In 1623 the actors John Heminges and Henry Condell assembled
Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, better known as
The First Folio. In doing so they preserved literature's most dramatically vital and poetically rich account of our human world. Endlessly reinterpreted by critics and performers, Shakespeare's inexhaustible work has remained abreast of contemporary concerns ever since, and it continues to hold a mirror up to the nature of our troubled society and our contradictory selves. The plays accompany us through the ages of mankind, from comic springtime to wintry age, compressing our life in time into the three hours' traffic of the stage; the characters in them have shaped the way we think about politics and war, consciousness and morality, love and death. Peter Conrad examines the world-view of the plays, their generic originality and their astonishingly inventive language. He goes on to explore Shakespeare's global legacy as his characters migrate to every continent and are reinvented by later writers, painters, composers, choreographers and film-makers.
A much-admired critic distils in invigorating, informative and magisterial fashion the achievement and legacy of the world's greatest dramatist.About the AuthorPeter Conrad is a literary critic and cultural historian. His books include
The Everyman History of English Literature;
Creation: Artists, Gods & Origins; and
Modern Times, Modern Places: Life and Art in the Twentieth Century.
ReviewsThe success of Peter Conrad's
Shakespeare [...] lies in the balance it strikes between personal, confessional, emotional responses such as Flaubert's, and more critical perspectives * TLS *
Book InformationISBN 9781788540179
Author Peter ConradFormat Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Head of ZeusPublisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC