Shakespeare for the Wiser Sort: Solving Shakespeare's Riddles in the Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, King John, 1-2 Henry IV, the Merchant of Veni
William Shakespeare's plays are riddled with passages, scenes and sudden plot twists which baffle and confound the most devoted playgoer and the most attentive commentator. Why, for example, didn't Hamlet succeed to the throne of Denmark at the instant of his father's death? (It's not because the Danish throne was elective.) Why does Chorus in Romeo and Juliet promise his audience "two houres trafficke of our stage" when the play obviously runs almost three hours? And what is a "dram of...
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William Shakespeare's plays are riddled with passages, scenes and sudden plot twists which baffle and confound the most devoted playgoer and the most attentive commentator. Why, for example, didn't Hamlet succeed to the throne of Denmark at the instant of his father's death? (It's not because the Danish throne was elective.) Why does Chorus in Romeo and Juliet promise his audience "two houres trafficke of our stage" when the play obviously runs almost three hours? And what is a "dram of eale"? This engaging and lucid book solves these tantalizing riddles and many others.
List of illustrations xiPreface xiii'to please the wiser sort': Shakespeare's other (smarter) audience 1'Doubt thou the starres are fire': the new philosophy in Hamlet 8'The time is out of joint': Queen Elizabeth's calendar muddle 17Shakespeare's time-riddles in Romeo and Juliet solved 36'two and fortie houres': did Shakespeare know Bandello? 55Disrobing images: Shakespeare rewrites the Holy Ghost 77The 'double time' crux in Othello solved 106'Who's there?' The men behind the masks of Falstaff, Faulconbridge, Lamord and Hamlet 127Appendix 166Bibliography 174Index 187
