Prefaces to Shakespeare

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“Tony Tanner was probably the most versatile and ingenious English critic of his time. His prose was exemplary, full of life and humor, and his literary range was extraordinary. The acknowledged leader of British Americanists, he was also admired for his books on Jane Austen, and he broke new ground in Adultery in the Novel and Venice Desired. But in his own opinion the Shakespeare prefaces were his finest work, and it would be difficult to disagree. The essays cover the entire range of the plays, treating them with characteristic brio in that very personal style that accommodates new insights, based on expert close reading, with an easy command of historical and linguistic contexts. I would recommend this book above all others to an interested young person, provided he or she was both intelligent and capable of delight in the poetry of the plays as Tanner makes it manifest.” —Sir Frank Kermode Foreword by Stephen Heath ix COMEDIES The Comedy of Errors 20 The Taming of the Shrew 39 The Two Gentlemen of Verona 56 Love’s Labor’s Lost 75 Romeo and Juliet 92 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 114 The Merchant of Venice 140 The Merry Wives of Windsor 167 Much Ado About Nothing 180 As You Like It 199 Twelfth Night 226 All’s Well That Ends Well 250 Measure for Measure 275 VI Contents HISTORIES 303 Henry VI, Part One 3l8 Henry VI, Part Two 33° Henry VI, Part Three Richard III 348 King John 364 Richard II 380 338 Henry IV, Part One 401 Henry IV, Part Two Henry V 445 Henry VIII 468 429 MAJOR TRAGEDIES 487 Hamlet 494 Othello 515 King Lear 534 Macbeth 554 GREEK AND ROMAN PLAYS 577 Titus Andronicus 579 3 Troilus and Cressida 589 Julius Caesar 604 Antony and Cleopatra 622 Timon of Athens 640 Coriolanus 653 Contents vii ROMANCES_677 Pericles 695 Cymbeline 721 The Winter’s Tale 755 The Tempest 792 About the Author 827