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Stanley Wells (1) (1930–)

Autor(a) de The Shakespeare Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

Para outros autores com o nome Stanley Wells, veja a página de desambiguação.

Stanley Wells (1) foi considerado como pseudónimo de Stanley W. Wells.

60+ Works 2,223 Membros 33 Reviews 2 Favorited

Obras de Stanley Wells

Foram atribuídas obras ao autor também conhecido como Stanley W. Wells.

Shakespeare: For All Time (2002) 149 cópias
Shakespeare, Sex, and Love (2010) 87 cópias
Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide (2003) 74 cópias
Shakespeare: A Life in Drama (1995) 62 cópias
Shakespeare's Sonnets (1986) 44 cópias
Shakespeare and Race (2000) 11 cópias
Aspects of Shakespeare's 'Problem Plays' (1982) — Editor — 3 cópias
An A-Z guide to Shakespeare (2013) 2 cópias
King Lear 1 exemplar(es)
History of King Lear 1 exemplar(es)
Kas on tõsi, et Shakespeare ...? (2010) 1 exemplar(es)

Associated Works

Foram atribuídas obras ao autor também conhecido como Stanley W. Wells.

Shakespeare's Bawdy (1948) — Prefácio, algumas edições329 cópias
All the Sonnets of Shakespeare (2020) — Editor — 61 cópias

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Resenhas

Wonderful, wonderful, and still more wonderful!

This is, for my money, the most readable, approachable, intelligent introduction to Shakespeare studies that I've yet found. Each of the book's 45 chapters is written by a different scholar, and edited by Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin. Over the course of this 45 chapters, readers are given a detailed but comprehensive introduction to the headline topics. This includes Shakespeare's life from birth to death; the theatres and culture of his time; how plays were written, performed, and printed; Shakespeare's genres; close readings of several of the plays; performance practice through the ages; some of the main branches of Shakespearean criticism, ranging from post-colonial and feminist to new historicism; Shakespeare on film and in translation; and Shakespeare online. While the last of those categories is hopelessly outdated, the rest remains invaluable.

What the editors get right is that each chapter is written with a scholarly air, rather than presenting "Shakespeare for Dummies!". At the same time, I wish that some of my Penguin or Arden editions chose to include a few of these morsels. The plain-speaking explanation of the difference between iambs, trochees and spondees will be of much use to someone approaching Shakespeare with trepidation. Each chapter also includes a bibliography for suggested reading, which should be able to direct the keen reader to a wealth of knowledge.

Of course, at the end of the day, most chapters are roughly 10 pages long. This is an overview, and a ground-level one at that. But, after all, the joy of Shakespeare is in the discovery. I recommend this book to all - even if you're fairly well-read - as you'll find many avenues to explore in the future.
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therebelprince | Oct 24, 2023 |
Just great. Stanley Wells can do no wrong, and this is yet another example. The book takes a no-nonsense approach to Shakespeare, laying out the basic facts we know about him and the theatre of his time, and then devoting much of the book to Shakespeare's afterlife. Wells regales us with stories of the actors, directors, writers, naysayers, fans, and idolaters who kept Shakespeare's name in the common mind for four hundred years. By the nature of this book, it's inevitably a surface-level tour. The book has a lengthy bibliography, as this is not attempting to be comprehensive so much as all-encompassing.

I'd say this is a worthy read for any Shakespeare fan, because it covers a different tract of the area of scholarship. This book is much more about how the public and the fans grappled with Shakespeare's works, rather than how academics did so, and for this it is highly worth reading.
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therebelprince | 1 outra resenha | Oct 24, 2023 |
I really read this in: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/30864936?book_show_action=false

As mentioned previously, my readings of the Quarto Text of King Lear have been cursed; every time I try it I get ill. The first time I got 'flu and was only able to remember the outline of the first scene in which the division of the Kingdom takes place.

The second (i.e. this) time I got a respiratory infection that lasted two weeks, which interrupted my reading and thereby weakened the drama no end. (I have learned not to try to read anything demanding serious concentration whilst ill from the first time round with the 'flu and a similar experience with Wuthering Heights and another illness.)

This disruption leads me to not really be able to assess the play all that well. Instead I rely on an outdoor amatuer production I saw a few years ago that no doubt followed the normal route of conflating the Quarto and Folio versions, then no doubt cutting for length when I say I think it's a powerful, affecting dramatic work.

