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The Shakespeare Novels: The novelization of Shakespeares plays adds an entirely new dimension to the enjoyment and fuller appreciation of his work. Al
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though he wrote thirty-seven magnificent plays, few people other than English and drama majors are familiar with more than a handful of them. Yet all his plays are intricately plotted and among them they contain all the elements of great fiction: romance, comedy, tragedy, intrigue, dramatic climaxes, surprise twists and denouements, warforeign and civil, murder, rape, incest, mystery, madness, revenge, deadly duels, the clash of mighty opposites, noble sacrifices, tyranny, villainous plots, horror, superstition, the supernatural, mistaken identity, religion, miracles, panoramic epics, history, hilarity, delight, farce, sagacity, and the worlds greatest love stories, including deadly triangles, suicides, dark rendevous, pandered love, sizzling sensuality, jealousy, betrayal, seduction, star- crossed lovers, summer love, eternal love, and even the inimitable Falstaff in love, by order of Queen Bess. Although Shakespeare did say Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love, his great love stories give that quip the lie. Now fortunately you dont have to go to school and take a class in English lit to understand and enjoy Shakespeare. Here are the worlds most memorable plays in everyday English, in easy, highly readably novel form, written initially for the student and the playgoer yes, but really for anyone seeking a great story. Shakespeare as youve never known him, except that ironically, this time, you will really know him!
A brief caveat: A change from one art form to another necessitates many innovations. However, in converting the plays to novels, I would maintain that I have taken far fewer liberties than the average director takes in either producing a play for the stage or in converting it to a screen play. No two directors ever produce the same play, and indeed, dont we often go to see a play or movie to see just how the director or a star has interpreted the play or a major character? In modernizing the plays, I strived to keep their stories true to Shakespeare without writing them as hybrid novels. Thus while they remain effective study aides and guides to the theater-goer, they are enjoyable as just good reading for everyone.
King Lear: From beginning to end King Lear is an astounding story, a surprisingly fast-paced interweaving of several exceptionally strong and heavy plots. In the old-fashioned presentations, The Tragedy of King Lear is a wrenching history of such great poignancy that Lear haunts us ever, calls to us as mystically as the evening star, whose distant glimmer beckons to us back into the misty memory of time immemorial. Certainly the later poet, Dylan Thomas, who urged the aged to rage, rage, against the dying of the light, might well have had King Lear in mind. But looked at without the Victorian blinders, as this novel does, the insatiable sexuality of the Princesses Goneril and Regan and the vile machinations of Edmund fully delineated rather than glossed over make Lear a sizzling play of monumental evil in which good survives as much because of the self-destructive nature of evil as by any action of the more virtuous characters. Indeed, among the good, their own failings become the foil of the evil doers. Lears vanity and ultimate folly bring his house down upon himself, Cordelias stubbornness and overrefined sensitivity doom her to nonsurvival, while Edgars trusting nature and navet put him through much pain. Old Gloucesters lack of faith in his good son and his readiness to believe ill about another leads to his hideous and pathetic downfall. If youll forgive me, I have not figured out what the Fool did to deserve his fate, except that maybe we fools just dont last long i
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