A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works – the
Tragedies, edited by Richard Dutton and Jean E.
Howard. 2003. Read in January and February 2012.
It
must be confessed that not much in this book fastened in my long-term memory. I
do remember that it was scholarly and a bit heavy reading, but also that there
was much that was interesting in it.
It starts with
a chapter on Shakespeare and the idea of tragedy and it is noted that “Tragedy,
for Shakespeare, is a genre of uncompensated suffering” (page 9). It continues
with a chapter that places Shakespeare’s tragedies within the context of his
contemporaries’ productions.
There
are quite a lot of chapters actually and they deal with emotions, “disjointed
times”, love, religious identity and geography.
A couple of chapters deal with the Shakespeare tragedies in film.
And
then the last ten chapters deal with specific plays: Titus Andronicus, Romeo
and Juliet, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and
Cleopatra, Timon of Athens and Coriolanus.
Come to think
of it, I’ve used this book a couple of times in my analyses of Hamlet and
Coriolanus. I consult it often, but somehow it doesn’t usually offer
much for what I’m dealing with in most plays.
Still, it’s
good to have on the shelf and it’s worth paging through regularly for inspiration
and information. It’s also good for all the notes which provide a wealth of
sources – I always enjoy adding to my list of books-to-read.
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