
This Is Shakespeare
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Narrated by:
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Emma Smith
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By:
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Emma Smith
About this listen
An electrifying new study that investigates the challenges of the Bard's inconsistencies and flaws, and focuses on revealing - not resolving - the ambiguities of the plays and their changing topicality
A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn't tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant.
In This Is Shakespeare, Emma Smith - an intellectually, theatrically, and ethically exciting writer - takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting, as we watch Shakespeare emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd (the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day), flirting with and skirting around the cutthroat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval, and technological change. Smith writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity, and sex. Instead of offering the answers, the Shakespeare she reveals poses awkward questions, always inviting the reader to ponder ambiguities.
©2020 Emma Smith (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"I admire the freshness and attack of her writing, the passion and curiosity that light up the page." (Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies)
"If I were asked to recommend one guide for readers keen on discovering what's at stake in Shakespeare's plays, This Is Shakespeare would be it." (James Shapiro, author of The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606)
"Brilliantly illuminating.... The best introduction to Shakespeare’s plays that I've read, perhaps the best book on Shakespeare, full stop. Emma Smith's voice is disarmingly frank, refreshingly irreverent, full of pop culture.... Her reading of the plays is dazzling, her original research totally convincing." (Alex Preston, The Observer, London)
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The narration - why?????
- By agarista on 07-20-21
By: Yaniv Iczkovits
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How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch
- In Search of the Recipe for Our Universe, from the Origins of Atoms to the Big Bang
- By: Harry Cliff
- Narrated by: Harry Cliff
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Harry Cliff - a University of Cambridge particle physicist and researcher on the Large Hadron Collider - sets out in pursuit of answers. He ventures to the largest underground research facility in the world, deep beneath Italy's Gran Sasso mountains, where scientists gaze into the heart of the Sun using the most elusive of particles, the ghostly neutrino. He visits CERN in Switzerland to explore the "Antimatter Factory," where the stuff of science fiction is manufactured daily (and we're close to knowing whether it falls up).
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Excellent
- By Adrian on 01-06-23
By: Harry Cliff
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The World in Books
- 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Leon Nixon, Kenneth C. Davis
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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A bestselling historian takes listeners on an intellectual and cultural adventure, offering a carefully curated guide to great, short nonfiction works by some of the world’s most influential writers—from Plato to Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway to bell hooks, and Marcus Aurelius to Joan Didion. A delightful roadmap to a year’s worth of reading briefly, plus biographies, fascinating facts, and idea-rich insights into the lives of the thinkers, historians, and literary giants who have shaped our world.
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An enticing, concise overview.
- By Sean Faircloth on 11-10-24
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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My Beloved Life
- A Novel
- By: Amitava Kumar
- Narrated by: Amitava Kumar
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Jadunath Kunwar’s beginnings are humble, even inauspicious. In 1935 in a village near George Orwell’s birthplace, Jadu’s mother, while pregnant with him, nearly dies from a cobra bite. When we see Jadu again, he is in college, meeting the Sherpa who first summited Everest and wondering what it means to be modern. As his life skates between the mythical and the mundane, and as changes big and small sweep across India, Jadu finds meaning in the most unexpected places.
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Profoundly moving
- By Kani on 12-22-24
By: Amitava Kumar
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Just an Ordinary Day
- Stories
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Mark Deakins, Kimberly Farr, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House - classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe - Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty. Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection.
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Captures a Bygone Era
- By Anonymous User on 11-11-22
By: Shirley Jackson
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Three-Martini Lunch
- By: Suzanne Rindell
- Narrated by: Will Damron, JD Jackson, Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1958, Greenwich Village buzzes with beatniks, jazz clubs, and new ideas - the ideal spot for three ambitious young people to meet. Cliff Nelson, the son of a successful book editor, is convinced he’s the next Kerouac, if only his father would notice. Eden Katz dreams of being an editor but is shocked when she encounters roadblocks to that ambition. And Miles Tillman, a talented black writer from Harlem, seeks to learn the truth about his father’s past, finding love in the process. Though different from one another, all three share a common goal.
