How to Enjoy Shakespeare

by Robert Thomas Fallon

Readers and playgoers who are new to Shakespeare (and even more seasoned veterans who would like to appreciate him more than they do) often find themselves what is going on? His characters speak in verse rather than in the patterns of everyday speech. They are figures that ordinary humans seldom encounter-kings, queens, dukes, cardinals, and generals. Some of the plays are set in places even the most seasoned traveler is unlikely to have visited-Bohemia, Illyria, and the ancient Greek cities of Asia Minor-and in times from the distant past-imperial Rome, medieval Venice, Homer's Troy. What's more, the plots pursue events that seemingly have little to do with the daily round of modern lives-contention for a royal crown, assassination, shipwreck, occult visitation. Robert Fallon's small book is designed to dispel some of this apparent strangeness. It shows readers that what may at first seem unfamiliar to them is in fact close to their own lives. Kings and queens emerge as recognizable fathers and mothers, dukes and earls as squabbling siblings of any era. Exotic locales might be any present-day village or city block. And the plots resemble stories to be found in the pages of our morning newspaper. Shakespeare's language takes some getting used to, but even a brief acquaintance with its cadence and imagery will offer a glimpse of its glories. In How to Enjoy Shakespeare, Mr. Fallon explores Shakespeare's familiarity in five sections dealing with language, theme, staging, character, and plot, each abundantly illustrated with episodes and quotations from the plays. He writes in easily accessible prose in a book designed to make modern readers and audiences feel comfortable with the Bard.

Genres: Nonfiction, Shakespeare

128 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 2005

Reviews

[Vel Veeter]

I don't think it's as bad as others have suggested, but I do think it's extremely limited and also cannot actually understand that if you haven't read Shakespeare then a lot of the explanations are basically simulacra of trying to read Shakespeare. I found the discussion of "stress" to be nearly nonsensical, not because it wasn't accurate but because it didn't allow for someone who didn't already understand access to the information. Stress is not hard to understand, but my experience is that it's a lightswitch idea, not a knowing idea.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, this book is just not that good. I am far from a Shakespeare scholar, but I enjoy his works and often read them on my own for fun. This can sometimes be a tough slog without a knowledgeable guide to refer to when something is difficult to understand. Throughout my amateur Shakespeare efforts I have also occasionally come across little tips and background pieces of information that inform deeper meaning and enjoyment of his works. For example, someone once told me that Shakespeare often has characters exit on a rhyming couple. I had never noticed before, but once you know to look for it, it adds a surprising amount of enjoyment to your reading and watching of his plays.

That is not mentioned in this book, and neither is much else. It's more that the author wants to impress us with the fact that he's read and understood all of Shakespeare's works. "Shakespeare wrote about relationships. One such relationship is that between fathers and sons. Allow me to list all the father/son pairs that appear in Shakespeare's works." Oh wow, really? Shakespeare wrote about human relationships? And that's what sets him apart from all the other writers of all time, is it?

It's just filled with silly stuff like this that doesn't really help anyone understand Shakespeare anymore than they already do. I think literally everyone has caught on to the fact that the ghost is Hamlet's father, and that Cordelia is King Lear's daughter. It's all the other crap going on in those stories that people need help with.

So, rather than read this book, ready my review. I've captured the only moderately interesting tips from it below:

"Shakespeare employed rhyme more often in his early plays, but as he matured in his art he depended less upon it, preferring blank verse, which relies more on rhythm and imagery for effect."

I find it kind of interesting to notice these kinds of contextual clues as I read or watch.

"Shakespeare, as noted, was fond of drawing attention to poetic excess and to actors who overact. Nowhere does the parody such exuberance to comic effect so well as in the Pyramus and Thisbe episode in A Midsummer Night's Dream."

It is definitely helpful to know that the whole Pyramus and Thisbe bit is supposed to be ridiculous. (A similar concept applies to Dogberry from Much Ado About Nothing. He is supposed to sound like a pompous idiot. That's the joke. Not mentioned in this mostly useless book, but an added freebie from me.)

"The seasoned playgoer will be alert to Shakespeare's practice of concluding a long speech with a significant summing up."

