This Is Shakespeare cover art

This Is Shakespeare

How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

This Is Shakespeare

By: Emma Smith
Narrated by: Emma Smith
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £9.48

Buy Now for £9.48

Summary

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of This Is Shakespeare, written and read by Emma Smith.

A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no others. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality and literary mastery. Who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else.

Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of.

But it doesn't really tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. It introduces an intellectually, theatrically and ethically exciting writer who engages with intersectionality as much as with Ovid, with economics as much as poetry: who writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity and sex. It takes us into a world of politicking and copy-catting, as we watch him emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day; flirting with and skirting round the cut-throat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval and technological change. The Shakespeare in this book poses awkward questions rather than offering bland answers, always implicating us in working out what it might mean.

This is Shakespeare. And he needs your attention.

 Drama & Plays European Literary History & Criticism Shakespeare World Literature Funny

Critic reviews

The best introduction to the plays I've read, perhaps the best book on Shakespeare, full stop. This is a model of unpretentious, deeply researched, profoundly approachable criticism. It's a book to give to anyone who loves Shakespeare, but particularly to those who think they don't ... What This Is Shakespeare gives the reader most of all, though, is a licence to enjoy the plays without the cultural and historical baggage they so often carry (Alex Preston)
The question that hangs over every new book on Shakespeare is, "Why read this one?" The short answer is, because it is very good indeed. There is no shortage of eminent Shakespeare scholars, and in her role as professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford, Smith certainly ranks among them; but more importantly for a book like this, she is perhaps the pre-eminent Shakespeare communicator working today ... This is Shakespeare cuts through the accumulated crust of "schoolroom platitudes", cant and literary piety in order to dust Shakespeare off and see him as he is, was, and might be (Tim Smith-Laing)
I like this book very much. It explains accessibly, with learning lightly worn, why Shakespeare retains such a hold in our culture. Smith has done an exemplary job of restoring the greatest of English writers to his own time, and explaining why he then speaks to ours ... An invigorating examination of the pre-eminence of the most revered figure of English letters (Oliver Kamm)
Quirky, brilliant ... what's most bracing about Smith's book is the way she sees the plays as almost organic: not only contradictory but alive (Daniel Swift)
This is Shakespeare wears its learning very lightly, although there are clear signs of that learning in every chapter ... Sane, sensible and suitably woke ... original and provocative analysis (Lisa Hopkins)
Thought-provoking, fizzing with jokes ... Smith is celebrating a Shakespeare who talks to the present. She does it all with such a light touch you barely notice how much you're learning ... Anyone who doesn't understand what the fuss is all about should read This Is Shakespeare (Colin Burrow)
An outstanding book ... a distillation of intricate conceptual and textual cruces into readable prose ... lively and unexpectedly moving ... curious and passionate ... [It reminds me] why I came to enjoy Shakespeare so much in the first place (Sophie Duncan)
Intriguing ... Smith argues that the defining characteristic of Shakespeare's plays is their 'permissive gappiness'. This must also surely be the first book on Shakespeare to use the slang term 'woke'
A joy to read, full of questions, surprises, and new ideas. Smith brings us remarkable new readings of Shakespeare, and a sense of how his work lives on the stage. A wonderful book (Margaret Drabble)
All stars
Most relevant
... why aren't the Audible chapters given titles?!

Frustrating.

I love the context, both contemporary and modern, that Smith gives the plays.

Brilliant! Except...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A brilliant book - so much packed in, with a light touch (and dry wit). Fascinating angles taken on individual plays - which add up both to a reading of the whole and an approach to reading and viewing Shakespeare. Teaching as it should be - makes you want to learn more.

Engaging, fascinating and illuminating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Lucid, witty, allusive, and thoroughly compelling. The very best critical appraisal of a playwright I love, but others don't for various solid reasons, that I have ever encountered.

A Reading of Shakespeare to Make Shakespeare Important to Anyone

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Concise, unstuffy and clear. After a life enjoying Shakespeare it made me re-examine a lot of my “lazy thinking”. And I particularly like the concept of gappiness.

Absolutely brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
When I was young, I thought Shakespeare was the worst thing ever. I used to think what does this man have to say to people today when everything that he wrote is 400 years old. I studied ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘the Merchant of Venice’ when at school with Macbeth thrown in somewhere. I didn’t understand much of it and often thought what on earth the Hamlet speech of “to be or not to be“was about (it’s amazing now as he wonders what is life and if he should end it). Fortunately, I did further exams when I got to the age of 24 at night school and was introduced to ‘Richard III’, ‘the Tempest’ and ‘twelfth night’ and suddenly, like a switch bulb suddenly illuminating the dark, I begun to marvel at his prose, poetry and the wisdom. And then I was fortunate enough to see the ‘The Plantagenets: Henry VI and Richard III’ with a young Ralph Fiennes and Anton Lesser, and every word I understood and sparkled like gold. That the author states, Shakespeare is about asking questions not answering them. He certainly makes you ask questions about everything, and especially the human condition. Suddenly I was in love with everything that Shakespeare wrote. He went from my least favourite writer to being my favourite writer of all time (and still is). I had probably not lived enough or felt enough to understand how much his words could so explain the human condition. Who we are, how we behave, the contradictions within us, the passing of time, identity, family, love, why we exist and what is this little life we lead. And if Shakespeare is confusing or difficult to understand, it’s only because our emotions and lives are also too. But his words can be like soothing balm and just right. However, I often come to every Shakespeare play confused by the first scene (the author of this book also makes that point) and often take a while to understand what is going on. So you buy a theatre program at some extortionist price, and read it’s plot. But now I have this book on my phone (kindle), it replaces every program notes you need. 20 short essays cover the history, the sources, the themes and what the play means and has meant to audiences at different times. And written well. By buying this book, you probably no longer need to buy another theatre program again when you go to the theatre. and every time I go and see a Shakespeare play, providing it’s one of the 20 in this book which it probably would be (a few notable omissions but most of the great comedies, histories and tragedies), I would read the essay first to have a clear understanding of what will be going on before my eyes. I do wish that she wrote a bit more about Caliban when covering ;the Tempest; and there is a twist to ‘the Winter's Tale’ that is given away, but that’s fine because these summaries make me want to see some plays now that I haven’t seen. And I do enjoy the comments on the ones I know well. Well worth a read of any of summaries of the twenty plays included in this book before you see the actual play itself. You will have a greater understanding of it. And it will save you a fortune in buying programs (unless you want to know whose in the play) and perhaps we should buy the programmes to help the arts out. And this book definitely complements the plays.

A great primer to understand the greatest writer

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews