This book redirects attention to a truth largely ignored by recent criticism—that Shakespeare’s excellence as a playwright is inextricable from his excellence as a poet. It explores the diverse means by which Shakespeare’s poetry enriches his drama, illustrating how particular words in a particular order render his dialogue distinctive and create supreme literary and dramatic value. By examining many passages, long and short and from a variety of Shakespeare’s plays—comedies, histories, tragedies, late plays—the author aids understanding of the poetic effects that make Shakespeare preeminent. His analyses, alert to textual variants and cruxes, are illuminated by comparisons: Shakespeare’s early verse is compared with his later verse, and samples of Shakespearean dialogue are compared with versions in later adaptations, in modernizations, and in inferior quarto texts, and with contributions by his co-authors to collaborative plays. The contrasts throw into relief the surpassing vitality and expressiveness of Shakespeare’s own language. Since the rhythmic vitality of Shakespeare’s verse is essential to how and what it communicates, an appendix on the principles of iambic pentameter is included to support those aspects of the analyses that refer to acoustic subtleties.
1 Introduction: Shakespeare, Poet and Playwright
2 Shakespeare’s Early and Late Verse
2.1 Early Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew and the Question of Authorship
2.2 Henry the Sixth, Part Three
2.3 Later Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra
3 Elements of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Poetry
3.1 Macbeth: Poetry and the Expansion of Meaning
3.2 Wordplay and Imagery
3.3 Hamlet: Variations of Style and Significance
3.4 Julius Caesar and Simplicity
4 Variations between Quartos
4.1 Romeo and Juliet: The Marriage Scene in Q1 (1597) and Q2 (1599)
4.2 Romeo and Juliet: Romeo’s Last Speech in Q1 (1597) and Q2 (1599)
4.3 Romeo and Juliet: Variant Prologues
4.4 Hamlet Q1 (1603) and Q2 (1604/5): The Queen’s Account of Ophelia’s Death
4.5 Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be’ in Q1 and Q2
5 Shakespeare and his Co-authors
5.1 Timon of Athens: Shakespeare and Middleton
5.2 Pericles: Shakespeare and Wilkins
5.3 All Is True (Henry VIII) and The Two Noble Kinsmen: Shakespeare and Fletcher
6 The Play On Shakespeare Project
6.1 As You Like It: The Duke on Life in Arden
6.2 Henry the Fifth: The Chorus on the English Fleet’s Voyage to France
6.3 Duncan and Banquo Arrive at Macbeth’s Castle
6.4 The Tempest: Prospero’s Monologue on his ‘potent art’
6.5 The Two Noble Kinsmen: Arcite’s Death
6.6 Conclusion
Appendix: Iambic Pentameter Verse
Biography
MacDonald P. Jackson is an Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland.
