Introducing Shakespeare. 3rd Edition, Revised and Expanded.

by G.B. Harrison

This work provides the background to Shakespeare's plays. The author shows how Shakespeare came to occupy his current position at the pinnacle of English literature, how little we know of his life and how recent scholarship has made immense strides in illuminating his works. Subsequent chapters consider what we know about the social and political scene in Shakespeare's day, the rival theatrical companies in an age of the plague, plagiarism and literary piracy and the actual design of Elizabethan playhouses. Dr Harrison concludes by looking at the established canon and its chronology, the development of Shakespeare's style and the techniques used by modern editors to turn Folios and Quartos into readable texts.

Genres: Shakespeare, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, English Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

George Bagshawe Harrison was a British scholar and critic, educated at Queens' College, Cambridge. In 1924 he began lecturing at King's College, University of London, subsequently holding professorships at Queen's University, Ontario, and the University of Michigan. Among his many works on Shakespeare and his period were Shakespeare's Fellows (1923), Elizabethan Plays and Players (1940), and Shakespeare's Critics: From Jonson to Auden (1964); England in Shakespeare's Day (1928) and Shakespeare at Work (1933) are highly regarded as introductions to the social and cultural contexts of Shakespeare's work. He also produced numerous editions of Elizabethan and Jacobean documents, notably Thomas Nashe's Pierce Pennilesse, His Supplication to the Divell, 1592 (1924), An Elizabethan Journal (three volumes, 1928, 1931, 1933), A Jacobean Journal (two volumes, 1941, 1950), and The Letters of Queen Elizabeth I (1935). Harrison was general editor of the Penguin Shakespeare between 1937 and 1959. His other publications included The Day Before Yesterday (1938), a journal for the year 1936; Julius Caesar in Shakespeare, Shaw, and the Ancients (1960); and Profession of English (1962), which reflects on the objectives and procedures of literary studies. '

Reviews

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good introduction on life and work of Shakespeare, but a bit soulless. And short.

[Duc de’Bunbury]

sets the stage for Shakespeare (pun intended)

[Stephen Heiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Harrison does precisely what the book advertises: he introduces Shakespeare. That said, I've continued to study more and more criticism of Shakespeare as part of running a book club focused on the Bard, and I learned quite a few things from this slim volume. The language used definitely dates it from the 1930s but the knowledge put forward still stands up even against more recent trends of Shakespearean criticism. While the book is also ostensibly an introduction to the Penguin edition of Shakespeare, only a little bit of the text is reserved to how the editors decided to treat the manuscripts for modern publication. That choice made the text much more valuable as a general introduction to Shakespeare rather than as an introduction to the Penguin editions.

"Shakespeare to Coleridge was not so much a writer of plays as an emanation of the Godhead." (p. 20)

"'The humorous man' was not the funny man of the party, but the melancholic, the eccentric." (p. 51-52)

"A study of Shakespeare's imagery will show many of his experiences, but not how and when he came by them." (p. 63)

"There was no general curtain concealing the whole stage, so that all scenes on the main stage began with an entrance and ended with an exit." (p. 95)

"Chairs or stools showed indoor scenes; a man wearing riding-boots was a messenger; a king wearing his armour was on the field of battle; a watchman carrying a lantern indicated the streets of a city at night." (p. 100-101)

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the mid-twentieth century, George Bagshawe Harrison (1894–1991) was one of the leading authorities on Shakespeare and the editor of the Shakespeare Penguin Classics, of which this volume was intended to serve as a general introduction. In this small book, Harrison treats the limited information known about Shakespeare’s life and the many legends that developed in attempts to fill the biographical gaps after Shakespeare’s works became canonical a century after his death. Harrison describes the Elizabethan playhouse, the development of Shakespeare’s style, and the rough-and-ready way in which English drama was performed at the turn of the 17th century. Harrison concludes with a chapter on the principles of editing Shakespeare and recent textual criticism of his work. Despite its brevity and age—the book was first published in 1939—Harrison’s book holds up surprisingly well as an introduction to Shakespeare’s dramatic works.

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was allright. It's purpose s to generaly introduce Shakespeare, his time and works, which it did. But that is all that it did, for me. It doesn't happen often to me, I am known to enjoy 'tenacious' texts, but I found this book to be quite dry. Maybe also because it seems to give lots of details that don't seem very relevant to a general introduction of Shakespeare.
The content presented in the book, however eleborate, did spark my interest. I would love to start reading more about- and especially from Shakespeare. This is something I have been avoiding as I always found his existing canon slightly imposing, but this book might have made me touch upon the subject just enough to pick up some other works...

[Adil Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not remember the last time reading gave me so much pleasure.

[Daniel Gallimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little Pelican was the standard 'introduction' to Shakespeare for the man on the Clapham omnibus of eighty years ago, and for readers now as then who find Shakespeare either uniformly 'wonderful' or dull as ditchwater the two last chapters make essential points, namely that Shakespeare's style grows (and improves) over the course of his writing career and that in many cases we cannot be exactly sure what he wrote in the first place; Shakespeare is always open to interpretation, starting with his numerous editors.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very insightful book into not only the history of Shakespeare and his company but the 17th century as a period. There are issues covered that many, including myself, may not have even thought about, such as the challenges modern editors go through when they want to successfully edit a play. There were no play manuscripts used by a printer during Shakespeare’s lifetime that have survived. Shakespeare didn’t intend for his plays to be read as literature, so editors struggled and argued about correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling, as well as the question of whether to use the Folio version or Quarto.

Very good overall introduction and I look forward to delving into what many consider, the greatest writer in the English language.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the plus side, it's a handsome little book. Neatly organized into short chapters, with frequent quotation of Shakespeare and his peers, and generously illustrated with relevant photography and engravings and paintings from the renaissance.

However, it's definitely an introduction: it's all pretty fundamental, and probably won't surprise any Shakespeare buff. It also pulls the trick of containing just enough editorializing and outdated criticism to preclude itself from being an entirely useful introduction. Haha. Oops.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very useful.