This reading does confirm my view that Lear is the Old Man's Tragedy in contrast to Hamlet as the Young Man's (Adolescent's?) Tragedy. The instigating events are pretty foolish (as usual more foolish than the Fool proves to be) but they seem to be the mistakes of a person late in life wanting to simultaneously step back from power and yet retain the trappings and respect that go with it. Hamlet, on the other hand is young, inexperienced and oscillating between indecisive dithering and impetuous reaction, all the while treating others badly as he behaves in an extremely self-absorbed fashion.

That Lear misjudges his daughters to such an extent is perhaps related to Kingship and being overly used to flattery but also indicates that he doesn't have the perception to see through it. The indications are that he was competent in his younger days or at least accepted good advice, but now, as is common in people who retain positions of power for a long time, he seems to have come to believe his own hype. These things are the root of the tragedy that follows.

Lear displays many of the tropes defining Jacobean Revenge Drama, particularly gruesome bodily mutilations and an enormous body count of significant characters in the final act, but any discernible revenge element is present only in the subplot surrounding Edgar and Edmund.

As already mentioned, performances tend to conflate Quarto and Folio texts. This follows the normal practice in print editions. Here, Wells and co. have taken the unusual step of presenting each each version separately and in full, suggesting that the unusually extensive changes Shakespeare made in response to performance of the original, which go beyond simple revisions of wording to include structural changes to the play, mean that in effect the Folio version represents a "second edition" that should be judged separately and probably accurately reflects performances from about 1604 onward. Hence conflated texts, whilst not necessarily intrinsically a bad thing, are really a form of adaptation in that they do not accurately reflect any performances during Shakespeare's lifetime.

Since the curse seems to be restricted in scope, as it evidently does not affecting performance, I am hoping it also does not affect the Folio text which appears later on and I will be able to get through it without getting another infection! As it is, with 11 plays (if I re-read MacBeth, which I am increasingly tempted to do) and about 2/3 of the sonnets still to go, finishing the Complete Works this year is looking unlikely.
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Marcado
Arbieroo | Jul 17, 2020 |
OK - I haven't really read this cover to cover, but I used it recently whilst reading The Rape of Lucrece and thought it was fantastic. Besides entries on individual works and characters there are articles about Shakespeare's contemporaries, literary, theatrical and political, among others. Also entries on famous productions, filmic, radio, recorded and even stage versions!

Need to know where Dunsinane is? Or Agincourt? Look it up on the map of Shakespeare's Europe. Need to know which Monarch followed which - or was killed or had how many children? Look it up on the Shakespeare Royal family tree.

This book is endlessly fascinating; in about 300 words I learned more about the work of T.S. Eliot than in all the critical discussions I've ever been party to; want to know when the first translation of Shakespeare into any major language was made? Look it up!

Easily used, easy to read, informative and fun!
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Marcado
Arbieroo | outras 5 resenhas | Jul 17, 2020 |

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David Kathman Contributor
Gillian Day Contributor
Nick Walton Contributor
John Farndon Contributor
Anjna Chouhan Contributor
Paul Edmondson Contributor, Editor
Alan H. Nelson Contributor
Hardy M. Cook Contributor
Katherine Scheil Contributor
Cathy Shrank Contributor
Tara Hamling Contributor
Andy Kesson Contributor
Lucy Munro Contributor
Bart Van Es Contributor
Lachlan Mackinnon Contributor
David Fallow Contributor
Duncan Salkeld Contributor
Margaret Drabble Contributor
David Riggs Contributor
Germaine Greer Contributor
Michael Wood Contributor
Andrew Hadfield Contributor
Susan Brock Contributor
John H. Astington Contributor
Graham Holderness Contributor
Emma Smith Contributor
Greg Wells Contributor
René Weis Contributor
Wole Soyinka Contributor
Jonathan Bate Contributor
Michael Shapiro Contributor
Michael Dobson Contributor
G. K. Hunter Contributor
Roger May Narrator
Ben Ruocco Illustrator
Laura Brim Cover designer
James Graham Illustrator
Claire Gell Cover designer

Estatísticas

Obras
60
Also by
3
Membros
2,223
Popularidade
#11,534
Avaliação
4.0
Resenhas
33
ISBNs
158
Idiomas
5
Favorito
2

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