This Is Shakespeare

January 15, 2020
A brisk study of 20 of the Bard's plays, focused on stripping off four centuries of overcooked analysis and tangled reinterpretations. "I don't really care what he might have meant, nor should you," writes Smith (Shakespeare Studies/Oxford Univ.; Shakespeare's First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book, 2016, etc.) in the introduction to this collection. Noting the "gappy" quality of many of his plays--i.e., the dearth of stage directions, the odd tonal and plot twists--the author strives to fill those gaps not with psychological analyses but rather historical context for the ambiguities. She's less concerned, for instance, with whether Hamlet represents the first flower of the modern mind and instead keys into how the melancholy Dane and his father share a name, making it a study of "cumulative nostalgia" and our difficulty in escaping our pasts. Falstaff's repeated appearances in multiple plays speak to Shakespeare's crowd-pleasing tendencies. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a bawdier and darker exploration of marriage than its teen-friendly interpretations suggest. Smith's strict-constructionist analyses of the plays can be illuminating: Her understanding of British mores and theater culture in the Elizabethan era explains why Richard III only half-heartedly abandons its charismatic title character, and she is insightful in her discussion of how Twelfth Night labors to return to heterosexual convention after introducing a host of queer tropes. Smith's Shakespeare is eminently fallible, collaborative, and innovative, deliberately warping play structures and then sorting out how much he needs to un-warp them. Yet the book is neither scholarly nor as patiently introductory as works by experts like Stephen Greenblatt. Attempts to goose the language with hipper references--Much Ado About Nothing highlights the " 'bros before hoes' ethic of the military," and Falstaff is likened to Homer Simpson--mostly fall flat. A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts.

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January 27, 2020
Smith (Shakespeare’s First Folio), Oxford professor of Shakespeare studies, combines contemporary wit and verve with scholarly rigor to produce a refreshingly entertaining study of the Bard’s plays. Smith aims to introduce “a Shakespeare you could have a drink and a good conversation with” and isn’t afraid to deploy pop-culture references—such as comparing Falstaff to Homer Simpson—to achieve her goal. The effect isn’t to diminish the literary genius behind the 20 plays she examines but to open and explore the gaps Shakespeare left in each of his works. Smith begins with The Taming of the Shrew’s controversial treatment of gender relations. To show that the play’s ambiguities—its title character can be seen either as “feisty and independent... or strident and antisocial”—aren’t just the result of changing attitudes, Smith draws comparisons to more straightforward works by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, demonstrating that the play challenged audiences from the very start. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, often adapted to serve as children’s introduction to Shakespeare, is revealed as a “darker, sexier play,” in which animal desires collide against marital strictures. While a familiarity with the plays is expected, poetic jargon is kept at a minimum. Entertaining and sagacious, this work will spur readers who gave up on Shakespeare on first pass to approach his oeuvre with new eyes.

March 1, 2020

Smith (Shakespeare studies, Oxford Univ.; Shakespeare's First Folio) here expands on her podcast Approaching Shakespeare to consider 20 plays arranged in chronological order from The Taming of the Shrew to The Tempest. Unlike other introductions to the plays, such as Marjorie Garber's Shakespeare After All and Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, which tell readers what to think, Smith highlights ambiguities in the Bard's works. Does Kate's last speech in The Taming of the Shrew show that her spirit has been broken? Or is Kate being ironic? Does Richard II endorse or criticize the deposing of the king? How does Isabella in Measure for Measure respond to the duke's marriage proposal? Is A Midsummer Night's Dream a romantic comedy or a parody of one? Some chapters view the plays from an oblique angle, treating them as anamorphic paintings. Thus, in discussing Twelfth Night, Smith focuses on the minor character Antonio, and concentrates on Don John in examining Much Ado About Nothing. VERDICT Smith wears her learning lightly and writes in an accessible, conversational style, making this an excellent work for those eager to brush up their Shakespeare, forsooth.--Joseph Rosenblum, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro

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