The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works by William Shakespeare

The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works Reviews

• 
  Marius

  
  
  10. LOVE's LABOUR'S LOST (p. 305 - 364)
  11 October 2016 - 16 October 2016
  
  9. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (p. 413 - 471)
  27 May 2016 - 29 May 2016
  
  8. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (p. 102 - 154)
  04 March 2016 - 08 March 2016
  
  7. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (p. 526 - 583)
  20 February 2016 - 28 February 2016
  
  6. MEASURE FOR MEASURE (p. 159 - 214)
  21 September 2015 - 25 September 2015
  
  5. AS YOU LIKE IT (p. 472 - 525)
  6 July 2015 - 9 July 2015
  
  ... continued from
  The Complete Pelican Shakespeare
• 
  David

  One of those books that will never finish because its depths of tenderness are inexhaustible. You can stick it forever on a shelf but its own secret life goes on even without you ever picking it up again after a brief dip into it. It's just there for you whenever you want to read it, that's all.
• 
  Katinka

  How does she love Shakespeare?
  With adorations, fertile tears
  With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire
  Twelfth Night
  
  Also:
  I will requite thee
  Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand
  Much ado about nothing
• 
  Andrew

  All the plays are considered individually elsewhere, so a summary of my ratings must do (though it needs modifying, on balance), plus a brief account of the two long poems and the sonnets:
  
  Hamlet [1600-1601] 10.17
  Tempest [1611], The 9.27
  King Lear [1605-1606] 9.2
  Romeo and Juliet [1595-1596] 9.03
  Winter's Tale [1611], The 9.02
  Richard II [1595-1596] 8.4
  Macbeth [1605-1606] 7.83
  Coriolanus [1608] 7.7
  Richard III [1592-1594] 7.7
  Twelfth Night [1601] 7.7
  Merchant Of Venice [1596-1597], The 7.68
  Antony and Cleopatra [1606-1607] 7.6
  Henry VI Part III [1591] 7.58
  Julius Caesar [1599-1600] 7.57
  Othello [1604] 7.57
  Measure for Measure [1604] 7.5
  Much Ado About Nothing [1598] 7.48
  Pericles [1608] 7.45
  Cymbeline [1610] 7.43
  Taming Of The Shrew [1589-1592], The 7.43
  Henry V [1599] 7.35
  Midsummer Night's Dream [1595-1596], A 7.17
  Titus Andronicus [1591-1592] 7.13
  As You Like It [1599] 6.9
  Troilus and Cressida [1601-1602] 6.9
  Henry VI Part II [1591] 6.88
  Henry IV Part I [1596-1597] 6.78
  Henry VIII [1613] 6.77
  Two Noble Kinsmen [1613], The 6.32
  Henry VI Part I [1592] 6.58
  Henry IV Part II [1597-1598] 6.53
  All's Well That Ends Well [1605] 6.37
  Love's Labour's Lost [1595] 6.27
  Timon Of Athens [1605] 6.17
  Two Gentlemen Of Verona [1591-1592], The 6.13
  Comedy Of Errors [1594], The 5.8
  King John [1595-1597] 5.8
  Merry Wives Of Windsor [1600-1601], The 4.97.
  
  Venus And Adonis [1593] 5.6
  The Rape Of Lucrece [1594] 7.7.
  
  Sonnets [1592-1603, pub. 1609] 7.19.
  
  Venus and Adonis (1593), written in a six-line stanza rhyming ababaa, I didn't like at all, and felt it to be an over-elaborate and elongated plaint in love, written in an ardour of youth, and so the style smacked. The Rape Of Lucrece (1594), was, even though only a year later, far more mature and expressive. A seven-line stanza in ababbcc, in iambic pentameter, flowed even better when using monologue, a considerable amount of its content. Here, I felt a sympathy with Lucrece, who, much like Philomel, who is raped and then abused (see Lavinia in Titus Andronicus [1591-2]), is similarly raped, but has still her lamenting tongue (else, the poem would be shorter and less plaintive), yet decides she cannot bear the shame, and opts for suicide. Shakespeare therefore draws on Ovid's tale, but sends it in a different direction, compounding her sorrow. This, I appreciated much more.
  
  The sonnets have traditionally been classified into two nominal categories, the first 126 (of 154) addressing a younger man, sonnets 127-154 to the 'Dark Lady', the last pair indicating the sexual disease consequent on the sexual voracity earlier connoted. They imply a personal if not just a poetic dramatisation of spiritual love for the former and sexual desire for and consummation with the latter, speaking largely with a strong personal voice implying or directly stating the poet's, with sonnets 135 & 6 punning on his own name. Frequently the sonnets discuss a theme or use a motif in pairs, a second (and sometimes a third and fourth, and more, as the first four to eleven do) developing the former theme in different permutations. Some of the sonnets are almost impenetrable (sonnets 35, 94 & 5 and 108 particularly), while there are tonal shifts implicit in others (69 seems to shift from adoration to criticism, but is paired off back to theme in its successor).
  
