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Henry IV, Part 1 | Henry IV, Part 2 | Much Ado About Nothing
Othello | Romeo and Juliet | Antony and Cleopatra
King Lear | Macbeth | The Sonnets and Other Poems
The Winter's Tale
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A Midsummer Night's Dream |
Hamlet
Love's Labour's Lost
| Richard III | The Tempest
Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, this Modern Library series incorporates definitive texts and authoritative notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works. Each play includes an Introduction as well as an overview of Shakespeare's theatrical career; commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about the work; a chronology of Shakespeare's life and times; and black-and-white illustrations.
Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.
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Henry IV sits on a usurped throne, his conscience and his nobles in revolt, while his son Hal is immersed in a self-indulgent life of revelry with the notorious Sir John Falstaff. Shakespeare explores questions of kingship and honor in this masterly mingling of history, comedy, and tragedy.
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After defeat at the Battle of Shrewsbury the rebels regroup. But Prince Hal's reluctance to inherit the crown threatens to destroy the ailing Henry IV's dream of a lasting dynasty. Shakespeare's portrait of the prodigal son's journey from youth to maturity embraces the full panorama of society.
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Set in a courtly world of masked revels and dances, this play turns on the archetypal story of a lady falsely accused of unfaithfulness, spurned by her bridegroom, and finally vindicated and reunited with him. Villainy, schemes, and deceits threaten to darken the brilliant humor and sparkling wordplay—but the hilarious counterplot of a warring couple, Beatrice and Benedick, steals the scene as the two are finally tricked into admitting their love for each other in Shakespeare's superb comedy of manners.Set in a courtly world of masked revels and dances, this play turns on the archetypal story of a lady falsely accused of unfaithfulness, spurned by her bridegroom, and finally vindicated and reunited with him. Villainy, schemes, and deceits threaten to darken the brilliant humor and sparkling wordplay—but the hilarious counterplot of a warring couple, Beatrice and Benedick, steals the scene as the two are finally tricked into admitting their love for each other in Shakespeare's superb comedy of manners.
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Shakespeare shines a fierce spotlight on the jealous heart and on our attitudes toward the outsider. A story of its time and for our time, full of terror and beauty, Othello is urgent, gripping, radical, and beautiful.
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In a society dominated by religion and bound by ties of strict family loyalty, two teenagers are trapped by their secret love. As a dangerous vendetta spills onto the streets, the young lovers are forced to risk all to be together in Shakespeare's fast-paced tragedy of thwarted love.
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Written at the pinnacle of Shakespeare’s career and featuring his most soaring poetic idiom, Antony and Cleopatra is both an immortal love story and a political drama played out on a global scale.
Plot summary
Following the assassination of Julius Caesar and the battle of Philippi, Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus are the joint rulers of the known world.
Antony, however, is captivated by Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and is neglecting his military responsibilities to spend time with her at her court in Alexandria, where they live a life of luxary and self-indulgence. This scandal is now the talk of Rome and has created a dangerous rift between Antony and young Octavius Caesar.
News comes from Rome that Fulvia, Antony's wife, is dead. More urgently, the power of the triumvirate is being challenged by Pompey, son of Julius Caesar's former rival, Pompey the great. Antony is forced to return to Rome and resume his responsibilities. When it is suggested that he should cement the alliance with Octavius by marrying his sister, Octavia, Antony agrees. His friend and comrade-in-arms Enobarbus, however, predicts that Antony will not be able to break with Cleopatra. Back in Egypt, the news of Antony's marriage sends Cleopatra into a jealous tirade.
On the brink of war, Antony and Octavius make peace with Pompey and celebrate the treaty with a feast. Shortly afterwards, however, Antony learns that not only has Octavius attacked Pompey after all, but he has also spoken scornfully of Antony in public and has had Lepidus imprisoned on dubious charges. Antony sends Octavia back to negotiate with her brother while he returns secretly to Alexandria.
News arrives in Rome that Antony and Cleopatra have crowned themselves and their children kings and queens in Alexandra. Antony's desertion of Octavia is the final straw. Octavius declares war on Egypt.
The Egyptian forces lose the sea-battle of Actium when Antony deserts the battle to follow Cleopatra's fleeing ship. Antony is consumed with shame and despair. However, hearing that Octavius has offered to make a secret treaty with Cleopatra, he rouses himself for a second, victorious battle.
On the eve of the third battle, Antony's soldiers are nervous and fear bad omens. Even the faithful Enobarbus deserts him for Octavius.
