Essential Shakespeare

A go-to guide to help undergraduates navigate their way through university Shakespeare, examining 16 key plays.

Preface to the Revised Edition
How to Use this Book

Introduction
1. A Midsummer Night's Dream: Transformations, Illusions, Festivity
2. Much Ado About Nothing: Exploring Language and Gender
3. As You Like It: 'Let the Forest Judge'
4. Twelfth Night, Or What You Will: Genderqueer Desires
5. Measure for Measure (and its problems. . .)
6. Titus Andronicus: Shakespeare's Most Violent Play?
7. Hamlet: Repeats, Returns, Retellings
8. Othello: Sex, Race and Rhetoric
9. King Lear: 'That things might change, or cease'
10. Macbeth: Kingship and Witchcraft
11. Antony and Cleopatra: The Legendary on Stage
12. King Richard II: The Performance of Majesty
13. King Richard III: History's Monster or Charismatic Villain?
14. Cymbeline: Moving Across Place, Time and Genres
15. The Winter's Tale: Tyranny, Trials, Time
16. The Tempest: Where 'Thought is free'

Linking Questions
Recommended Open Access Online Resources
Glossary of Critical Terms Used in this Book
Abbreviations
References
Index