"Essential Shakespeare Handbook"

Original title: "Short-Winded Guide to All of Shakespeare"

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

At last a comprehensive book about Shakespeare that’s easy and lively to read. The Essential Shakespeare Handbook is “easy” because the text by Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding is absolutely clear and everywhere concise despite its anchor in modern scholarship. The book is “lively” not only because of its stimulating text but also because of its hundreds of colorful and imaginative illustrations.

Readers familiar with lush Web content may feel right at home here. But though the book’s 480 pages are loaded with both visual and verbal content, they don’t make your head spin. Instead, they radiate the classic calm of a fine art book.

Published by DK in April 2004, the book has three sections: The first contains an overview of Shakespeare’s life (1564–1616), writings, and influence. This section also summarizes the history of Shakespeare’s era—the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods—which took their names from Queen Elizabeth I and King James I, respectively. During that time, the provincial island of England became a world power, and her medieval population became a great modern society.

Among the most important influences on Shakespeare and his world were discoveries in science and astronomy that shattered Ptolemy’s view of Earth motionless at the center of the universe. This egocentric view had ruled European thought since the 2nd Century A.D. In its place, Copernicus put forth the unnerving view that Earth and all the other planets were mere satellites constantly circling the sun. The Copernican idea was bitterly opposed both theologically and scientifically, which led to widespread doubt and skepticism during Shakespeare’s time that found expression in his famous plays Hamlet and Measure for Measure.

The second section of the handbook offers synopses of all 39 of Shakespeare’s plays, arranged first by type (histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances), then by date of composition. In addition to readable plot summaries, this section also touches on the extensive performance history of the plays between Shakespeare’s time and the present day. For example, the 10 pages devoted to Macbeth include images from productions by Ingmar Bergman, Angelo Longoni, Orson Welles, and Akira Kurosawa, demonstrating Shakespeare’s worldwide modern influence.

The third section of the handbook is devoted to Shakespeare’s nondramatic work—the narrative poems that brought him fame and fortune during his lifetime and the lyric poems (the sonnets) so popular in our time. From 1592 to 1594, an outbreak of the plague forced the theaters in London to close, so Shakespeare turned from writing plays to writing poems. In those days, playwrights were regarded as disreputable fellows, but poets were highly praised and respected. Shakespeare’s narrative poem Venus and Adonis offered a classical theme trendy then, but it was probably the poem’s erotic content that made it a best seller. Between first release in 1593 and the poet’s death in 1616, Venus and Adonis burned through nine editions.

You can likely borrow the Essential Shakespeare Handbook from your local library. But if you’re a Shakespeare buff or enjoy attending performances of Shakespeare’s plays, such as those at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival near Ashland, you might prefer to own a copy. The book’s graphics alone, small in size but large in number, are worth the book’s retail price of $25.