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Of books about Shakespeare there is no end, and the quality is often exceptionally high. What follows then is an impressionistic list of some of the books that have given me pleasure and that I think that readers of Will in the World may find particularly interesting.
A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (1904). More than a century old, this remarkable study focuses on the protagonists of the four great tragedies—Hamlet, Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Bradley has been criticized for treating these protagonists as if they were characters in a novel, but his ability to perceive them as full human beings is precisely the source of his book's power.
C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (1959). Combining insights from social anthropology and psychoanalysis, Barber writes wonderfully about the particular kind of joy and release characteristic of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies.
Stanley Cavell, Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare (1987). Among this philosopher's dense, often startling brilliant reflections on Shakespearean skepticism and belief, the chapter on King Lear is particularly powerful.
Janet Adelman, Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare's Plays (1992). In this book, which combines feminism and psychoanalysis, Adelman makes a case for the deep anxiety in Shakespeare's work and in his culture provoked by the figure of the threatening mother.
Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All (2004). A celebrated teacher, Garber introduces each of Shakespeare's works with energy, wit, and a canny eye for contemporary cultural resonance.
Northrop Frye, Fools of Time: Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy (1967). Wise and illuminating accounts of the deep structures of several of Shakespeare's greatest plays.
Frank Kermode, Shakespeare's Language (2000). Kermode manages to convey with grace and clarity complicated perceptions about the changes in Shakespeare's style.
Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1997). Vendler provides brisk and yet suggestive close readings of each of Shakespeare's sonnets.
Stephen Orgel, The Illusion of Power: Political Theater in the English Renaissance (1975). This brief, elegant book changed the perception of the function of court theater in Shakespeare's time.
Andrew Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (1987). This lively book provides a vivid introduction to the sights and sounds of the Elizabethan theater.
James Shapiro, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005). Focusing on a single year, 1599, Shapiro gives a vivid and memorable account of the interaction between Shakespeare's writing for the stage and the historical events of his time.
Samuel Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives (1991). A sprawling, wry account of the centuries-long attempt to investigate the elusive life of the Bard.
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