Much Ado About Nothing (简装) 0553213016

在线阅读本书 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. Each Edition Includes: • Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English • Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography .co.uk Review Like Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado about Nothing shows Shakespeare moving into a more complex and darker terrain through his exploration of an apparently harmless comical romance. The play revolves around the adventures of the two gallants Claudio and Benedick at the court of Sicily. Claudio falls in love with the governor's daughter Hero, and is eager for his more misanthropic friend Benedick to also find love. Benedick is introduced to the fiery, independent Beatrice, and sparks soon fly as they banter with each other in a more wittier version of Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. Beatrice has some wonderful ripostes to marriage asking why should a woman marry "a clod of wayward marl", whilst Benedick grumbles that "She speaks poniards and every word stabs". Meanwhile, the jealous Don John convinces Claudio that Hero has in fact been unfaithful to him. When Claudio rejects Hero on their wedding day, she faints and is taken for dead. In the hectic final scenes the play moves towards reconciliation between Claudio and Hero, and the tentative admission of the love between Benedick and Beatrice. Famously filmed by Kenneth Branagh in the Tuscan countryside with a cast that included Keanu Reeves, Much Ado about Nothing remains one of Shakespeare's most successful comedies. --Jerry Brotton.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From AudioFile Because setting and action are explicit in the dialogue, MUCH ADO, like most of Shakespeare's plays, adapts wonderfully to audio. Even so, this vintage CBC production could have benefited from a richer soundscape. Director Gerald Newman uses period music to advantage but forgoes other production values. Actors from the Stratford Festival bring out the beauty of the language but project verve and character unevenly. Newman directs too laconically for my taste, subverting tension in the melodramatic passages and almost all of the humor. The romantic scenes are the most successful. Since the publishers digitally remastered the original tapes, they could have left off the Dolby noise reduction, which darkens the tonal color and further undercuts the impression of energy.Y.R.(c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Kenneth Branagh, actor/director Presenting literature in such an accessible and visually arresting way is, to my mind, a considerable achievement.Immensely appealing!--This text refers to the Poster edition. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23.The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse.He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community.William probably went to the King’s New School in Stratford, but he had no university education.In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna.She was born on May 26, 1583.Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585.By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright.A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.”Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the LordChamberlain’s Men (later under James I, called the King’s Men).In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River.Here many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin.In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609.In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613.He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

出版社	Bantam Classics
作者	William Shakespeare