Romeo and Juliet (Cliffs Notes)

Book Description

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.

In CliffsNotes on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, you explore Shakespeare's greatest tragedy — the heartbreaking love story of Romeo and Juliet amid the conflict between their two feuding families, the Montagues and the Capulets.

This study guide carefully walks you through every twist and turn of Shakespeare's classic by providing chapter summaries and critical analyses of each act and scene of the play. You'll also explore the life and background of the "Bard" himself — William Shakespeare. Other features that help you study include

Character analyses of major players
A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
Critical essays
The history of the play's development, as well as its first performance
A review section that tests your knowledge
A Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Internet sites

Classic literature or modern modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

Customer Reviews:

Notes for Romeo and Juliet.......2007-04-23

I would not recommend this for my students. I would purchase a modern day English translation of "Romeo and Juliet" that has the original words on the left side and modern day English on the right side instead of purchasing this. You really can't enjoy Shakespeare this way. Don't cheat yourself from a good education and read only this. Take the time to read the original play along with a good translation. You will be glad that you did.

DONT BUY THIS BOOK.......2004-03-11

This book is not as great as it is made out to be. It is neither clear, nor good, and is no help in studying!!!

Excellent for Students.......2000-10-11

It is very easy to understand when compared to the original text on Romeo & Juliet. Great to use for studying for exams and help with essays. What else can i say it's fantastic!

Manual for Romeo and Juliet: Original text and facing-pages translation into contemporary English (Access to Shakespeare)

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Great for Teaching "Romeo and Juliet"
Deceptive Advertising
The classic love story

Manual for Romeo and Juliet: Original text and facing-pages translation into contemporary English (Access to Shakespeare)
William Shakespeare , and Jonnie Patricia Mobley
Manufacturer: Lorenz Educational Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Romeo and Juliet (Cliffs Notes)
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Manual for Hamlet: Original text and facing-pages translation into contemporary English (Access to Shakespeare)
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Manual/Study Guide (Manual for Access to Shakespeare)

ASIN: 1885564031

Book Description

This manual/study guide is designed as a stand-alone text or for use with ROMEO AND JULIET: Original text and facing-pages translation into contemporary English. (ISBN 1885564112)

It offers a wealth of material including background information on Shakespeare's life, his sources for ROMEO AND JULIET, suggestions for teaching and producing the play, and probing questions with suggested answers.

Detailed summaries of every scene in THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET are included, together with an annotated bibliography, a guide to pronouncing proper nouns in the play, a Shakespearean time line, and an alphabetical glossary of terms, cross-referenced to act, scene, and line.

This manual is an invaluable source of information for anyone teaching, studying, or reading THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET.

Customer Reviews:

Great for Teaching "Romeo and Juliet".......2007-04-22

This book has saved me more than once! I used it just the other day when teaching the famous balcony scene, "What's in a name....". Out textbook suggested having the students translating this particular passage into modern English, but gave no translation. So, I pulled out this book and it saved the day! I also suggested it to another teacher who was having the same problem. It would be nice if a school district would purchase these books for all of their students (with today's budgets, that won't happen). This book is well worth the money spent.

Deceptive Advertising.......2006-03-23

The Manual for Romeo and Juliet is not at all what it is advertised to be. It does NOT contain the original text of the play nor any "translation" of the play into modern English. It contains only brief summaries of the play's scenes and a modicum of analysis. If that is what you need, buy Cliff Notes for half the price.

The classic love story.......2004-05-12

May 11, 2004
"Romeo and Juliet" is a simple love story that is brought to life by the poetry and beauty of Shakespeare's writing style. This is the story of two lovers who are caught between their feuding families and are unable to publicly show their affections. In the end they both die for their feelings conveying the message that love is the strongest bond between two people. The sonnet-like stanzas seems to breath life into the characters and create an emotional connection between the reader and the story. Shakespeare captures the deep feelings of each character by simply using powerful dialouge that leaves the reader breathless. I would recommend this play to anyone at an advanced reading level, since the language can at times be hard to decipher. This story will grab the hearts of even the toughest person, and bring tears to the eyes of those people who adore a good love story.

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The best study guide
The best study guide published for Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet (Barron's Book Notes)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Barron's Educational Series
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0812034406

Book Description

Plot synopsis of this classic is made meaningful with analysis and quotes by noted literary critics, summaries of the work's main themes and characters, a sketch of the author's life and times, a bibliography, suggested test questions, and ideas for essays and term papers.

Customer Reviews:

The best study guide.......2002-03-08

I found this to be far and away the best study guide, much better than Cliff's notes. A great help for either high school or college students. Thorough, scholarly, yet easy to understand.

