Search results for ""author robert thomas fallon""

Readers and playgoers who are new to Shakespeare (and even more seasoned veterans who would like to appreciate him more than they do) often find themselves puzzled: what is going on? His characters speak in verse rather than in the patterns of everyday speech. They are figures that ordinary humans seldom encounter—kings, queens, dukes, cardinals, and generals. Some of the plays are set in places even the most seasoned traveler is unlikely to have visited—Bohemia, Illyria, and the ancient Greek cities of Asia Minor—and in times from the distant past—imperial Rome, medieval Venice, Homer's Troy. What's more, the plots pursue events that seemingly have little to do with the daily round of modern lives—contention for a royal crown, assassination, shipwreck, occult visitation. Robert Fallon's small book is designed to dispel some of this apparent strangeness. It shows readers that what may at first seem unfamiliar to them is in fact close to their own lives. Kings and queens emerge as recognizable fathers and mothers, dukes and earls as squabbling siblings of any era. Exotic locales might be any present-day village or city block. And the plots resemble stories to be found in the pages of our morning newspaper. Shakespeare's language takes some getting used to, but even a brief acquaintance with its cadence and imagery will offer a glimpse of its glories. In How to Enjoy Shakespeare, Mr. Fallon explores Shakespeare's familiarity in five sections dealing with language, theme, staging, character, and plot, each abundantly illustrated with episodes and quotations from the plays. He writes in easily accessible prose in a book designed to make modern readers and audiences feel comfortable with the Bard.

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In surveys of the plays that will help readers and viewers follow the action with ease and understanding, Robert Fallon opens a window to Shakespeare's time while illuminating the timelessness of his works. Mr. Fallon examines the most frequently staged plays scene by scene, and those less frequently performed act by act. He provides intelligent readers with incisive and engaging commentary on character, theme, setting, poetry, and stage history. Wonderfully reader-friendly. —William Kerrigan, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

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Following on his successful Guides to the plots and themes of Shakespeare's plays, Robert Fallon now explores the world of characters created by the Bard. Like Mr. Fallon's earlier books, A Theatergoer's Guide to Shakespeare's Characters is designed to enhance the playgoer's enjoyment of a performance, but it also makes for enlightening reading after the show. Intended for the general reader, it is written in plain but not inelegant English and avoids the specialized language of the theater and the academy. More than eight hundred characters appear in Shakespeare's thirty-eight plays—an astonishing variety of kings and queens, mothers and fathers, clowns and fairies, peasants and dukes, villains and heroes, the young and the old, the sinning and the sinned against. How could he have known so many in his diverse culture and portrayed them so convincingly? Mr. Fallon has chosen some sixty of these figures to examine. With few exceptions, they are the ones that modern theatergoers are most likely to encounter in performance, those that have captured the imagination of audiences over the centuries: Lear, Hamlet, Cleopatra, Rosalind, Portia, and the like. But some lesser-known characters are offered for their inherent interest and their example of Shakespeare's "infinite variety." Mr. Fallon locates each of them in the story of their play, relates them to other characters, shows how they change (or don't), and sums up their character and nature. Readers of his other Guides know they will find in Characters an entertaining and useful appraisal. "This book is as handy as they come...distilled without being dunderheaded—reader-friendly in the extreme."—American Theatre (on A Theatergoer's Guide to Shakespeare)

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Robert Fallon has written a book for those whose encounter with a play by Shakespeare, either in performance or on the printed page, has left them occasionally puzzled as to what in the world is going on. Shakespeare can be difficult: he wrote largely in verse and not in everyday speech; his plays are set in unfamiliar locales; and his lines abound in allusions that were familiar to Elizabethan audiences but not, alas, to us. His plays move us despite these difficulties, but they would even more so if we had a bit of deciphering and knew more about Shakespeare's London. A Theatergoer’s Guide opens a window to that time while illuminating the timelessness of Shakespeare’s plays, their portrayal of the human condition in any age. Written for the general reader “in plain though not inelegant English,” the book is mercifully free of academic jargon or scholarly apparatus. It examines the most frequently staged plays scene by scene, and those less frequently performed act by act, in chapters that may be read in one sitting in anywhere from five to forty minutes. These chapters pursue the sequence of events clearly, but they are much more than tedious plot summaries, and they do not “dumb down” Shakespeare. They provide intelligent readers with incisive and engaging commentary on character, theme, setting, poetry, and stage history, in surveys that will help them follow the action with ease and understanding. Dedicated theatergoers as well as students and teachers unfamiliar with a play will find the book a rich source of pleasure and insight. It is destined to become a standard work in the field.

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