Shakespeare's Shakespeare

by John C. Meagher

In this work of scholarship and creativity, John Meagher argues that we have understood Shakespeare incorrectly by failing to recognize his own directions as playwright, his dramatic designs, his plotting and use of sources, the deployment of his acting company, and the character of his customary stage and audience. In short, we have not been exposed to Shakespeare's Shakespeare, but to Shakespeare as read and acted according to norms of critics, directors, and editors of later times. Through an examination of seven well-known plays (Romeo and Juliet; Hamlet; King Lear; A Midsummer Night's Dream; As You Like It; Richard II; and Henry IV, Part I), Meagher uncovers Shakespeare as an artist, director, and actor. Written for the general reader and scholar, Shakespeare's Shakespeare recognizes the Bard first and foremost as a man of the theater, and offers vital solutions to several of the thorny problems that have beset scholars of Elizabethan drama.