Richard III

By William Shakespeare and Paul Werstine

The authoritative edition of Richard III from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.

In Richard III, Shakespeare invites us on a moral holiday. The play draws us to identify with Richard and his fantasy of total control of self and domination of others. Not yet king at the start of the play, Richard presents himself as an enterprising villain as he successfully plans to dispose of his brother Clarence. Richard achieves similar success in conquering the woman he chooses to marry. He carves a way to the throne through assassination and executions.

This edition includes:
-The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference
-Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently linked to the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
-An annotated guide to further reading

Essay by Phyllis Rackin

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Oct 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781476788500

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

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THE NEW FOLGER LIBRARY

SHAKESPEARE

Designed to make Shakespeare’s great plays available to all readers, the New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare’s plays provides accurate texts in modern spelling and punctuation, as well as scene-by-scene action summaries, full explanatory notes, many pictures clarifying Shakespeare’s language, and notes recording all significant departures from the early printed versions. Each play is prefaced by a brief introduction, by a guide to reading Shakespeare’s language, and by accounts of his life and theater. Each play is followed by an annotated list of further readings and by a Modern Perspective written by an expert on that particular play.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English in the Graduate School and at King’s University College at Western University. He is a general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare, as well as many papers and essays on the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s plays.

The Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is a privately funded research library dedicated to Shakespeare and the civilization of early modern Europe. It was founded in 1932 by Henry Clay and Emily Jordan Folger, and incorporated as part of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, one of the nation’s oldest liberal arts colleges, from which Henry Folger had graduated in 1879. In addition to its role as the world’s preeminent Shakespeare collection and its emergence as a leading center for Renaissance studies, the Folger Shakespeare Library offers a wide array of cultural and educational programs and services for the general public.

EDITORS

BARBARA A. MOWAT

Director of Research emerita

Folger Shakespeare Library

PAUL WERSTINE

Professor of English

King’s University College at Western University, Canada

From the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library

It is hard to imagine a world without Shakespeare. Since their composition more than four hundred years ago, Shakespeare’s plays and poems have traveled the globe, inviting those who see and read his works to make them their own.

Readers of the New Folger Editions are part of this ongoing process of taking up Shakespeare, finding our own thoughts and feelings in language that strikes us as old or unusual and, for that very reason, new. We still struggle to keep up with a writer who could think a mile a minute, whose words paint pictures that shift like clouds. These expertly edited texts are presented as a resource for study, artistic exploration, and enjoyment. As a new generation of readers engages Shakespeare in ebook form, they will encounter the classic texts of the New Folger Editions, with trusted notes and up-to-date critical essays available at their fingertips. Now readers can enjoy expertly edited, modern editions of Shakespeare anywhere they bring their e-reading devices, allowing readers not simply to keep up, but to engage deeply with a writer whose works invite us to think, and think again.

The New Folger Editions of Shakespeare’s plays, which are the basis for the texts realized here in digital form, are special because of their origin. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is the single greatest documentary source of Shakespeare’s works. An unparalleled collection of early modern books, manuscripts, and artwork connected to Shakespeare, the Folger’s holdings have been consulted extensively in the preparation of these texts. The Editions also reflect the expertise gained through the regular performance of Shakespeare’s works in the Folger’s Elizabethan Theater.

I want to express my deep thanks to editors Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine for creating these indispensable editions of Shakespeare’s works, which incorporate the best of textual scholarship with a richness of commentary that is both inspired and engaging. Readers who want to know more about Shakespeare and his plays can follow the paths these distinguished scholars have tread by visiting the Folger either in-person or online, where a range of physical and digital resources exist to supplement the material in these texts. I commend to you these words, and hope that they inspire.

