Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

A Year in Books/Day 167: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Volume 1 and Volume 2

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  • Title: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Volume 1 and Volume 2
  • Editors: W.G. Clark and W. Aldis Wright
  • Year Published: Unknown (Nelson Doubleday, Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: Unknown
  • Source: I swiped these from my grandparents when I was a kid.
  • About: I’ve had this set since I was in fifth grade. I remember picking through it, delicately at first, before gaining steam (and confidence) and plowing through every word. Everything. What I didn’t understand (the majority, to be sure) I loved any way. The words were so alive, magical. I could picture things, even if those images were often fuzzy or incomplete. These books are loved like few others in my collection. A decade later and I was studying Shakespearean Theatre. I no longer act (except in my head), but I still read the plays aloud. How can you not? The Bard of Avon is ever enchanting.
  • Motivation: I had already read my way through most of my elders’ books, including two sets of encyclopedias and various dictionaries and almanacs. I was 10. Shakespeare seemed like the logical next step.
  • Times Read: Unknown
  • Random Excerpt/Page 56: “Thus, with its apparent lightness, there is a serious spirit underlying the play; but the surface is all jest, and stir, and sparkle. It is a comedy of dialogue rather than of incident.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10++++
    Title page of the First Folio, 1623. Copper en...

    Title page of the First Folio, 1623. Copper engraving of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

Daily Diversion #14: Trouble us not…

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Planter

Planter

I went to a bachelorette party last night. Whilst sipping cold drinks on the bar’s lush and sunny patio, I caught this fellow looking over my shoulder. Whether he meant us harm or was simply offering good wishes, I’ve no idea.

A Year in Books/Day 149: The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare

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  • Title: The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
  • Edited by: Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells
  • Year Published: 2001 (Oxford University Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2001/2002
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: Everything you could want to know about Shakespeare, his works, and his era, this volume is an accompaniment to the Oxford Shakespeare. Dense, detailed and, like any encyclopedia, culled from a diverse, sometimes contradictory set of sources, it is one of the definitive texts on the king of all playwrights. It’s a cornerstone of my Shakespeare collection. Bonus points for the handsome coffee table treatment, complete with beautiful photographs and illustrations.

    English: Title page of Shakespeare's Sonnets (...

    English: Title page of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: I was that lone teen in high school English Literature class who was thrilled whenever Shakespeare showed up on the syllabus. I grew up to study Shakespearean Theatre (yep, that’s a thing). I’m still passionately keen for the Bard of Avon, whose works comprise one of my favourite linguistic and literary playgrounds.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover:1/As resource: countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 482: “Translation, the rendering of Shakespeare texts into another language, is inalienably part of the process whereby Shakespeare has been, and is being, received in non-English-speaking countries. Hence Shakespeare translation has not only (1) linguistic but also (2) theatrical and cultural-even political-aspects.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++