Absolute Shakespeare - the essential resource for William Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, poems, quotes, biography and the legendary Globe Theatre. Igazából maguk a történetek sem tudtak megfogni. Még az is, amelyiket szeretem (mondjuk a Vízkeresztet kifejezetten szeretem, bár ott is valószínűleg a feldolgozások érték el ezt), itt idegesített. Tudom, hogy kvázi ez a mesék feladata, de a rengeteg sztereotípia és agyonhasznált toposz/fordulat is csak eltávolított. Például A velencei kalmár végletekig gonosz uzsorás zsidója a 20. század tükrében kifejezetten nyomasztó volt – és ezt most nem felróni akarom, csak egyszerűen ezt éreztem. Emellett viszont nagyon ideje volt már megismernem a Hamlet történetét vagy mondjuk az Othellot. I'm not so sure that this book is appropriately titled. Many of the adaptations in here are too far above the developmental level of what I consider to be "children," but they are probably perfectly appropriate for kids between 12 and oh, 14 or 15 years old. Kids edging into 14, 15, and certainly 16 years old should be receiving some exposure to William Shakespeare's own writing, but I think that this book might help them understand the arc of some of Shakespeare's plays better. Then my father would play a game with us. He knew quite a few Shakespeare plays by heart and we'd get to test him. Well, being the oldest and best at reading, I got the supporting role. I'd read a line from the play and he'd say who said it and when. He was always right, I'd be reduced to trying things like 'Halt' and we'd wait with breath bated while he decided if that was guard one or guard two. It was exciting! Right, I may be in the minority here but this book was a mangled mess in my eyes missing the comedy particularly of the original plays. Whilst I could give the treatment of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Othello" 4 stars, the (mis)treatment of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was shameful, missing all the fun and froth of the original play.

On the more general question of Shakespeare's value for Christian readers, Terry W. Glaspey wrote (in Great Books of the Christian Tradition) "Whatever the circumstances of his personal life, it is unquestionably true that Shakespeare wrote from a Christian worldview. His insights on human will, guilt, forgiveness, and the search for truth should be required reading for every believer. His grasp of the human condition is perhaps unmatched in literature." But brother and sister also wrote with a mission - Charles to follow his adored Coleridge's lead in the stimulation of fantasy; Mary to open horizons for girls. They cast themselves as messengers, almost evangelists, for the bard; they were translating the national genius for a new audience and bringing his message to a new generation. A Midsummer Night's Dream: Magic is in the air. Magical forest, invisible fairies bring lovers together, undetected. Love is created by magic when it isn't there. Everyone lives happily ever after. Writing their wild tales together, the Lambs fulfilled one of the most ancient visions of storytelling and its function. When Charles, in the preface, exhorted his readers to use Shakespeare to enrich fancy and strengthen virtue and discover generosity and humanity, he was talking to himself and about himself - and his sister. Plunged into Shakespeare's stories, with all their extremes of human irregularity and ruin, mischief and feeling, relation and disconnection, the two of them were entirely absorbed, their mental faculties busily imagining and organising their imaginings. The effect on them was fortifying. Even while Mary took snuff and Charles groaned, the making of Tales from Shakespeare was a comparatively steady and successful time for them both, proving the Romantic principle that the inward eye can bring a kind of happiness in sequestration, if not bliss. Despite its original target audience, "very young" children from the early twenty-first century might find this book a challenging read, and alternatives are available. Nevertheless, the retelling of the Lamb siblings remains uniquely faithful to the original [3] and as such can be useful to children when they read or learn the plays as Shakespeare wrote them. [5] Publication history [ edit ]

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Charles and Mary Lamb have delighted generations of adults as well as children with their famed prose renderings of Shakespeare’s originals. Bringing the plays to life in a form that encourages readers to enjoy and explore, Tales from Shakespeare provides an entertaining and informative introduction to the great works while retaining much of Shakespeare’s lyricism, phrasing, and rhythm. It is a captivating work of Romantic storytelling as well as the original literary homage to the Bard. Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb is a 1001 Children's Book. I've had a copy of it for a long time, and I'd originally planned to read the chapter from this book at the same time I read the play. I did this for two chapters before I realized it might take me an eternity to get through this book if I continued to read at that pace. I decided, instead, to read it during Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon; children's books are usually perfect for a readathon. Othello is a melodrama that is exalted into tragedy through the brilliance of its characterization and the magnificence of its poetry." (Marchette Chute) Note: Parents should read ahead for references to an affair. If you use SparkNotes No Fear Shakespeare, be aware that they translate some vague references to unfaithfulness more explicitly than Shakespeare's text does. You will not want to hand your child this guide to read unsupervised! Advice on Shakespeare from the AO Advisory Question: What is the purpose for using Shakespeare? What are the educational benefits? What about some of the questionable situations in his plays?

In 1893-4, the book was supplemented with some additional tales by Harrison S. Morris, and was re-published in the USA as a multi-volume set with colour plate illustrations. [13] As noted in the authors' preface, "[Shakespeare's] words are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; and in whatever has been added to give them the regular form of a connected story, diligent care has been taken to select such words as might least interrupt the effect of the beautiful English tongue in which he wrote: therefore, words introduced into our language since his time have been as far as possible avoided."

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Now that I know the stories of these plays maybe I'll be more comfortable reading the originals. I'm noticing out of these only Macbeth is one without a happy ending, hmm. The Merchant of Venice is a romantic comedy, but of a most unusual kind. For the theme is money, and the climax tells of an attempted murder." (Marchette Chute)

First published in 1807, and never out of print, these stories, adapted from 20 of Shakespeare's plays, are clever and powerful summaries designed to provide children with enough plot and characterisation to allow them to understand the plays themselves when they later see or read the authentic versions.' - Independent

OK, first: I am literature purist, and generally am very adverse to "children's versions" of anything. I would instead start by teaching a simpler play like Romeo and Juliet or Julius Caesar in say, sixth or seventh grade as an introduction to Shakespeare. I suppose the Lamb version is all right to introduce the Bard to very young students. For my fifth grade class, I taught the Lamb version and I still fear it may have done them a disservice. Actually, I was so concerned that it might bleed out any interest they had in the Bard, that I condensed Romeo and Juliet (every line was unedited Shakespeare, as I wanted them to get familiar with the sheer poetry and power of his language) into a 10 minute play for them to perform, which they nailed! They absorbed and understood an impressive amount of all that Shakespearean English, and by the end, they could all recite the entire skit from memory. Reading the real thing makes students hungry for more and eager to become better readers. Being spoon-fed the toothless Lamb version, runs the risk of students wrongly assuming that Shakespeare is as dry as the Lambs. Macbeth: Another adaptation that's probably too complex for younger kids. The language in this one is very Victorian again, and if that could be modernized a bit, then I think kids under 12 could understand the story here, I just don't think they'd understand the depth of it. For an excellent adaptation of the play, teens and adults should take a look at Macbeth by A.J. Hartley and David Hewson. That was gooood.... In the preface, Mary declared her intentions: first, she wrote, "I have wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young children ... but the subjects of most of them have made this a very difficult task." She thus prepared the way for an adaptation that does not exactly censor, but nevertheless keeps in mind children's sensitivities and understanding. But this is not the full aim of the Tales. The preface then specifies: "For young ladies too it has been my intention chiefly to write, because boys are generally permitted the use of their fathers' libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently having the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book ..." Mary then begged these privileged young men for "their kind assistance in explaining to their sisters such parts as are hardest for them to understand ..." It would be as possible for me to say I love nothing in the world so well as you; but do not believe me, and yet I do not lie. I confess nothing and I deny nothing.” Lamb's Tales is another one of my attempts to pave my way into the world of Shakespear. It's my uncle's, so I had easy access to it, so I said why not. I feel such an obligation to prepare myself for this magnificent piece of art, it's a privilege.