In the event, the Egyptian fleet surrenders and Antony, in his fury, accuses Cleopatra of betraying him to Octavius. She retreats from his anger to her monument and, hoping to bring him round, sends a false report that she is dead. On hearing this, however, Antony attempts suicide and is brought to Cleopatra's monument to die in her arms. Rather than be captured and enslaved by the Romans, Cleopatra also kills herself, using a poisonous snake brought to her concealed in a basket of figs.
With all his enemies eliminated, Octavius returns victorious to Rome.
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King Lear is Shakespeare's bleakest and profoundest tragedy, a searing dramatization of humankind at the edge of apocalypse that explores the family and the nature of being with passion, poetry, and dark humor.
Plot summary
Lear, King of Britain, decides to abdicate and divide his kingdom between his three daughters. When Cordelia refuses to make a public declaration of love for her father she is disinherited and married to the King of France without a dowry. The Earl of Kent is banished by Lear for daring to defend her. The two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan, and their husbands inherit the kingdom.
Gloucester, deceived by his bastard son Edmund, disinherits his legitimate son, Edgar, who is forced to go into hiding to save his life.
Lear, now stripped of his power, quarrels with Goneril and Regan about the conditions of his lodging in their households. In a rage he goes out into the stormy night, accompanied by his Fool and by Kent, now disguised as a servant.
They encounter Edgar, disguised as a mad beggar. Gloucester is betrayed by Edmund and captured by Regan and Cornwall, who put out Gloucester's eyes.
King Lear is taken secretly to Dover, where Cordelia has landed with a French army. The blind Gloucester meets, but does not recognise Edgar, who leads him to Dover. Lear and Cordelia are reconciled but in the ensuing battle are captured by the sisters' forces.
Goneril and Regan are both in love with Edmund, who encourages them both. Discovering this, Goneril's husband Albany forces Edmund to defend himself against the charge of treachery. A knight appears to challenge Edmund and, after fatally wounding him, reveals himself to be Edgar. News comes that Goneril has poisoned Regan and then committed suicide. Before dying, Edmund reveals that he has ordered the deaths of Lear and Cordelia.
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One of Shakespeare's most popular plays, filled with fierce, violent action, Macbeth is a human drama of ambition, desire, and guilt in a world of blood and darkness, with whispers of the supernatural.
Plot summary
Macbeth and Banquo, generals in the service of Duncan, King of Scotland, are returning victorious from battle when they are hailed by three witches who prophesy that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and then King of Scotland. The first part of the prophesy is soon fulfilled when Duncan rewards Macbeth's loyal service: encouraged by this, and playing on her husband's ambition, Lady Macbeth persuades him to murder Duncan while he is a guest at their castle. Malcolm, Duncan's son and heir, flees to England for safety.
Macbeth, now King of Scotland, has Banquo murdered in an attempt to secure his own position, but Banquo's ghost appears to him at a banquet.
Macbeth visits the witches again. They warn him to beware of Macduff, a noble who has also fled to England, but assure him that he cannot be harmed by any man born of woman. Macbeth orders the murder of Macduff's wife and children.
In England, Macduff and Malcolm raise an army and march against Macbeth but he, armed with the witches' prophecy, believes himself to be invincible. As his enemies draw nearer, Macbeth
learns that his wife is dead and, despite the witches' words, he himself is killed by Macduff. Malcolm is crowned King of Scotland.
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Shakespeare became famous as a dazzling poet before most people even knew that he wrote plays. His sonnets are the English language's most extraordinary anatomy of love in all its dimensions-desire and despair, longing and loss, adoration and disgust. To read them is to confront morality and eternity in the same breath. Produced under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, The Sonnets and Other Poems includes all of Shakespeare's sonnets, the long narrative poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece," and several other shorter works.
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One of the last plays Shakespeare penned on his own, The Winter's Tale is a transcendent work of death and rebirth, exploring irrational sexual jealousy, the redemptive world of nature, and the magical power of art.
Plot summary
Polixenes, King of Bohemia, has been on a lengthy visit to his old friend, Leontes, King of Sicilia. As the time comes for his friend to return home, Leontes begs him to stay a little longer, but Polixenes cannot be persuaded. However, when Queen Hermione asks him, he agrees to stay. Leontes becomes suspicious at this and takes it into his head that the two of them are guilty of adultery, convincing himself that the child Hermione is expecting is not his but Polixenes'.
He tries to persuade Camillo, a trusted courtier, to poison Polixenes but Camillo instead reveals the plot to Polixenes and flees with him to Bohemia. This only serves to fuel Leontes' rage. Before the court he accuses Hermione and has her imprisoned. Hoping for further proof of her guilt, he sends two courtiers to consult the sacred Oracle of Apollo at Delphi.
