The Comedie Of Errors Review

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(More customer reviews)This is great reading materil-what can I say?In this book is a great storyline and a fun, exciting plot.It has its high points and sad points, like any other, with other things mixed in.Shakespeare again displays his wonderful talent in writing and acting.This is a perfect book for anyone.

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Mar. You know since Pentecost the sum is due, And since I haue not much importun'd you, Nor now I had not, but that I am bound To Persia, and want Gilders for my voyage:

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The Comedy of Errors (Arden Shakespeare: Second Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)One of the problems that great artists present to us is where to begin in getting to know their works.Their masterworks are often so full of what they have spent a lifetime developing that most of it is lost on those who have not yet put in a significant amount of effort becoming familiar with that artist's style and means of expression.Yet, if one begins with their apprentice works one may become discouraged because they lack the miracles of the masterworks.So, where does one begin?

Shakespeare offers the reader an additional challenge of an English that is removed in style and idiom from us by 400 years.It is not an insurmountable challenge.In fact, it is quite easy to overcome with a bit of time reading it and getting into the flow.It just seems strange in the beginning, but it really does become easy to read once you spend some time with it.However, getting over that small hill has kept many from enjoying the glories of Shakespeare.

This play, "The Comedy of Errors", is clearly an early work.It has many virtues, but despite them it does not offer much of what we really value in Shakespeare.It is a very fine play and is constructed very well.It is a wonderful first work to read of Shakespeare because it is short and has a very simple plot.The new reader does not have to spend much effort contemplating characters or the immense subtlety of language of the great works.Its charms are direct and what it has to offer is pretty much on the surface of the words.

The plot is, like all farces, ridiculous.It involves twin brothers who are served by twin slaves.They are separated early in life and when the play opens one set does not know the other exists.One set (the Antipholus and Dromio from Syracuse) visits Ephesus where the other set (the Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus) lives.The play involves people confusing the two sets to the bewilderment of those suffering from the confusion.It really is quite funny.Of course, eventually, all is resolved to everyone's delight.

This edition, like all of the individual editions Arden offers of these plays, has a wonderful opening essay that offers a great deal of background on the play including a discussion of its performance history, sources, and discussion of the play itself.The appendices in the back offer excerpts from the sources and some brief information on the Gray's Inn performance of 1594.

If you desire to study Shakespeare and are willing to spend time reading many of his plays, "The Comedy of Errors" is a good work to start with just to ease into the language and get a feel for some of the conventions of Elizabethan theater.Just don't stop here.Shakespeare has so much more to offer that you owe it to yourself to continue your exploration of this supreme artist.

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Angels & Insects: Two Novellas Review

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(More customer reviews)Let me explain my 4 stars: I would have liked to give a 5-Star for "Morpho Eugenia" and a 3-Star for "Conjugal Angel." All the reviews here are correct in that A.S. Byatt is an amazing writer thoroughly versed in Victorian England. Her observation is keen and her prose style is assured. I can't really name another author besides Byatt who manages to weave narrative and intellectual discussion so seamlessly.The first of the two novellas, "Morpho Eugenia," is immediately appealing. I was hooked by the story very quickly through lush descriptions and how Byatt deftly sets up the conflict and character dynamics. I enjoyed "Conjugal Angel" much less. This one demands much more on the readers, especially if they are not familiar with Tennyson and Hallam. Even if you're a pro in Victorian poetry, you may find (as I did) the opening confusing in setting up the premise of the drama and introducing characters. The prose seems discursive and lacking in focus from time to time--very uneven. But you can't beat the nice surprise ending, almost conventional and (dare I use the word?) sentimental, Byatt's erudition notwithstanding. :-)

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Mark Twain and Orion Clemens: Brothers, Partners, Strangers (Amer Lit Realism & Naturalism) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a distant relative of Orion Clemens on his wife Mollie/Mary Stotts side. My grandmother shared stories of visits with Orion and Mary, we inherited some correspondence, pictures as so forth. I had a basic knowledge of Orion as Governor of Nevada and of Samuel as renowned author, humorist, and American icon. What I did not know was the very interesting dynamic of the relationship between the brothers. This is that history in chronological fashion. Learning the foibles of each shattered my preconceptions. The complexities of the relationship makes for interesting reading as well as a better understanding. I am grateful to have run upon this book which is going the rounds of the family to get us all up to speed on the Clemenses.

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In a compelling way; Philip Fanning traces the fraternal relationship of Orion and Samuel Clemens from its beginning in Hannibal, Missouri, in the 1830s to Orion's death in Iowa in 1897. He demonstrates that Orion's influence on the writer known as Mark Twain was profound, pervasive, and prolonged. In some respects, Samuel defined himself against Orion's formidable background. It was Orion who became the chief financial and spiritual support of the Clemens family following the father's controversial death in 1847. It was Orion who led the way for his brother into printing, journalism, and mine speculation. And it was Orion who served as Sam's first real editor and literary mentor, recognizing and encouraging his younger brother's talents as a writer. The two siblings had much in common, and they often appeared to be codependent, so much so that their attitudes veered sharply from mutual admiration to mutual disdain and rivalry. Whereas Orion was self-effacing, easygoing, humble, and adventurous in his politics and progressive in his views, Twain was often ill-tempered and antagonistic toward those around him and conservative in his outlook.He frequently portrayed his older brother in autobiographical writings and letters as a buffoon and a laughingstock. Fanning - who drew upon extensive archival sources, unpublished letters between the two brothers, and the Mark Twain Papers at the University of California, Berkeley - charts these divergences in their characters and in their fortunes. As Twain rose to become a national celebrity and a financial success, Orion's finances and self-esteem disintegrated, and Twain's treatment of his brother became evermore harsh and mocking. Fanning's study stands as both a biography of a fractious fraternal relationship and a work of scholarship that highlights for the first time how significantly Orion Clemens influenced Twain's psychic and artistic economy.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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