Michael Witmore

Director, Folger Shakespeare Library

Contents

Editors’ Preface

Shakespeare’s Richard III

Reading Shakespeare’s Language: Richard III

Shakespeare’s Life

Shakespeare’s Theater

The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays

An Introduction to This Text

Characters in the Play

The Tragedy of Richard III

Text of the Play with Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 2

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 3

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Act 4

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Act 5

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Longer Notes

Textual Notes

Richard III: A Modern Perspective by Phyllis Rackin

Further Reading

Key to Famous Lines and Phrases

Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 2

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 3

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Act 4

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Act 5

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Editors’ Preface

In recent years, ways of dealing with Shakespeare’s texts and with the interpretation of his plays have been undergoing significant change. This edition, while retaining many of the features that have always made the Folger Shakespeare so attractive to the general reader, at the same time reflects these current ways of thinking about Shakespeare. For example, modern readers, actors, and teachers have become interested in the differences between, on the one hand, the early forms in which Shakespeare’s plays were first published and, on the other hand, the forms in which editors through the centuries have presented them. In response to this interest, we have based our edition on what we consider the best early printed version of a particular play (explaining our rationale in a section called An Introduction to This Text) and have marked our changes in the text—unobtrusively, we hope, but in such a way that the curious reader can be aware that a change has been made and can consult the Textual Notes to discover what appeared in the early printed version.

Current ways of looking at the plays are reflected in our brief introductions, in many of the commentary notes, in the annotated lists of Further Reading, and especially in each play’s Modern Perspective, an essay written by an outstanding scholar who brings to the reader his or her fresh assessment of the play in the light of today’s interests and concerns.

As in the Folger Library General Reader’s Shakespeare, which the New Folger Library Shakespeare replaces, we include explanatory notes designed to help make Shakespeare’s language clearer to a modern reader, and we hyperlink notes to the lines that they explain. We also follow the earlier edition in including illustrations—of objects, of clothing, of mythological figures—from books and manuscripts in the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. We provide fresh accounts of the life of Shakespeare, of the publishing of his plays, and of the theaters in which his plays were performed, as well as an introduction to the text itself. We also include a section called Reading Shakespeare’s Language, in which we try to help readers learn to break the code of Elizabethan poetic language.

For each section of each volume, we are indebted to a host of generous experts and fellow scholars. The Reading Shakespeare’s Language sections, for example, could not have been written had not Arthur King, of Brigham Young University, and Randal Robinson, author of Unlocking Shakespeare’s Language, led the way in untangling Shakespearean language puzzles and shared their insights and methodologies generously with us. Shakespeare’s Life profited by the careful reading given it by S. Schoenbaum; Shakespeare’s Theater was read and strengthened by Andrew Gurr, John Astington, and William Ingram; and The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays is indebted to the comments of Peter W. M. Blayney. We, as editors, take sole responsibility for any errors in our editions.

We are grateful to the authors of the Modern Perspectives; to Leeds Barroll and David Bevington for their generous encouragement; to the Huntington and Newberry Libraries for fellowship support; to King’s University College for the grants it has provided to Paul Werstine; to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which has provided him with Research Time Stipends; to R. J. Shroyer of Western University for essential computer support; and to the Folger Institute’s Center for Shakespeare Studies for its fortuitous sponsorship of a workshop on Shakespeare’s Texts for Students and Teachers (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and led by Richard Knowles of the University of Wisconsin), a workshop from which we learned an enormous amount about what is wanted by college and high-school teachers of Shakespeare today.

In preparing this preface for the publication of Richard III in 1996, we wrote: Our biggest debt is to the Folger Shakespeare Library: to Werner Gundersheimer, Director of the Library, who made possible our edition; to Deborah Curren-Aquino, who provides extensive editorial and production support; to Jean Miller, the Library’s Art Curator, who combs the Library holdings for illustrations, and to Julie Ainsworth, Head of the Photography Department, who carefully photographs them; to Peggy O’Brien, former Director of Education at the Folger and now Director of Education Programs at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and her assistant at the Folger, Molly Haws, who gave us expert advice about the needs being expressed by Shakespeare teachers and students (and to Martha Christian and other ‘master teachers’ who used our texts in manuscript in their classrooms); to Jessica Hymowitz, who provides expert computer support; to the staff of the Academic Programs Division, especially Mary Tonkinson, Lena Cowen Orlin, Amy Adler, Kathleen Lynch, and Carol Brobeck; and, finally, to the staff of the Library Reading Room, whose patience and support are invaluable.