In prison Hermione gives birth to a daughter. Hoping that the sight of his child will bring Leontes to his senses, Paulina brings the baby to court. This, however, has exactly the opposite effect and Leontes orders Antigonus, Paulina's husband, to take the baby away and abandon it in the wilderness.
Leontes stages a trial at which Hermione strongly protests her innocence but to no avail. Even when the Oracle declares that she is innocent, and that Leontes is a tyrant who will die without an heir if his lost child is not found, he defies this sacred truth. When news is brought of the death of their other child, the boy Mamillius, Hermione collapses with grief. Shortly afterwards, news comes that she, too, is dead. Leontes is finally overcome with remorse and vows to spend the rest of his life in atonement.
Antigonus, guided by the appearance of Hermione in a dream, brings the baby to the deserted shore of Bohemia and names her Perdita. She is found by shepherds, who bring her up as their own.
Sixteen years pass. Perdita has grown up, and Prince Florizel, Polixenes' son has fallen in love with her, believing her to be a humble shepherd's daughter.
Polixenes, however, has got wind of his son's attachment and he and Camillo, now a trusted confidant, set off in disguise for Perdita's cottage. They arrive just in time for the sheep-shearing festival, of which Perdita is the 'queen'. During the celebrations Polixenes discovers that Florizel plans to marry Perdita without his father's consent and, throwing off his disguise, threatens to disinherit his son.
Camillo persuades the young couple to flee in disguise to Sicilia and present themselves to Leontes as ambassadors from Polixenes. Longing to see his homeland again after many years in Bohemia, Camillo hopes to then persuade Polixenes to go with him in persuit of his son.
The young couple arrive at court, where the penitent Leontes has spent the last sixteen yers in atonement. Barely have they been welcomed, however, when Polixenes himself arrives with Camillo, followed by Perdita's shepherd family.
Perdita's true identity is discovered, amid general rejoicing. To crown the occasion, Paulina takes Perdita and Leontes to see the statue which has been made in memory of Hermione.
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Alternately lighthearted and savage, innocent and erotic, filled with love, mischief, and folly, A Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the perfect Elizabethan romantic comedy.
Plot summary
Egeus orders his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius; she refuses because she and Lysander are in love. Her friend Helena is in love with Demetrius, who once loved her but now does not. Under the law of Athens, Duke Theseus gives Hermia four days to obey her father on pain of death or confinement to a nunnery. Hermia and Lysander escape this harsh law by running away to the woods. Demetrius pursues them there, with Helena pursing him. In the woods, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of fairies, have quarrelled because Titania refuses to hand over an Indian changeling boy to be Oberon's page. Oberon instructs the mischievous Puck, Robin Goodfellow, to press the juice of a magic flower on Titania's eyes as she sleeps; it will make her fall in love with the first being she sees on waking. In an attempt to reconcile Demetrius and Helena, Oberon orders that juice should be put on his eyes whilst he is sleeping and she is near, but Robin mistakenly puts it on Lysander, who thus falls in love with Helena. She thinks she is being mocked. Love-juice is then placed on Demetrius' eyes in order to rectify the mistake, but the result is that he too falls for Helena. The boys fight over her and the girls quarrel. While Titania has been sleeping, a company of Athenian artisans under the leadership of Peter Quince has come to the wood to rehearse a play for the ensuing wedding festivities of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Robin puts an ass's head on Bottom the weaver and because of the love-juice Titania falls in love with him. Eventually all is restored to right and the artisans perform their comically tragic play of 'Pyramus and Thisbe'.
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An immortal tale of a vengeful Danish prince quite possibly driven to madness, Hamlet, Shakespeare's most widely performed play, is filled with startling insight into humankind's unconscious desires.
Plot summary
Old Hamlet, King of Denmark, is dead and has been succeeded by his brother. The new king has also married Gertrude, the widowed queen. Hamlet, Gertrude's son, is already distressed by his father's death and the hasty remarriage; when his father's ghost appears to tell him that he was murdered by his own brother, Hamlet vows revenge. To cover his intentions, he feigns madness. Polonius, councillor to the court, whose daughter Ophelia is all but betrothed to Hamlet, believes that his madness is caused by love. Spied on by Polonius and the king, Hamlet encounters Ophelia and violently rejects her. A company of actors arrives and Hamlet asks them to perform a play, hoping that its similarity to the murder of his own father will force the king to reveal his guilt. Hamlet's suspicions are confirmed. He visits his mother, reviling her for her hasty marriage, and accidentally kills Polonius, who is hiding in the chamber. The king sends Hamlet to England, planning to have him murdered. Laertes, Polonius' son, demands revenge for his father's death. His sister, Ophelia, maddened by grief, has drowned. Hamlet returns and confronts Laertes at her funeral. The king, meanwhile, has plotted with Laertes to kill Hamlet in a fencing match in which Laertes will have a poisoned sword. The plot miscarries and Laertes dies. Gertrude drinks from a poisoned cup intended for Hamlet, and also dies. Hamlet, wounded by the poisoned sword, kills the king before he, too, dies. Young Fortinbras of Norway arrives and lays claim to the throne of Denmark.
