Good Refresher To Shakespeare | The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents

Excellent documentary source | The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents | Russ McDonald

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	• The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents Russ McDonald Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001 - 451 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Must Read for Any and All Interested in Shakespeare

This book is a great overview of all things Shakespeare. It intorduces the man himself, the language of the works, the culture of the Elizabethans and the theatre, sosurces, and basic scholarly criticism and ideas. A wonderful foundational text with primary documents which greatly enhance the reading and give the subject a new life.

Good Refresher To Shakespeare

Its been almost 13 years since I had the pleasure of enjoying Russ McDonald's insight on Shakespeare first hand and it was a pleasure re-engaging with his wit and insight again via this text.

Excellent documentary source

Russ McDonald's book provides excellent materials that help students to see the time in which Shakespeare lived. I use it everytime I teach Shakespeare. Note, I'm 13 and under, but Amazon's review system is funky (see!).

I recommend this book for those who enjoy reading British literature from the 16th and 17th centuries not just Shakespeare.

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Great Resource

Bedford's handbook is quite handy for a non-expert. Anyone who's going to be teaching Shakespeare but hasn't written a dissertation on him ought to pick one up.

Excellent and Informative

Russ McDonald is not someone many people have heard of, unless you happen to live in the world of Shakespeare scholars, in which case, I would be surprised if you have not. Mr. McDonald was for a long time associated with the Folger Library, and has edited numerous volumes of the Penguin Shakespeare editions, among other credentials. I have had the good fortune to be in one of his classes, and I can think of no one else I have ever met that has so much love and appreciation for Shakespeare's genius, while simultaneously being able to pass that to his students. I honestly don't think there is anything this man *doesn't* know about Shakespeare.

That being said, The Bedford Companion is less about The Bard, and more so about the times in which he lived. While attention is given to his plays, equal attention is given to such things as the history of the Globe Theater, Shakespeare's early life, the economic situations of the time, and a history of Shakespeare appreciation, or "Bardolatry". It shows Shakespeare as a human, as a buisinessman, a family man, and how he eventually become know as the greatest writer in the English language. (Most of his plays weren't published until after his death.) This book may not help you fully understand Hamlet, but it can certainly make it more interesting.

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Providing a unique combination of well-written, up-to-date background information and intriguing selections from primary documents, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare introduces readers to the topics most important to the study of Shakespeare in their full historical and cultural context.

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Spring 2004 Textbooks