As we revise the play for publication in 2014, we add to the above our gratitude to Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, who brings to our work a gratifying enthusiasm and vision; to Gail Kern Paster, Director of the Library from 2002 until July 2011, whose interest and support have been unfailing and whose scholarly expertise continues to be an invaluable resource; to Stephen Llano, Jonathan Evans, and Alysha Bullock, our production editors at Simon & Schuster, whose expertise, attention to detail, and wisdom are essential to this project; to the Folger’s Photography Department; to Deborah Curren-Aquino, for continuing superb editorial assistance; to Alice Falk for her expert copyediting; to Michael Poston for unfailing computer support; to Anna Levine; and to Rebecca Niles (whose help is crucial). Among the editions we consulted, we found James R. Siemon’s 2009 Arden edition especially useful. Finally, we once again express our thanks to the late Jean Miller for the wonderful images she unearthed, and to the ever-supportive staff of the Library Reading Room.

Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

2014

Shakespeare’s Richard III

In Richard III, Shakespeare invites us on a moral holiday. The early part of the play draws its readers to identify with Richard and thereby to participate in a fantasy of total control of self and domination of others. We begin to be pulled into the fantasy in the play’s opening speech, where Richard presents himself as an enterprising, self-made villain and offers an elaborate justification for this self-renovation. He then confides to us his plans to dispose of his first victim, his brother Clarence, who is already being taken to prison as a result of Richard’s plots. Clarence’s imprisonment serves as immediate confirmation of Richard’s sure power over others. Richard deceives Clarence into believing that Richard is his staunchest ally; in case we were misled along with Clarence, Shakespeare gives Richard another soliloquy as soon as Clarence has left. Richard achieves similar success in conquering the woman with whom he chooses to ally himself in marriage. His utter mastery of the political arena continues long into the play as he carves a way to the throne through assassination and summary execution of his rivals.

But Richard’s advance is not wholly without resistance, which appears most threateningly in the person of Queen Margaret, widow of Henry VI, the king whom Richard killed before this play begins. With a will as strong as Richard’s and a keen appetite for vengeance, Margaret issues a stream of curses, and manages, in spite of Richard’s efforts, to curse him too. The further we proceed into the play, the greater the number of characters who recall how Margaret cursed them as they go to their deaths at Richard’s hands. As this pattern builds, it begins to seem more and more inevitable that all curses may come true—including her curse against Richard himself.

Richard III.

From John Taylor, All the workes of . . . (1630).

The more clear this pattern becomes, the more the play works to direct our sympathies away from Richard. His supporters desert him; his victims pile up. His fantasy of utter control of himself and domination of others crumbles. In this world of moral holiday, audience fantasy may begin to share in the desire for vengeance voiced by Margaret as Richard is presented increasingly as the monstrous and hideous villain that Sir Thomas More created in his early sixteenth-century narrative of Richard III’s reign. More had spent his youth in the household of Cardinal Morton, the lord chancellor of England under Henry VII. (Both Cardinal Morton, in his earlier position as bishop of Ely, and Henry VII, as the earl of Richmond, appear as characters in Shakespeare’s Richard III.) Morton, who had himself suffered under Richard III, may well have provided More with the highly prejudicial account of Richard’s person and reign that More worked up into a brilliantly satirical and sometimes even comical tale of horror. More’s history was so highly regarded in the sixteenth century that it became a standard part of compilations of British history throughout that century. In Shakespeare’s play we can enjoy in dramatic form what so many of his immediate contemporaries and predecessors read and loved as a narrative.

After you have read the play, we invite you to turn to the essay printed after it, "Richard III: A Modern Perspective," by Phyllis Rackin, Professor of English emerita at the University of Pennsylvania.

Reading Shakespeare’s Language: Richard III

For many people today, reading Shakespeare’s language can be a problem—but it is a problem that can be solved. Those who have studied Latin (or even French or German or Spanish) and those who are used to reading poetry will have little difficulty understanding the language of poetic drama. Others, however, need to develop the skills of untangling unusual sentence structures and of recognizing and understanding poetic compressions, omissions, and wordplay. And even those skilled in reading unusual sentence structures may have occasional trouble with Shakespeare’s words. More than four hundred years of static—caused by changes in language and in life—intervene between his speaking and our hearing. Most of his vocabulary is still in use, but a few of his words are no longer used, and many of his words now have meanings quite different from those they had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the theater, most of these difficulties are solved for us by actors who study the language and articulate it for us so that the essential meaning is heard—or, when combined with stage action, is at least felt. When we are reading on our own, we must do what each actor does: go over the lines (often with a dictionary close at hand) until the puzzles are solved and the lines yield up their poetry and the characters speak in words and phrases that are, suddenly, rewarding and wonderfully memorable.