The best study guide published for Romeo and Juliet.......1999-03-17

The most helpful book for students in high school and college who want to understand Romeo and Juliet. A great help for taking part in class discussions, passing tests and writing papers. Easily outshines the competition because it is easier to use and understand. A great reference for both ordinary people and scholars.

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)

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William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)

Manufacturer: Chelsea House Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0791056627

Book Description

The tragedy remains popular with readers of all ages.

The title, William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics. This collection of criticism also features a short biography on William Shakespeare, a chronology of the author's life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University.

Readings on Romeo and Juliet (The Greenhaven Press Literary Companion to British Literature)
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Romeo and Juliet review

Readings on Romeo and Juliet (The Greenhaven Press Literary Companion to British Literature)

Manufacturer: Greenhaven Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 1565106474

Customer Reviews:

Romeo and Juliet review.......2001-10-19

This book is excellent, because many good and bad actions that appear on the book, you still can see them now a day. That's why the book has been popular for centuries, because it talks about some action of life that can bring beautiful and horrible things. These books teach us many things and sometimes it's a mirror, because you can see yourself reflected in a character. So my conclusion is that this book can teach us many things that help to improve yourself us a person. I noticed a lot of bad things that I did, thanks to the book I improve my self us a person and us a human being. I recommend this book to adults and teen-agers.

Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet: And Related Readings (Literature Connections)

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Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet: And Related Readings (Literature Connections)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Four Great Tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Romeo and Juliet (Giant Thrifts)

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Four Great Tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Romeo and Juliet (Giant Thrifts)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
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Includes 4 of the playwright's greatest works: Hamlet, featuring the drama world's most discussed and contentious character; Macbeth, concerning a Scots nobleman's overweening ambition; Othello, in which a gallant soldier is undone by jealousy; and Romeo and Juliet, the tale of the lovers whose names are synonymous with star-crossed romance.

Four Great Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library)

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Shakespearean tragedy -Greatness is all
Tragedy!
excellent edition of great tragedies
This book needs footnotes!
for shakespeare fans

Four Great Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Washington Square Pr
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Customer Reviews:

Shakespearean tragedy -Greatness is all .......2005-10-28

To have the four great tragedies together raises the question of what the essence, the real heart of Shakespearean tragedy is.
In Aristotle's definition of Greek tragedy the overweening pride of the hero(hubris) and tragic fault( hamartia ) lead to his eventual destruction. The audience watching this is in the course of this purged of pity and fear.
In Shakespearean tragedy there is as in Aristotle a hero who is larger than the ordinary man. The hero too has a great flaw and comes to a destructive end. But the doubt and hesitancy of dreaming Hamlet, the great ambition for kingship of Macbeth, the blind filial love of Lear seem more emotionally complex than that of the Greek heroes. And the language in which the story of their respective downfalls is told is too more rich, complex, and ambivalent than that of the clearer Greek earlier model.
And this in such a way that the Shakespearean tragic heroes each seem to be in themselves a kind of supreme human essence, a manifestation of character at its greatest level of intensity.
Shakespeare's greatest heroes are individuals who become in some sense the ' type' of themselves, and live in our minds as models of humanity in its extreme essence.
'Greatness is all'

Tragedy!.......2003-07-23

Hamlet
This play, of course, is perhaps the best known in all of English literature. Taking it's inspiration from lesser plays and tales of the same name, Shakespeare crafted the characters, dialogue and plot into a timeless tale of betrayal, the quest for justice, and ultimately a hollow victory. This play, in short, is a downer.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

Of course, it really thrilled the audiences, who, lacking the primetime violence of today, enjoyed seeing the blood, the gore, the violence, the swordplay. Those with a more subtle bent were very satisfied with the wonderful dialogues, full of double and self-reflexive meanings. So many of the monologues have become common parlance in our language.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

The 'on one foot' synopsis: Hamlet, prince of Denmark, is suspicious that his step-father killed his father and usurped the throne and his mother's bedchamber; he plots to get revenge; in the meantime his love-interest Ophelia dies; in a duel to the death at the end the mother dies, the step-father dies, the duel contender dies, and Hamlet dies. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

The rest is silence.

Othello
Rude I am in speech,
And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace

Surely Shakespeare was not speaking of himself here. Even his poorly-spoken characters cannot help to have an elegance and subtlety all their own. Othello is another tragedy, this one driven by jealousy. The exact cause of the jealousy can vary; Iago can be jealous of Othello, of his love for Desdemona, of Desdemona herself, or several other possibilities. The emphasis often lies in the performance, and Shakespeare's play is written broadly enough to allow for any of these to be correct interpretations.

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

Othello satisfied the need for violence, for passion, and for intrigue. 'On one foot', Iago, servant and friend of Othello, who also hates Othello, plants the seeds of suspicion that Desdemona has been unfaithful, leading Othello down a treacherous path that leads in his ultimate murder of Desdemona.

