Books by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet navigates the intoxicating, forbidden love between the star-crossed young lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Amidstfamilial strife, their passion unfolds in a poetic tragedy, challenging societal constraints. A timeless exploration of love, fate, and the enduring power ofShakespearean verse.

GREED, BETRAYAL, MADNESS King Lear, first performed around 1805, and thought to have been written between Othello and Macbeth, is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. It is a story of madness and flattery and the struggle for power but above all it is about human suffering, as we watch a monarch who is betrayed by his daughters and robbed of his kingdom descend into madness. It is one of the most relentlessly bleak of Shakespeare's tragedies. The story challenges us with the magnitude, the intensity, and the sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Lear's themes of ingratitude, injustice, and the meaninglessness of life are explored with unsurpassed power and depth. Greed, treachery, and cruelty are everywhere and the final act of the play is both brutal and heartbreaking. As we see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, along with pride, and, perhaps, wisdom-it is only one reason that this most devastating of Shakespeare's tragedies is also perhaps his most moving. The play has been widely adapted for the stage and motion pictures, with the title role coveted by many of the world's most accomplished actors.

One of Shakespeare's most famous and controversial plays, The Merchant of Venice, is an intriguing drama of love, greed, and revenge. Believed to have been written in 1596, it is classified as a comedy, but while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps remembered more for its dramatic scenes, and especially for the character of Shylock, a vengeful Venetian moneylender. At its heart, the play contrasts the characters of Shylock, with the gracious, level-headed Portia, a wealthy young woman, besieged by suitors. One suitor in particular, Antonio, a merchant in Venice, must default on a large loan provided by Shylock, who insists on the enforcement of the binding contract that will cost the life of Antonio, inciting Portia to mount a memorable defense. In this richly plotted drama, Shylock, whom Shakespeare endowed with the depth and vitality of his greatest characters, is not alone in his villainy. In fact, the large cast of ambitious and scheming characters demonstrates in scene after scene, that honesty is a quality often strained where matters of love and money are concerned. In many of the play's productions, Shylock gives such powerful expression to his alienation due to the hatred around him that, he emerges as the hero. The suspense and gravity of the play's main plot, along with its romance, have made The Merchant of Venice an audience favorite and one of the most studied and performed of Shakespeare's plays.