  But there is also a stylistic difference evident. The 'young man' series becomes metaphysically mature, showing early impersonal abstraction (33-4, the sun imagery), later discussing Time and immortality, but only a few do not directly address its subject, becoming fully abstract, such as the famous 116 ('Let me not to the marriage of true minds') to Love, and 123 ('No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change'), to Time; and end in 126 with the 'silent' (empty) couplet, indicating that Time's claims (death) may be delayed, but cannot be defeated. While the adoration of the 'Dark Lady' escalates to a beseeching imploration (143, 145), a sickening through love (146) turning through hate (147) to a self-disgust (147) and contention (149) where recriminations abound (151-2), they end not with a metaphysical maturity but in the base physical: syphilis (153-4). But these last (28) sonnets, which become progressively more unpleasant to experience, because of their sickening content, also alienate by containing some very structurally clunky offerings (128 & 9), yet even while they physically repel, they eventually demonstrate a maturity of construction (147-52), their best leaving admiration for both beauty (130, 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun') and superb cleverness (138, 'When my love swears that she is made of truth').
• 
  Bartleby

  My desert island book, my Prospero's library
• 
  Eleclyah

  In una edizione davvero eccellente, curata niente meno che dalla Royal Shakespeare Company, sono raccolte tutte le opere complete di William Shakespeare.
  Il libro è corredato di una dettagliata introduzione, di foto delle pièces teatrali, e note esplicative. Per tutti gli appassionati del Bardo.
  Segue l’indice delle opere contenute nel volume.
  
  COMMEDIE:
  • The Tempest
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • Measure for Measure
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Much Ado about Nothing
  • Love's Labour's Lost
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • As You Like It
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • All's Well that Ends Well
  • Twelfth Night, or What You Will
  • The Winter's Tale
  
  STORIE:
  • The Life and Death of King John
  • The Life and Death of King Richard the Second
  • The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry surnamed Hotspur
  • The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, containing his Death and the Coronation of King Henry the Fifth
  • The Life of Henry the Fifth
  • The First Part of Henry the Sixth
  • The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Good Duke Humphrey
  • The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Duke of York
  • The Tragedy of Richard the Third, with the Landing of Earl Richmond and the Battle at Bosworth Field
  • The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth
  
  TRAGEDIE
  • The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida
  • The Tragedy of Coriolanus
  • The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
  • The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
  • The Life of Timon of Athens The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
  • The Tragedy of Macbeth
  • The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
  • The Tragedy of King Lear
  • The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
  • The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
  • The Tragedy of Cymbeline
  
  DRAMMI non presenti nel First Folio:
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre (di William Shakespeare e George Wilkins)
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen (di William Shakespeare e John Fletcher)
  
  POEMI E SONETTI:
  • Venus and Adonis
  • The Rape of Lucrece
  • “Let the bird of loudest lay” (conosciuta anche come “The Phoenix and Turtle”)
  • “To the Queen”
  • Shakespeare's Sonnets
• 
  Old-Barbarossa

  Have the RSC Works and am sauntering through it.
  Very good intro and notes to each play, good glosses at the foot of each page.
  So far read:-
  
  Henry VI parts 1-3: Carnage and political jockeying for power. Some cracking characters, Joan and Talbot; Margaret; Cade; the future Richard 3rd.
  
  Richard III: I found it odd that after the onstage carnage of the 3 Henry6s there was very little action onstage, the vast majority of bloodletting happening offstage (even the marrige to Anne). I suppose this reflects the more cerebral way the characters are portrayed, more by words than action. Also noted the way Dick was in most scenes and the huge amount of asides compared to the Henry6s, where Henry was a mere shadow of Dick.
  As to the "bottled spider", my RSC Works glosses this as: "bottled- swollen with venom, rounded, bottle shaped". So not refering to him being sealed in or trapped, but primed and ready, loaded...in other words Margaret is onto him. Regularly described as "swollen" too, he seems like an evil pustule on legs ready to burst at any point, again refering to his rounded shape.
  The initial "Now is the winter etc" I could only hear as dripping with bitter sarcasm...and from that moment on Dick's voice was Ian McKellan (even though I've not seen his fascist take on R3).
  Did enjoy this, but a very different "flavour" compared to the H6s and less of an ensemble piece, more of a star vehicle for whoever plays Dick.
  
  
  
• 
  Jordan Phizacklea-Cullen

  All human life is here. What better can you say?
  
  (aside from superb research, explanatory notes, invaluable historical context in the introduction and well-illustrated. Required for any English-language bookshelf - controversial I know!)
• 
  Edward

  My most excellent brother-in-law Mathew procured this beauty for me. One of my most read, re-read, right beside my bedside book-- ever! Much loved.
• 
  Javen

  I've used my Riverside (Second Edition) for years, but the relatively new RSC Complete has won me over. I love the layout, the deference to the First Folio, and the updated scholarship.
• 
  Amber

  ✔ Twelfth Night, or What You Will
  ✔ A Midsummer Night's Dream
  ✔ Merchant of Venice
  ✔ Measure for Measure
  ✔ The Tempest
• 
  Literary Ames

  
  https://literaryames.wordpress.com/20...
• 
  Ryan

  He's the daddy
• 
  Emu

  Shakespeare is over rated