Shakespeare: The Basics

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.

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.

List of 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 1.1: Shakespeare’s Audiences

Simple or Complex, the Language is Dramatic

Verse and Prose

Box 1.2: Playtexts in Shakespeare’s Time

Rhetorical Figures and Tropes

Box 1.3: Some Rhetorical Figures and Tropes

Rhetoric and Dramatic Action

Box 1.4: Social Hierarchy in Shakespeare’s England

Chapter 2. Shakespeare’s Theatre

The Open Air Playhouse

Indoor Playhouses

Acting Style

Box 2.1: Males Playing Women

Representation on the Early Modern Stage

Box 2.2: 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 3.1: 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 5.1: 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 6.1: Christianity in Shakespeare’s England

Language, Meaning a