Shakespeare’s Words

As you begin to read the opening scenes of a Shakespeare play, you may notice occasional unfamiliar words. Some are unfamiliar simply because we no longer use them. In the opening scenes of Richard III, for example, you will find the words alarums (calls to arms), crossrow (alphabet), belike (perhaps), and naught (nothing, but also wickedness). Words of this kind are explained in notes to the text and will become familiar the more of Shakespeare’s plays you read.

In Richard III, as in all of Shakespeare’s writing, more problematic are the words that are still in use but that now have different meanings. In the opening scene of Richard III, for example, the word measures has the meaning of dances; front is used where we would say forehead, halt where we would say limp, and tempers where we would say guides or directs. Again, such words will be explained in the notes to the text, but they, too, will become familiar as you continue to read Shakespeare’s language.

Some words are strange not because of the static introduced by changes in language over the past centuries but because these are words that Shakespeare is using to build a dramatic world that has its own space, time, and history. The play’s physical setting is concentrated, for the most part, in London, the seat of English royal power, until in Act 5 the play moves off to the battlefield. The London location is constructed for us by frequent reference to the Tower (i.e., the Tower of London), Paul’s (usually St. Paul’s Cathedral, sometimes Paul’s Cross in the yard of the cathedral, where proclamations were issued), Whitefriars, and Crosby House (one of Richard’s residences). The play’s temporal and historical setting is more varied. The play opens at a moment that its language presents as doubly transitional. The first transition is from the Wars of the Roses to the peaceful reign of Edward IV, son of York and ultimate victor in these wars against Henry VI of the Lancasters. These wars are made vivid in a number of ways: with colorful references to implements, sounds, and events common to late medieval warfare: bruisèd arms, stern alarums, dreadful marches, and barbèd steeds; with the names of the battlefields of those wars, such as Tewkesbury and St. Albans, and of some of the notable victims—virtuous Lancaster (Henry VI), his son Edward, Richard’s brother Rutland, their father York, and Queen Elizabeth’s first husband, Grey. The second transition is from the peace imposed by Edward IV, who is now sickly, weak, and melancholy, to an atmosphere of murderous intrigue. This transition is effected by means of the plots and inductions dangerous of the self-styled subtle, false, and treacherous Richard against the family of Edward’s queen, whose brothers and sons Richard terms silken, sly, insinuating Jacks. The political climate of the play’s opening is created through such language as envious slanders of . . . false accusers, dissentious rumors, lewd complaints, interior hatred, shameful injury, vile suspects, and deadly web. However strange these expressions and proper names appear at first, the words and phrases that create this language world will become increasingly familiar to you as you read further into the play.

Shakespeare’s Sentences

In an English sentence, meaning is quite dependent on the place given each word. The dog bit the boy and The boy bit the dog mean very different things, even though the individual words are the same. Because English places such importance on the positions of words in sentences, on the way words are arranged, unusual arrangements can puzzle a reader. Shakespeare frequently shifts his sentences away from normal English arrangements—often to create the rhythm he seeks, sometimes to use a line’s poetic rhythm to emphasize a particular word, sometimes to give a character his or her own speech patterns or to allow the character to speak in a special way. When we attend a good performance of the play, the actors will have worked out the sentence structures and will articulate the sentences so that the meaning is clear. When reading the play, we need to do as the actor does: that is, when puzzled by a character’s speech, check to see if the words are being presented in an unusual sequence.

Shakespeare often places the verb before the subject (e.g., instead of he goes we find goes he) or places the subject between the two parts of a verb (e.g., instead of we will go we find will we go.) In the opening lines of Richard III, we find an inverted subject-verb construction in Richard’s words Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer, a construction repeated immediately in his Now are our brows bound. Such inversions rarely cause much confusion. More problematic is Shakespeare’s frequent placing of the object before the subject and verb (e.g., instead of I hit him we might find him I hit). Lady Anne’s assertion His soul thou canst not have is an example of such an inversion (the normal order would be Thou canst not have his soul). Another example is Richard’s plots have I laid, where normally one would say I have laid plots.

