The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide

There are some enterprises where “making it new”, to borrow Ezra Pound's mantra, is particularly difficult, and finding something new to say in the vast field of Shakespeare studies certainly comes to mind as a challenge. Yet even given the unparalleled literature available on this most canonised of authors, The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide is a quietly magnificent achievement. Emma Smith, Fellow and Tutor in English at Hertford College, Oxford, has succeeded in producing an admirably concise little handbook. It renders summaries of the Bard's plots and key characters, and the main themes of his works, with both economy and sensitivity...