≫ PDF Four Great Tragedies Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth Signet Classics William Shakespeare Sylvan Barnet Alvin Kernan Russel Fraser 9780451527295 Books

Four Great Tragedies Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth Signet Classics William Shakespeare Sylvan Barnet Alvin Kernan Russel Fraser 9780451527295 Books

Download As PDF : Four Great Tragedies Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth Signet Classics William Shakespeare Sylvan Barnet Alvin Kernan Russel Fraser 9780451527295 Books

Four Great Tragedies Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth Signet Classics William Shakespeare Sylvan Barnet Alvin Kernan Russel Fraser 9780451527295 Books

Four tragedies written by William Shakespeare are provided in this quite portable book. Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth all share the pages and are edited by four different people, one for each play. Because of this, the editing techniques, footnotes, and connotations tend to be different from play to play and it isn't recommended to sit down and try to read all four in one go. In particular, the editor for King Lear is very heavy handed in his edits and suggestions of meanings. Regardless, that's really the only poor quality of the book.

I, personally, really enjoy this book and the plays chosen. They are all similar in that they sport a common, tragic trait where human paranoia, fear, and deception of the self and from others forces powerful people to destroy not only themselves but those around them. It's a great viewing of the human soul and the chaos that can abound within if unchecked.

Below are a brief synopsis for each play of the story that are really simplistic, but may help someone who is not used to or confident in reading barebones Shakespeare without translation.

I like to say that Hamlet is the story of The Lion King to make it easier for readers to understand. An evil uncle usurps and kills the King, father to Hamlet, and Hamlet must come to terms with his mother's marrying of his uncle and avenge his slain father. However, unlike Disney, his hate and rage overtakes Hamlet, leaving him alone and unmanageable.

Othello is interesting in that it focuses on racial connotations rather often, making it a great play to discuss from this perspective. Othello is a wonderfully brilliant Moorish soldier who will come to doubt all he holds dear due to an equally brilliant, conniving villain named Iago. No Disney references here, Iago makes himself akin to the Devil and works just as craftily in order to succeed.

King Lear, perhaps my least favorite play, still has a great deal of merit. Old and outdated, King Lear wishes to divvy out his holdings to his three daughters, two of which are already married and also viciously desirous of power while the third is quite chaste and humble. Clouded by a simple mistake and love for his daughters, he shirks his third daughter while simultaneously giving all his power to the first two who work to strip Lear of his power.

Finally, Macbeth, has the most supernatural forces at work of the four plays with the famous witches that force Macbeth to distance himself from all his allies and destroy himself. However, even without the witches, the play could run its course without the supernatural as Macbeth is guided by many regular individuals in the text to destruction based on a hope that he will come into great power.


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Four Great Tragedies Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth Signet Classics William Shakespeare Sylvan Barnet Alvin Kernan Russel Fraser 9780451527295 Books Reviews

What else could you expect!

There isn't much to say...its exactly what you should expect when ordering Shakespeare...seriously.
This had great shipping. It's a very nice book and it's very clean. Thank you so much for this book!
I ordered this book for my AP English class, and I love that it has all four of my favorite Shakespeares together. I like the typeface, the footnotes, everything. It's small enough to carry around in your purse. I recommend it for the pleasure-reader, student, or teacher. It's a great value, too.
A good collection, suitable for classwork. Translation in-line with most available.
Four of my favorite plays by Shakespeare, all wrapped into one book. I had to buy this for class and, while it offers no extended notes/analysis, it has some very helpful annotations.
Obviously, these are four of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies and well repay the time and efffort to become familiar with them. The volume itself is inexpensive, nicely sized, readable, reasonably durable, with more than ample footnotes (at the bottom of the page of text) to help the reader navigate some of the more obscure or difficult passages (though I found instances in which I thought the footnotes didn't do the text justice, and a better and less distracting format, albeit resulting in a larger text and more expensive edition, is to have the notes on the page facing the text). The introductory "essay" admittedly doesn't aim too high--what can you say in just a few pages? The bibliography is nicely organized and not bad as a starting point.
All in all, if you are looking for an edition to teach, or travel with, or read as a starting point, especially if you want something inexpensive that nonetheless gives you all you really need, this is a very nice edition. A reader who is already familiar with the plays and looking for a bit more by way of history, commentary, criticism, etc., would do better to seek out the Norton or Arden editions, or go to a collection like the Riverside Shakespeare, all of which offer a great deal more supplemental material.
Ridiculous to ask one to describe the plots of Shakespeare's tragedies as "predictable" "some twists" "Full of surprises". It's Shakespeare, for all love. We don't read them because we want to know how they END.
Decent version, reasonable selection of plays -- again, it's Shakespeare. You can't really go wrong.
Four tragedies written by William Shakespeare are provided in this quite portable book. Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth all share the pages and are edited by four different people, one for each play. Because of this, the editing techniques, footnotes, and connotations tend to be different from play to play and it isn't recommended to sit down and try to read all four in one go. In particular, the editor for King Lear is very heavy handed in his edits and suggestions of meanings. Regardless, that's really the only poor quality of the book.

I, personally, really enjoy this book and the plays chosen. They are all similar in that they sport a common, tragic trait where human paranoia, fear, and deception of the self and from others forces powerful people to destroy not only themselves but those around them. It's a great viewing of the human soul and the chaos that can abound within if unchecked.

Below are a brief synopsis for each play of the story that are really simplistic, but may help someone who is not used to or confident in reading barebones Shakespeare without translation.

I like to say that Hamlet is the story of The Lion King to make it easier for readers to understand. An evil uncle usurps and kills the King, father to Hamlet, and Hamlet must come to terms with his mother's marrying of his uncle and avenge his slain father. However, unlike Disney, his hate and rage overtakes Hamlet, leaving him alone and unmanageable.

Othello is interesting in that it focuses on racial connotations rather often, making it a great play to discuss from this perspective. Othello is a wonderfully brilliant Moorish soldier who will come to doubt all he holds dear due to an equally brilliant, conniving villain named Iago. No Disney references here, Iago makes himself akin to the Devil and works just as craftily in order to succeed.

King Lear, perhaps my least favorite play, still has a great deal of merit. Old and outdated, King Lear wishes to divvy out his holdings to his three daughters, two of which are already married and also viciously desirous of power while the third is quite chaste and humble. Clouded by a simple mistake and love for his daughters, he shirks his third daughter while simultaneously giving all his power to the first two who work to strip Lear of his power.

Finally, Macbeth, has the most supernatural forces at work of the four plays with the famous witches that force Macbeth to distance himself from all his allies and destroy himself. However, even without the witches, the play could run its course without the supernatural as Macbeth is guided by many regular individuals in the text to destruction based on a hope that he will come into great power.