Inversions are not the only unusual sentence structures in Shakespeare’s language. Often in his sentences words that would normally appear together are separated from each other. (Again, this is often done to create a particular rhythm or to stress a particular word.) Take, for example, Clarence’s "His Majesty, / Tend’ring my person’s safety, hath appointed / This conduct; here the phrase Tend’ring my person’s safety separates the subject (His Majesty) from its verb (hath appointed). Or take Richard’s lines The jealous o’erworn widow and herself, / Since that our brother dubbed them gentlewomen, / Are mighty gossips, where the normal construction The . . . widow and herself are is interrupted by the clause Since that our brother dubbed them gentlewomen. In order to create for yourself sentences that seem more like the English of everyday speech, you may wish to rearrange the words, putting together the word clusters (His Majesty hath appointed, The widow and herself are mighty gossips"). You will usually find that the sentences will gain in clarity but will lose their rhythm or shift their emphases.

Locating and if necessary rearranging words that belong together is especially helpful in passages that separate subjects from verbs by long delaying or expanding interruptions—a structure that is sometimes used in Richard III. When Richard is rationalizing his villainy in the play’s opening speech, he uses such an interrupted construction in a particularly extravagant way:

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking glass;

I, that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them—

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to see my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity.   (1.1.14–27)

Here the conjunction of the basic sentence elements, the subject I and its verb have, is interrupted no fewer than four times, making it necessary to repeat the subject I three times and thereby making the speech markedly self-referential. In Richard III, as in many other of Shakespeare’s plays (Hamlet, for instance), long interrupted sentences are used frequently, sometimes to catch the audience up in the narrative and sometimes as a characterizing device.

Occasionally, rather than separating basic sentence elements, Shakespeare simply holds them back, delaying them until subordinate material to which he wants to give greater emphasis has been presented. This kind of delaying structure is sometimes used in the speeches of Richard III, though usually not by Richard, who tends to assert himself more forcefully than such a delaying construction would allow. Queen Elizabeth, for example, uses such a construction in asserting her innocence of any conspiracy against her brother-in-law Clarence:

By Him that raised me to this careful height

From that contented hap which I enjoyed,

I never did incense his Majesty

Against the Duke of Clarence. . . . (1.3.87–90)

Here the subject and verb (I never did incense) are delayed until the completion of a mighty oath (By Him . . . enjoyed).

Shakespeare’s sentences are sometimes complicated not because of unusual structures or interruptions or delays but because he omits words and parts of words that English sentences normally require. (In conversation, we, too, often omit words. We say Heard from him yet? and our hearer supplies the missing Have you.) Frequent reading of Shakespeare—and of other poets—trains us to supply such missing words. In his later plays, Shakespeare uses omissions both of verbs and of nouns to great dramatic effect. In the opening scenes of Richard III, one of Shakespeare’s early plays, omissions seem to be used to affect the tone of the speech or for the sake of speech rhythm. Take, for example, the illusion of natural conversation between Richard and Hastings that is created by the omission of just three or four words in the blank verse:

RICHARD What news abroad?

HASTINGS

No news so bad abroad as this at home:

The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,

And his physicians fear him mightily.

(1.1.138–41)

Had this elliptical exchange been filled out with the inclusion of all the words appropriate to formal speech, Richard would have asked woodenly "What news is abroad? and Hastings would have replied, to the destruction of the tone and the verse: There is no news so bad abroad as is this news at home: the King

Reviews for Richard III

[hopingforchange · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Classic story of love and loss. ;) It's Shakespeare, and it's beautiful.

[agdbk · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I love Shakespeare. I simply detest this play.