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WOW
- By Jordan on 05-20-17
By: Suzanne Rindell
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The Reopening of the Western Mind
- The Resurgence of Intellectual Life from the End of Antiquity to the Dawn of the Enlightenment
- By: Charles Freeman
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 27 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Freeman, lauded historical scholar and author of The Closing of the Western Mind (“A triumph”—The Times), explores the rebirth of Western thought in the centuries that followed the demise of the classical era. As the dominance of Christian teachings gradually subsided over time, a new open-mindedness made way for the ideas of morality and theology, and fueled and formed the backbone of the Western mind of the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond.
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Fascinating survey of 1,000+ years of thought
- By Roger on 11-07-23
By: Charles Freeman
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Hum If You Don't Know the Words
- By: Bianca Marais
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a 10-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising.
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Completely wrong accents
- By Debbie on 02-12-22
By: Bianca Marais
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Much Ado About You
- By: Samantha Young
- Narrated by: Imani Jade Powers
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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At 33 years old, Evangeline Starling's life in Chicago is missing that special something. And when she's passed over for promotion at work, Evie realizes she needs to make a change. Some time away to regain perspective might be just the thing. In a burst of impulsivity, she plans a holiday in a quaint English village. The holiday package comes with a temporary position at Much Ado About Books, the bookstore located beneath her rental apartment. There's no better dream vacation for the bookish Evie, a life-long Shakespeare lover.
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Ehhh... Not Her Best Work
- By daisylou on 03-29-21
By: Samantha Young
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Sirens & Muses
- A Novel
- By: Antonia Angress
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors.
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Love the messiness! Everyone’s a mess!
- By Cierra Brown on 08-24-24
By: Antonia Angress
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The Eagle and the Hart
- The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
- By: Helen Castor
- Narrated by: Helen Castor
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor.
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A thrilling read
- By Rich C on 11-30-24
By: Helen Castor
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The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill
- By: Rowenna Miller
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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There is no magic on Prospect Hill—or anywhere else, for that matter. But just on the other side of the veil is the world of the Fae. Generations ago, the first farmers on Prospect Hill learned to bargain small trades to make their lives a little easier. Much of that old wisdom was lost as the riverboats gave way to the rail lines and the farmers took work at mills and factories. Alaine Fairborn’s family, however, was always superstitious, and she still hums the rhymes to find a lost shoe and to ensure dry weather on her sister’s wedding day.
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Characters and world building
- By Amandahawkes on 02-14-24
By: Rowenna Miller
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Tyll
- A Novel
- By: Daniel Kehlmann, Ross Benjamin - translator
- Narrated by: Firdous Bamji
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. This account of the 17th-century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel begins when he’s a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with a secret interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is forced to flee with the baker’s daughter, Nele. They find safety and companionship with a traveling performer, who teaches Tyll his trade. And so begins a journey of discovery and performance for Tyll.
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Like a Tapestry
- By David on 02-18-21
By: Daniel Kehlmann, and others
A pentimento approach
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Excellent and accessible listen
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As for the mixed feelings, the following kind of thing is a sore point for me, and while I'll give it a disproportionate amount of space here, I don't mean to take away from an excellent book.
Emma Smith works in references to Freud, to the idea of shame versus guilt cultures, and even to what she calls the God particle. I don't think any of this belongs in the discussion, and it leads to what I think are the shakiest parts of her analysis. What Freud wrote in 1900 is not the state of the art today, and it didn't do any useful work here. As Smith herself acknowledges, the shame versus guilt culture distinction is not well supported, and while I can see how it suggested itself, I don't think it added anything to understanding Anthony and Cleopatra. The "God particle" stuff got in as a humorous aside, so I don't want to make too much of it, but it was clear that Smith didn't actually know anything about Higgs bosons, or how really irritating physicists find that term for them.
Punching up the conversation that way is pretty common these days, and not just in literary criticism. You need to be very careful about this if you're doing it in support of a serious argument, since you're introducing a dependency on ongoing research. Scientific ideas get disproven all the time, which, after all, is the way science is supposed to work.
Which isn't to say that scientists themselves are always scrupulous about this. A lot of papers that have been retracted continue to be cited. It's the same problem in both cases. There are a lot of zombies walking around.
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