William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Love’s Labor’s Lost by William Shakespeare My rating: 4 of 5 stars This early Shakespearean comedy, dating from the 1590s, is paradoxically slight but weighty, thin but dense. That’s no … Continue reading
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe My rating: 4 of 5 stars I am neither a Marlovian scholar in particular nor an early modernist in general, but as far as I … Continue reading
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Hamlet by William Shakespeare My rating: 5 of 5 stars Why is this bizarre, disorderly, long, and poorly transmitted tragedy from the turn of the seventeenth century the central work … Continue reading
William Shakespeare, King Lear
King Lear by William Shakespeare My rating: 5 of 5 stars What is King Lear about? “[T]he fierce dispute, / Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay,” wrote Keats, but both terms … Continue reading
William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
The Life of Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare My rating: 4 of 5 stars [For Shakespeare’s birth/death day. Also a good day to revisit my essay on Shakespeare’s detractors … Continue reading
William Shakespeare, Cymbeline
The Tragedy of Cymbeline by William Shakespeare My rating: 4 of 5 stars It seems obligatory when discussing Shakespeare’s late romance Cymbeline to begin with Samuel Johnson’s dismissal of it: … Continue reading
William Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV
Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare My rating: 5 of 5 stars In the excerpt from The Plays of William Shakespeare collected in this volume, Dr. Johnson asserts that, … Continue reading
Mary Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration
The Narrative Of The Captivity And Restoration Of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I think I am on my fourth or fifth reading … Continue reading