[oscarwilde87_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd.For never was a story of more woeThan this of Juliet and her Romeo."So ends the play Romeo and Juliet which is probably the most popular play by William Shakespeare. You will have a hard time finding someone who has never heard of its plot. It is a timeless tragedy of two star-crossed lovers finding eternal love in death. While it is one thing to read the script on paper, it is a truly amazing experience to see it performed on stage. The play explores themes that will never be out of date: friendship, love, family rivalry, desperation, and mourning, to name but a few. It is well worth having a closer look at Romeo's relation to love and whether he is really in love with Rosaline or Juliet or just in love with the feeling of being in love. Then there is Romeo's unlikely friendship to Mercutio, two very different characters. Generally, there are many aspects to explore and with every new reading I discover yet another one. You might want to watch the 2014 Broadway performance with Orlando Bloom as Romeo. At least I enjoyed it very much. 5 stars. A true masterpiece.

[katieloucks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

great classic

[dukefan86 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful language, classic Shakespeare.

[unkletom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This review is for the 2012 edition of The Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet as annotated by Demitra Padadinas, founder and producing art director of the New England Shakespeare Festival.I’ve been a big fan of Shakespeare ever since high school when a clever English teacher pointed out that, in his day, Shakespeare was looked on as anything but high-brow. His audiences were more likely to consist of pickpockets, tavern-goers and whores than fine lords and ladies. Consequently, his scripts had to be snappy and laced with bawdy humor and innuendo to keep the audience coming back. While some of Shakespeare’s double entendres have survived the editors’ quills over the centuries, most of what we see in the editions taught in schools is muted and laced with safe footnotes that do more to conceal Shakespeare’s intent than to illuminate it. As an example, in Act 1 scene 3, the nurse, a comic character known for her bawdy humor, swears by “by my holidam” which Folger describes as referring to a holy relic while Papidinis explains that what she was swearing on was her “holy place”, an oath that, if accompanied by appropriate body language from the performer, could have an entirely different meaning.This version of Romeo and Juliet is as it appeared when the First Folio was first published in 1623 so its spelling and punctuation is a little more challenging to read than the modernized versions. It doesn’t take long, though, for the reader to catch on that, if read phonetically, such lines as “sailes upon the bosome of the ayre” are easily understood.I also like that Papadinis carries on the format seen in Folger editions of putting the text of the play on the left page and the annotations on the right. This makes it a lot easier to read the annotations and still keep you place.*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review copy of this book was obtained from the publisher via the LibraryThing Early Reader Program.

[df5b_roberts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ah, my favorite classic.

[currerbell-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Romeo and Juliet is fairly far down on my list of Shakespeare's plays (compared, say, with The Tempest, Macbeth, and Twelfth Night at the top), so my five***** rating of this book (ISBN 978-0786447480) is not for the play itself but for the editorial work. I snagged Demitra Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated First Folio Edition" as an Early Reviewer, and after browsing it I've definitely wish-listed her similar edition of As You Like It (ISBN 978-0786449651, which I didn't win as an Early Reviewer) as well as her pre-order edition of Macbeth (ISBN 978-0786464791).I was particularly curious to see how Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated" editions would stack up versus the Norton Critical Editions (generically, that is, because there is no NCE of Romeo and Juliet to the best of my knowledge). There is simply no comparison between the two, and I say this in praise of both Papadinis and NCE. The strength of NCE is in its supplementary materials, which are completely lacking to Papadinis, while the strength of Papadinis is in her highly detailed line-by-line annotation. Papadinis and NCE, in other words, complement rather than compete with each other.Papadinis's annotation is highly detailed and presented in facing-page format, with the play's text on the left-hand page and the corresponding annotation on the right. What this means is that some left-hand text pages may contain only four or five lines while a corresponding right-hand annotation page will be completely filled, so that Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated" editions are not for a newcomer or casual reader, who will most likely find the design cumbersome and the trade paperback edition's price higher than a beginner would like. (Leaving out introduction and bibliography, both quite short, Papadinis's text/annotations for Romeo and Juliet run from pages 28 through 447 inclusive.)Another Early Reviewer has expressed some objection that these annotations represent a "tendentious study of the vulgar in Shakespeare's play." In reality, though, Romeo and Juliet (like Twelfth Night) in fact is one of Shakespeare's most bawdy plays, so I have to object to such a criticism. On the other hand, I also have to admit that I have not studied Papadinis's annotations that comprehensively, considering the time limit in posting an Early Review. In fact, this is not the kind of book that you are likely to read cover-to-cover, but rather one that you'll browse through, maybe just a scene (or even a few lines) at a time to savor the wealth of annotation that Papadinis provides. For that matter, I'm not such a Shakespeare specialist that I'd necessarily pick up on small annotational glitches anyway, so here's hoping some other ER can comment with more specificity on this subject.Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated" editions are available in both trade paperback and Kindle, but this does not seem like the kind of text that could be properly formatted for eBook reading, given the need for facing-page capability. I did download a Kindle sample, but it was too short (it included only some of the introduction, with none of the facing-page text/annotation) to be sure of this, but I'd definitely recommend the trade paperback edition. It's a bit pricey but worth it, though not recommended for a first-timer to the play.

