How to Read Shakespeare

Intent upon letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading these classic authors, the How to Read series provides a context and an explanation that will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon.

Approaching the writing of major intellectuals, artists, and philosophers need no longer be daunting. How to Read is a new sort of introduction--a personal master class in reading--that brings you face to face with the work of some of the most influential and challenging writers in history. In lucid, accessible language, these books explain essential topics such as Shakespeare's passion for complexity and his enduring ability to portray the power of love.

Nicholas Royle conveys the richness and complexity of Shakespeare's work by focusing, above all, on how to read and enjoy short passages and interpret specific words from the plays and poems themselves. Discussing poetry and the question of reading, to the nature of memory and forgetting, to the power of love, Royle covers many of Shakespeare's most prevalent themes. Attention is also given to important aspects of historical context and critical reception and debate, as well as to the effects of different interpretations and different media (stage, film, the Internet, and more). Royle's primary concern, however, is with letting the reader experience―anew or for the first time―the extraordinary pleasure and stimulation of reading Shakespeare.

Extracts are taken from a range of Shakespeare's works including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, The Winter's Tale, and the Sonnets.

Nicholas Royle teaches English at the University of Sussex. He is the author of numerous books and the joint editor of the Oxford Literary Review.


Simon Critchley is a best-selling author and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His many books include The Book of Dead Philosophers, Bowie, and Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us.