Take note, take note, O world!
To be direct and honest is not safe.

During one performance in the American Old West, an audience member became so entranced and enraged with the actor's portrayal of Iago that he took out his pistol and shot him. The tombstone of the actor reads 'Here lies the greatest actor'.

Lear
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.

This most difficult of Shakespeare plays, both for performing and for studying, is one of the true masterpieces of English (or any) literature, and yet is underperformed and underappreciated due to the power of its complexity and of its tragedy. Indeed, often the tragedy at the end has been softened by having Cordelia survive victorious. Beware these kinds of performances--they not Shakespeare's intent, however much we wish.

Lear begins with folly, and ends in tragedy, while treachery and evil seems to creep like a vine choking off first this person, then that. The fool is the only wise one; the insane are the only protected, and the nobles increasingly lose nobility of intent and action as the events progress. Gloucester and Lear are both deceived by wicked children turned against their better offspring; all ends in tragedy for most of the lot.

Lear addresses sibling rivalries, parent/child relationships, poverty and insanity, and any number of other readily accessible issues, but all interwoven so tightly that they cannot be unravelled easily, yet all the while the world for the characters are unravelling thread by thread before our very eyes. Lear points out the folly of human planning and agency. Lear was banned from performance, actually, during 1788-1820 when George III was considered insane, and the connexion between stage and royalty would be too blurred for official comfort.

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! you are men of stones!

Macbeth
The witches, the blood-stained hands, the play whose name must not be mentioned in a theatre lest bad luck befall the actor or production. Macbeth is all of these, and more. Loosely based upon a real historical character, the tragedy here is one of ambition.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air

Did Macbeth really see the ghost of Banquo at the banquet, or was it indigestion because of the haggis? Macbeth can be played with or without a conscience, which makes for differing character development, but both options are available in Shakespeare's flexible playwriting.

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell

Macbeth is driven by his ambition, but also by the ambition of his wife, Lady Macbeth, as treacherous a villain in many respects as any male character in Shakespeare. Macbeth has an overgrown sense of invincibility, convinced by prophecies that his course will be successful, and ordinarily it is (until it all goes awry); it is a successful struggle to the throne, but never secure, and in the end, all is lost.

Macbeth may be the bloodiest of Shakespeare's plays, a thrill for Elizabethan audiences, and a wonder to behold as the scenes get ever more desperate and darker.

This edition
There are so many editions of Shakespeare available, and many have merits. This particular volume of the four major tragic plays provides commentary by David Bevington which is insightful and accessible; it also gives photographs of performances and stagings by the New York Shakespeare Festivals, modernised spelling and concordance listings of major passages. Not short by any means (nearly 1000 pages), this will nonetheless give a good study to the plays, with visual aids, and supportive material, all in one volume.

excellent edition of great tragedies.......2002-12-14

this is an excellent 'cheap' edition of the great tragedies. besides being edited by david bevington, considered one of the foremost shakespeare scholars, the bantam edition also includes introductory essays for each play AND the source material that shakespeare used - ie, the actual short stories or plays that the bard drew on to the write his plays. wonderful stuff and a great way to get into shakespeare.

This book needs footnotes!.......2001-01-01

An integral part to any Shakespeare work is the presence of footnotes! This book has a glossary, but it does not do any good because there is not sign in the actual text itself that one can look up specific words in the glossary. While the plays themselves are very enjoyable, do not purchase this edition unless you feel very confident about your ability to read Shakespearean language.

for shakespeare fans.......2000-09-04

this is a great book for shakespeare fans. it was the first time i read shakespeare outside of class, and it was very interesting. i didn't like the prefaces much, i didn't have the patience to read them. i felt they were very of long, and harder to read and understand than the actual shakespeare. they actual plays-not stories, just to clarify- are wonderful. it would be a great book to read if you are taking a literature class and want to get a head start or if you want to expand your vocabulary. you can even relate the problems of those times to the problems of today. the plays were very fun to read once you got into them; shakespeare is just as great as he is said to be.

FOUR TRAGEDIES Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth , Julius Caesar, Hamlet

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FOUR TRAGEDIES Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth , Julius Caesar, Hamlet
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Wasington Square Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Four Tragedies (Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth, Julius Caesar, Hamlet)

Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: 0671481606

Product Description

This edition of four of Shakespeare's great tragedies is designed for the enjoyment of the modern reader. The complete Cambridge text of each play is clear and understandable. The story of each play is summed up briefly by J. Walker McSpadden. A glossary at the end of the book explains all unusual words or terms. The casts of characters are illustrated by Louis Glanzman. Mark Van Doren's fine prefaces introduce each play, casting a new light on some of the most inspired in the English language.

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