[ajaygx · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Classic... what else is there to say?

[eric_cheuk-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

overly compressed, beautifully-written play in which two teenagers fall in love, marry, fuck, and die, all in the span of three days. concessions should be made to late 16th century literary convention, but still...

[lhlogan1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's a classic, but not really a favorite of mine.

[ctpress_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.Reading a Shakespeare-play and seeing one is two entirely different things. Having been to the Globe in London and experienced the magic of an evening with Shakespeare it seems a dry thing to "just" read the play. Still, reading it offers time to stop and contemplate and enjoy and savour all the famous quotes and lines of poetry.In this romantic tragedy there's plenty of over-the-top emotions, frantic pace, overwhelming love-songs and declarations of eternal bliss or eternal sorrow - it's just a thing you accept coming to Shakespeare. This is his world and it's just for us to drink it in.And although it's exaggerated the theme is eternal and universal - love - mixed with infatuation and madness - it's a force too powerful to be kept down - and it's explosive in the midst of a feud between two families. This emotional tour de force between Romeo and Juliet is something to be appraised and lamented at the same time. I'm not sure what Shakespeare does most. But both things are there. The admiration of such head-over-the-heels love and the warning against it's power to overwhelm and blinding the persons involved. Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow

[literate0ninja · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Easily one of my least favorite of The Bard's works. Reading this in high school very nearly put me off Shakespeare for good. One of the first books I ever remember reading that made me want to smack both main characters upside the head and ask them "What the heck are you thinking?!"

[papercrystals · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This review is for the Frankly Annotated First Folio Edition, with annotations by Demitra Papadinis.The layout of the book is fantastic, making it easy to keep your place in the play when checking on the notes. The notes themselves are fantastic, going in depth and not leaving out the dirty jokes. A thoroughly enjoyable and educational edition!

[la12hernandez · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Found this very easy to use and understand. I think my family is tired of me quoting the play then explaining it according to the book. As a theater major I found this book fascinating.

[richestgirls-3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I give this book 5 stars because it uses creative and expresses a true form of writing that makes you want to read more until you've read the whole book!!

[newskepticx · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is a tragedy in the sense that Shakespeare did so much better with his other plays. This one is weak. The amount of coincidence is down right ridiculous, Shakespeare plays way too much into the "love" for a tale that is supposed to be cautionary(or so I think it might've been senseless fighting between two families led to tragic deaths, never really capitalizes on it til the end). It's also the standard for classic love story although it is nothing of the sort. I despised it.

[tiffanyak_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great romantic tragedy, which I had to read for my Intro. to Drama class. This is one of those works of Shakespeare that has been done in a multitude of forms and variations, so it is quite likely that everyone has a rough idea of the story. Still, you really cannot replace the original. There is a lot of unbelievable story to it, which can overdo it to the point of being distracting, but overall the language and story are so supremely memorable that it automatically qualifies as a must-read. As to the edition itself, I found it to be greatly helpful in understanding the action in the play. It has a layout which places each page of the play opposite a page of notes, definitions, explanations, and other things needed to understand that page more thoroughly. While I didn't always need it, I was certainly glad to have it whenever I ran into a turn of language that was unfamiliar, and I definitely appreciated the scene-by-scene summaries. Really, if you want to or need to read Shakespeare, an edition such as this is really the way to go, especially until you get more accustomed to it.