So if you're having trouble following a long stretch, just reread the last few lines a few times and you'll get the gist of the whole preceeding passage.

The author also points out that plays were staged in the open air, with minimal aid of what we would now consider necessities of theater, like scenery, lighting, and effects. So you may notice that often characters refer to the sun or moon as a way of cluing the audience to the time of day of the scene and the weather, as in "Well met by moonlight, Proud Titania," and "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!" both of which would have been ideally uttered under a bright, cloudless sky.

It's also worth noting that this applies to stage directions as well ... but the author doesn't. Note that, I mean. It's a basic tip for understanding Shakespeare that is missed, so I'll just throw it in from my own knowledge. There is very little in the way of stage direction ("Exit left, pursued by a bear" notwithstanding), because it is often embedded in the dialog, as in, "How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale, " or "Upon my knees I charm you."

I wish the whole book were full of these kinds of things, but it's not. Maybe I'll have to write my own book on the topic. :)

[Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this 100-page guide and realize that I was taught Shakespeare the wrong way, that is to say, the most common way of reading one play at a time. I was never given in overview of the various machinations of plot, character, imagery, etc. Consequently, I always found Shakespeare difficult to understand.

With this guide, however, now I understand his basic devices, including language, and how his uncommon events (rise of empire, assassination, etc) and uncommon figures (dukes, kings, queens, generals) were really at their core just vehicles for expressing humanity: joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats.

My main qualm is that including a few figures-- especially of the characters--would have added some zest to the text.

[Quetzalcoatlus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unlike some other reviewers before me, I am a newbie to Shakespeare. Despite brief encounter of him during my secondary school years, which at the time English class was my 2nd fav class since I basically got amnestied by the teacher as English was my second language (side note – my fav class is lunch). I came across this book on the library shelve and was expecting some sort of enlightenment, as the subtitle of the book claims.
It’s a very short and readable book, only 128 pages, and took me 2 days to finish it. The author divides the book into sections of Language, Theme, Staging, Character and plot. Making claims about the respective aspect with examples that is heavily laden with spoilers. He does not provide any clear steps as to how to improve the skills at enjoying Shakespeare. The closest he came to it was something like ‘one will get used to the language’. He provides rather more like a sketch of all of Shakespeare’s plays, comparing and contrasting them in terms of the subdivisions (Theme, staging, character…). But I don’t see how understanding these could make Shakespeare more enjoyable. Identifying differences and similarities between Shakespeare’s works is not going make Shakespeare more enjoyable if you don’t understand a word he is saying.
All in all, if you are a beginner like me, I would not recommend this book as I think you would not be enlightened like the book says you would. All you’ll get is pieces of chaotic information that you would otherwise get from the reading the play itself that will not help you understand Shakespeare let alone enjoying him.

[Garrett Cash · Rating 2 out of 5]

I personally love Shakespeare and have no issue whatsoever in enjoying his works. I thought I would give this slim work a look for some good points to possibly use when attempting to explain Shakespeare's unexpected accessibility to the ignorant. The book is more of a brief glazing over of the main aspects of Shakespeare that are studied. The author does this by examining several passages from many plays, which are spoiler-laden. The appalling misinformation in several places was most bothersome. It was almost like being in a conversation with someone who knows all the plays but can't keep them straight or has surface level ideas about them. For instance, he claims that Brabantio (Othello) makes Kate cry in The Taming of the Shrew. Don't know where he got that from. He also says Troilus and Cressida is Shakespeare's take on Homer's Iliad, which is a misleading statement since it's based on Chaucer's work and doesn't feature the plot of Homer's. There are probably many more examples I could have given, but I had to skim the vast majority of the examinations in the book due to spoilers. This might be a good intro for someone who is really terrified of Shakespeare, but for everyone else I would just recommend reading one of his better comedies and to go from there.

[Christine H · Rating 1 out of 5]

For all of the claims that the prose in Fallon's book is accessible, enabling readers to fully appreciate Shakespeare, I think his attempts to dissect the plays inadvertently -- or simply unfortunately -- strain them of their colours and flavours. In truth, I'd much prefer to read Shakespeare in all his linguistically discombobulating glory.