Synopses & Reviews
A brilliant and companionable tour through all thirty-eight plays, Shakespeare After All is the perfect introduction to the bard by one of the country's foremost authorities on his life and work. Drawing on her hugely popular lecture courses at Yale and Harvard over the past thirty years, Marjorie Garber offers passionate and revealing readings of the plays in chronological sequence, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Two Noble Kinsmen. Supremely readable and engaging, and complete with a comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare's life and times and an extensive bibliography, this magisterial work is an ever-replenishing fount of insight on the most celebrated writer of all time.
Review
"Shakespeare After All is, in many ways, a return to the times when the critic's primary function was as an enthusiast, to open up the glories of the written work for the reader." Dinitia Smith, The New York Times
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"The indispensable introduction to the indispensable writer....Garber's is the most exhilarating seminar room you'll ever enter." Newsweek
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"The best one-volume critical guide to the plays....Stimulating and informative." San Jose Mercury News
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"[B]rings the trend [of Shakespeare for the masses] to its high water mark....What makes [it] such a delight is that Garber assimilates all that is best in recent scholarship and criticism without sounding either pedantic or esoteric." Providence Journal
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"An enraptured ceremony of adoration....Ambitious and thorough....This is a useful book [and] a source of elucidation." Newsday
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"Spanning nearly 1,000 pages...the detailed coverage that Garber supplies may leave some readers feeling overwhelmed rather than stimulated. She also stretches out the book with long quotations, many of which could have been trimmed or cut altogether." Boston Globe
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"[Garber's] introduction is an exemplary account of what is known about Shakespeare and how his work has been read and regarded through the centuries, while the individual essays display scrupulous and subtle close reading." The New Yorker
Synopsis
Richly informed by Shakespearean scholarship of the latter half of the 20th century, this book offers passionate and revealing readings of all 38 of Shakespeare's plays, in chronological sequence.
About the Author
Marjorie Garber is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English and American Literature and Language and chair of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge and Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
A Note on the Text
Introduction
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Taming of the Shrew
Titus Andronicus
Henry VI Part 1
Henry VI Part 2
Henry VI Part 3
Richard III
The Comedy of Errors
Loves Labours Lost
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Nights Dream
Richard II
King John
The Merchant of Venice
Henry IV Part 1
Henry IV Part 2
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Much Ado About Nothing
Henry V
Julius Caesar
As You Like It
Hamlet
Twelfth Night
Troilus and Cressida
Measure for Measure
Othello
Alls Well That Ends Well
Timon of Athens
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Pericles
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
The Winters Tale
The Tempest
Henry VIII (All Is True)
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading
Acknowledgments
General Index
Character Index