[keksfan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bekannte Geschichte.Junge trifft Mädchen und sie verlieben sich. Eltern sind dagegen. Tragisches Ende. Der Stoff aus dem heute noch jeder dritte Liebesfilm besteht.

[epenton-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bruce Colville’s retells Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in story form. It includes a narration of the major plot points in a clear and easy to follow language that is appropriate for younger children (as early as third grade or so). The book also contains beautiful pictures that capture the important parts of the story and help to tell the story. What I like most about this book is that it incorporates quotes from the play itself. The way that it is mixed in with the easy-to-follow narration of the book would, I believe, help children develop a basic understanding of Shakesperian language that will be helpful to them as they advance into higher grades. This book could also be useful to students in middle and high school. This book could be helpful to me in my current situation as a high school English tutor: Many of the students I tutor are completely thrown off by the language that Shakespeare uses, which inhibits their understanding of the entire story. Supplementing a lesson on Romeo and Juliet with this book would be a good way to get students to grasp the basics of the play and also to ease them into the complex language of the play. Great Book!

[katie1802 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely love this! Romeo can be an idiot sometimes, their families are jerks and the Friar seriously screwed up but you have to love it all.

Favourite Quote ;

Oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright, it seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear, beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.

[summer_missfictional · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm giving Romeo and Juliet 3 stars because the writing was brilliant. I must admit, Shakespeare was a master in this aspect; in others, not so much. Oh how much I loathe the characters of Romeo and Juliet. But Mercutio was pretty awesome.

[barb_h_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I listened to an audiobook version by the BBC. It was very well done and a pleasure to listen to. It was also very short, only about 3 hours long. I enjoyed the story and am glad that I have finally experienced it. Would like to see the play performed live some day.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is not my favorite of the tragedies...perhaps too much memory of Ninth Grade English cramming comparisons of it and West Side Story down my throat. Seriously though, while I've reread it twice and can love the language, I can't overlook the essential silliness of the whole situation.Recommended because there's no Shakespeare I've yet read that I wouldn't recommend, I don't think it's the most enjoyable thing he's written.

[seraphinac.b4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the book Romeo and Juliet, two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, who are worst enemies, try to discourage the love between their children Romeo and Juliet. Things only get worse when Romeo kills one of the Capulet’s kinsmen, Tybalt, in a duel. Romeo is banished and Juliet is broken hearted when she finds out that she will have to marry Paris. To get rest and pass the time, she drinks a vile which will make her appear dead. After she drinks the vile she is pronounced dead and put into a charnel house. Word reaches Romeo that Juliet is dead so he buys a bottle of poison and drinks it next to Juliet’s body. When Juliet wakes up and sees Romeo dead, she takes his dagger and stabs herself. This book was a page-turner! I think it was so exciting because it had just the right amount of romance. It was also a little sad because death could have been prevented. A lesson I have been reminded of is think before you act. I look forward to reading another Shakespeare book. This edition was useful because it had a vocabulary list for some of the Old-English. In my opinion this is a must read.

[paradox98_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I believed this play to be seriously overrated-- and then I read it. LOL. A beautiful piece of literature that truly encaptures what it is to be a "star-crossed lover."

[nessreendiana_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm a big Romeo & Juliet fan. I've memorized the book, that's how much I've read it. I read along to Leonardo di Caprio and Claire Danes as they said their lines in that movie.

[shawnd_72 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant. I am not a fan of love stories or romances or even stories of betrayal and family dynamics. However, this is a stunning book, one of the best ever written I suppose. (I also liked the movie with Leonardo di Caprio and John Leguizamo by this name. It seemed to have all the original writing or a good chunk of it in a modern movie which I've never seen done well before -- I liked it much better than the Liam Neeson ones). The story is basic compared to many of his other books but the writing's as good or better.

[rinny_4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Romeo and Juliet is a huge tragedy. It is a good romance novel though. I liked reading it because I was able to understand all of those classic lines used in the novel. like romeo oh romeo where for out thou romeo.

[hvymetalmg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Thanks to TV and movies, I knew the basic premise of this book before even reading it. Thus, when I read it I was not really impressed. To be fair, I skimmed through it, but nothing stood out that made me want to read it. Damn Hollywood.