Shakespeare's Major Plays Volume 1

Reviewed by Jason Parks, Professor of English, Anderson University on 7/23/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

As an introductory book for three of Shakespeare's plays (Hamlet, As You Like It, and Romeo and Juliet), this textbook provides full texts of each play and supplemental material. However, with all of the resources available on these plays, there's room for additional material. It is excellent for providing a cohesive introduction to Shakespeare using three plays.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The editions all come from the Folger and are accurate. The supplemental material is all based around the author's teaching/course materials, so it has consistency throughout. I'm not sure there's a way to be free from biases about Shakespeare, but this author clearly makes the effort to challenge students to think about various ways of reading Shakespeare today and also what his work would have meant to his contemporaries.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

I really like the way this author has integrated recent materials, up through at least 2022, if not even more recent. The discussion questions and supplemental material should be useful for many years to come.

Clarity rating: 5

Everything is clearly written and jargon-free.

Consistency rating: 5

The supplemental materials for each of the three plays are clearly from the same author, which gives the book consistency throughout. I think the "Attitudes and Issues" section was the most important for teachers and students to look into. The one on 'As You Like It' was especially in-depth.

Modularity rating: 4

Some of the materials blurred together and could have used stronger headings/design. I was able to scroll through easily to find different sections, but there was not preview of the sub-sections beyond the four major divisions of each "chapter."

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

There was consistent organization between chapters.

Interface rating: 4

I had no trouble navigating through the links, videos, etc. Also, the images were clear and well-documented.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

There were no errors in grammar.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

This text was not culturally insensitive. A lot of the critical focus centered around gender. Of course, there's a lot of new research and discussion around race and Shakespeare that was not brought into this book. However, the three plays for this volume aren't typically at the center of discussions around race and Shakespeare, though I would have liked to see a little more critical work in the introduction to help students realize that this was/is an issue that can and should be brought up with any play, especially since race is a factor in so many performances. I'd be curious to see additional volumes to know if this will be something that will be addressed.

Comments

If I was trying to plan an introductory Shakespeare course, and I wanted to see a good model of how to put a group of plays together for a class, this would be a helpful place to start. I like the consistency in the approach across all three plays. As a college teacher, I was most interested in the discussion questions, so I went straight for the "Attitudes and Issues" sections of each chapter. These were very good! There are other places outside of this book that you can go for historical context and performance history, but for classroom discussion guidance, this book will be helpful. The links to the Folger editions all worked fine and will help students easily stay on the same page if they are reading together. I'd definitely give this book a read through if you are thinking of teaching any of these plays or if you want a model of how to group plays together under similar themes.