Bøker av William Shakespeare

GREED, BETRAYAL, MADNESS King Lear, first performed around 1805, and thought to have been written between Othello and Macbeth, is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. It is a story of madness and flattery and the struggle for power but above all it is about human suffering, as we watch a monarch who is betrayed by his daughters and robbed of his kingdom descend into madness. It is one of the most relentlessly bleak of Shakespeare's tragedies. The story challenges us with the magnitude, the intensity, and the sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Lear's themes of ingratitude, injustice, and the meaninglessness of life are explored with unsurpassed power and depth. Greed, treachery, and cruelty are everywhere and the final act of the play is both brutal and heartbreaking. As we see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, along with pride, and, perhaps, wisdom-it is only one reason that this most devastating of Shakespeare's tragedies is also perhaps his most moving. The play has been widely adapted for the stage and motion pictures, with the title role coveted by many of the world's most accomplished actors.

One of Shakespeare's most famous and controversial plays, The Merchant of Venice, is an intriguing drama of love, greed, and revenge. Believed to have been written in 1596, it is classified as a comedy, but while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps remembered more for its dramatic scenes, and especially for the character of Shylock, a vengeful Venetian moneylender. At its heart, the play contrasts the characters of Shylock, with the gracious, level-headed Portia, a wealthy young woman, besieged by suitors. One suitor in particular, Antonio, a merchant in Venice, must default on a large loan provided by Shylock, who insists on the enforcement of the binding contract that will cost the life of Antonio, inciting Portia to mount a memorable defense. In this richly plotted drama, Shylock, whom Shakespeare endowed with the depth and vitality of his greatest characters, is not alone in his villainy. In fact, the large cast of ambitious and scheming characters demonstrates in scene after scene, that honesty is a quality often strained where matters of love and money are concerned. In many of the play's productions, Shylock gives such powerful expression to his alienation due to the hatred around him that, he emerges as the hero. The suspense and gravity of the play's main plot, along with its romance, have made The Merchant of Venice an audience favorite and one of the most studied and performed of Shakespeare's plays.

This is a beautifully designed original classic edition of William Shakespeare's tragedy that is considered one of his darkest and most powerful works.

"This edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream takes the comedy seriously. Like my previous Hackett editions, it gives full weight to Shakespeare's dramatic setting, which other editors (and scholars) almost always ignore or at least fail adequately to consider. Ancient Athens is the core, not the mere background, of Midsummer Night's Dream. As we shall see, Shakespeare focuses, in particular, on the love of the beautiful and the triumph of learning and art, along with the rise of democracy, which, as Pericles' famously claims, are the hallmarks of Athens. 'We are lovers of the beautiful with thrift, and lovers of wisdom without softness' (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 2.40.1). [...] Failure to consider classical Athens as central to Midsummer Night's Dream will cause a reader to miss not only the play's remarkable substance, but much of its sparkling comedy as well. Far from impeding the play's humor, focusing on Athens helps to bring out multi-layers of comedy that Shakespeare put there."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet, actor and one of the greatest writers to ever use the English language. He was also the world's greatest playwright of all times, with his plays being translated in over 50 languages and performed across the globe for audiences of all ages. Known as ""The Bard"" or the ""Bard of Avon," Shakespeare created his own theatre on the River Thames in 1599 and named it the Globe Theatre, a historical theatre, that is visited by thousands of tourists every year.Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 -1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 37 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.And even after 400 long years, his plays are still read, loved and relevant in today's society. Shakespeare wrote about timeless themes such as life and death, youth and old age, love and hate, fate and freedom, to name but a few. Shakespeare's plays are studied in academia all across the world, the most famous are: Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar and Macbeth. Apart from the rich language, these plays contain a great deal of valuable advice.

Hamlet is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature.