Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with discussion questions, role-playing scenarios, and other study activities. The Bard's original poetic phrases are printed side-by-side and line-by-line with the modern translation on each facing page. While Shakespeare's immortal plays have endured, the English language has changed -- which is why today's students often find Shakespeare's idiom difficult to comprehend....

"Othello, the general of the Venetian army, holds much power and influence but becomes the target of an insidious plot to steal his coveted position. He is overcome with paranoia and enthralled with rumors of his wife's potential infidelity. Othello has fallen in love with a senator's daughter, Desdemona, and the two secretly marry. Their partnership generates shock and confusion as Desdemona was also loved by Roderigo, who'd already asked for her...

The Oxford School Shakespeare has become the preferred introduction to the literary legacy of the greatest playwright in the English language. This exclusive collection of the Bard's best works has been designed specifically for readers new to Shakespeare's rich literary legacy. Each play is presented complete and unabridged. Every book is well illustrated, and starts with a commentary and character summary, Scene synopses and character summaries...

Featuring the images of some of the world's most famous stage and film actors, these additions to the all-new Oxford School Shakespeare introduce--and enthrall--young people to one of the greatest writers of all time. This season brings revised editions of five of the Bard's most famous plays--As You Like It, Othello, Hamlet, Love's Labour Lost and The Taming of the Shrew. Designed specifically for students unfamiliar with Shakespeare's rich literary...

"For this updated critical edition of Romeo and Juliet, Hester Lees-Jeffries has written a completely new Introduction. It draws on recent research in theatre to set Romeo and Juliet in its mid-1590s context, making connections with other plays by Shakespeare and other literature of the period, as well as with the social and cultural contexts of the day, with discussions of London and Italy; dancing and duelling; marriage, gender and sexuality. It...

"Much of the action takes place on an almost clinically bare stage, and the fear and violence in the usurping Duke's court, where everyone wears formal black Elizabethan dress, is chilling. With his lame eye and air of festering resentment, Sandy Neilson's Duke Frederick has a touch of the psychotic about him ... Boyd ... shows us the bloody reality of rural life as the shepherd Corin (excellent Geoffrey Freshwater) slowly skins and beheads a dead...

"In Cymbeline, Ancient Britain's female heir to the throne is slandered by a decadent Italian while the Romans invade Britain to retain it as part of their empire. Shakespeare's late romance is full of unpredictable conjunctions that are explored in the comprehensive introduction to this new, fully-illustrated Arden edition. Valerie Wayne takes a transformative look at the play's critical and performance history by examining its attention to gender,...

Believed to have been written in 1591, William Shakespeare's "Richard III" is one of the bards first plays, the first installment in a tetralogy of plays which includes "Henry IV, Part I," "Henry IV, Part II," and "Henry V." One of the longest of Shakespeare's plays and consequently rarely performed unabridged, "Richard III" is the story of the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England. The play begins with...

Jealousy in love is one of the most common of human emotions. In Othello, Shakespeare combines this universal theme with perfectly structured scenes, a storyline that lingers in the memory and a prime example of a tragic hero, Othello himself. The result is perhaps his greatest triumph as a stage play. When the evil Iago plants the seeds of doubt in Othello's mind about Desdemona's fidelity, audiences around the world have been held spellbound.

A Danish prince avenges the murder of his father, the king, by killing his uncle Claudius who murdered the king, usurped the throne, and married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Hamlet, considered the most complex of all Shakespeare's characters, examines the fundamental issues of justice, guilt, and death.