shakespearean tragedy for students
· An introduction to ecocritical, ethical and queer readings of the plays
· Analysis of notable recent Shakespeare films and productions
· Enhanced contextual material on race and empire, gender roles and the theatre in politics.
With fully updated further reading throughout and a wide range of case studies and examples, Shakespeare: The Basics is an indispensable introduction for college and university students of literature and theatre, but also for anyone with an interest in the world’s most influential dramatist.
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: William Shakespeare 1564-2024
Shakespeare’s Life: An Outline
Shakespeare’s Afterlife
Shakespeare Goes to College
Shakespeare 2025
How to Use this Book
PART I
Chapter 1. Shakespeare’s Language
Writing for a Theatre Audience
Box 1: Shakespeare’s Audiences
Simple or Complex, The Language is Dramatic
Verse and Prose
Box 2: Playtexts in Shakespeare’s Time
Rhetorical Figures and Tropes
Box 3: Some Rhetorical Figures and Tropes
Rhetorical and Dramatic Action
Box 4: Social Hierarchy in Shakespeare’s England
Chapter 2. Shakespeare’s Theatre
The Open Air Playhouse
Indoor Playhouses
Acting Style
Box 5: Males Playing Women
Representation on the Early Modern Stage
Box 6: Theatre’s Enemies
Dramatic Forms and Metatheatre
Chapter 3. Shakespeare on the Modern Stage
Paul Robeson’s 1930 Othello
Othello at the National Theatre 2022
Box 7: Shakespeare, Race and Empire
Cheek by Jowl’s 1991 As You Like It
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge Theatre 2019
Chapter 4. The Shakespeare Film
Filming Shakespeare
Tragedy on Screen in 2018 and 2021: King Lear and The Tragedy of Macbeth
Globalized American Shakespeare at the Millennium: Ten Things I Hate About You (1999) and O (2001)
PART II
Chapter 5. Comedy: The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Twelfth Night
Men, Women and Marriage in The Taming of the Shrew
Box 8: Women and Marriage in Shakespeare’s England
Language and Power in Measure for Measure
Language and the Outsider in The Merchant of Venice
Humans and Nature in As You Like It
Ambiguity, Language and Desire in Twelfth Night
Chapter 6. The History Plays: Richard II, Henry IV Part 1 and Henry V
Feudalism in Historical Perspective: Richard II
Box 9: Christianity in Shakespeare’s England
Language, Meaning and Historical Change in Richard II
Power and Performance in Henry V and Henry IV Part One
Box 10: Shakespeare’s Theatre and Political Freedom of Expression
The Subversive Subplot: Henry V and Henry IV Part One
Women and Masculinity in the History Plays
Chapter 7. Tragedy: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet
Tragedy and Historical Conflict
Box 11: London
Hamlet and Tragic Division
Tragic Kingship in Macbeth
Past, Present and Future in Othello
Tragedy and Love in Romeo and Juliet
Chapter 8. The Romance Plays: The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest
Female Authority in The Winter’s Tale
Contesting the Female: Miranda in The Tempest
Wonder and Artifice in The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale
Freedom in The Tempest
Romance and Time
Chronology
Glossary
Index
Biography
Sean McEvoy is a Fellow of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, UK. His publications include Tragedy: The Basics (2016), Ben Jonson, Renaissance Dramatist (2008), and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: A Sourcebook (2006).