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Widely considered Shakespeare's most intellectually challenging comedy, Love's Labour's Lost nevertheless offers a feast of broad, farcical humor, plot twists, Elizabethan cultural allusions, and irrepressibly clever turns-of-phrase.
Plot summary
The King of Navarre and three of his lords form a little 'academe' in which they vow to study for three years, renouncing the company of women. But the Princess of France and three of her ladies arrive on a diplomatic mission, throwing the plan into chaos as soon as the vows are made. The men from Navarre trump each other in a scene in which they are overheard reading aloud their bad love poems. The ladies then comprehensively outwit the men in a scene involving Russian disguise. A comic sub-plot concerns an extravagantly spoken Spaniard, his clever page, a country clown and a pregnant dairymaid, with contributions from a curate and a pedantic schoolmaster, culminating in a pageant of classical and biblical heroes, 'The Nine Worthies'. Halfway through this show, Marcade arrives with news of the death of the princess' father. The mood turns sombre and the ladies give the men the task of performing a year's ascetic penance or community service before they will marry them.
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The dramatic concluding months of The Wars of the Roses provide the setting for Shakespeare's incomparable saga of power and intrigue.
Plot summary
After years of civil unrest between the royal Houses of York and Lancaster, the Yorkist Edward IV is undisputed king. His brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize the throne for himself, removing anybody in his path. Richard decides he needs a wife and sets out to woo Lady Anne, widow of Henry VI's heir. Against all the odds he wins her and celebrates by having his brother Clarence covertly killed in the Tower. On hearing of Clarence's death, Edward IV is taken ill and dies. In his new role as Lord Protector, Richard has Edward's heirs confined in the Tower, supposedly for safe-keeping and to await the coronation. Edward IV's widow, Queen Elizabeth, mistrusts Richard and is proved right when he orders the execution of her brother Rivers and son (by her first marriage) Grey. The Duke of Buckingham becomes Richard's chief adviser and together they mastermind and manipulate Richard's accession to the throne. Richard promises Buckingham an earldom for his help but refuses to grant it when Buckingham will not kill the princes held in the Tower. Richard finds other killers. Fearing for his safety, Buckingham flees to join the last Lancastrian heir Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who is leading an army from France against Richard. Having willed the death of his wife Anne, Richard plans to marry Edward IV's daughter (also Elizabeth, not seen in the play) in order to prevent Richmond from doing so and thereby strengthening his claim to the throne; Queen Elizabeth tricks him by pretending that she will assist him in this. Richmond and his followers arrive in England and the two armies' camp close at Bosworth Field. The night before the battle, the Ghosts of his victims torment Richard in his dreams. The next day Richard is killed in battle and Richmond claims the crown as Henry VII. He announces he will marry Elizabeth of York and finally unite the two warring factions.
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Generally believed to be the last play written solely by Shakespeare, The Tempest centers on a banished noble who uses sorcery to confront his foes. In this play, Shakespeare offers some of his most insightful meditations on themes ranging from vengeance and forgiveness to nature and nurture.
Plot summary
Twelve years ago Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was usurped by his brother, Antonio, with the help of Alonso, King of Naples, and the King's brother Sebastian. Prospero and his baby daughter Miranda were put to sea and landed on a distant island where ever since, by the use of his magic art, he has ruled over the spirit Ariel and the savage Caliban. He uses his powers to raise a storm which shipwrecks his enemies on the island. Alonso searches for his son, Ferdinand, although fearing him to be drowned. Sebastian plots to kill Alonso and seize the crown. The drunken butler, Stephano, and the jester, Trinculo, encounter Caliban and are persuaded by him to kill Prospero so that they can rule the island. Ferdinand meets Miranda and they fall instantly in love. Prospero sets heavy tasks to test Ferdinand and, when satisfied, presents the young couple with a betrothal masque. As Prospero's plan draws to its climax, he confronts his enemies and forgives them. Prospero grants Ariel his freedom and prepares to leave the island for Milan.
