Read Shakespeare: Never-Ending Tragedy and Comedy: Never-Ending Tragedy and Comedy

Author: Charles Lamb
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-10-01
Features: William Shakespeare was called "one of the greatest geniuses in human history" by Marx. However, how many Chinese readers have carefully read his plays? The renowned British essayist Lamb was long aware of the significance of "making the public understand the masters." They selected twenty of the most familiar plays from Shakespeare's thirty-seven and rewrote them into stories. The translator of this book, Qiao Gan, translated it into Chinese in 1956 and sold over a million copies. This was partly due to the fame of the original work, but the late Mr. Qiao Gan was a famous Chinese journalist and writer who studied at Cambridge University in the UK, with high proficiency in both Chinese and English. His translations are comparable to the original. This revised edition is a "dual reading," with the collaboration of a film studies expert to pair the major films adapted from Shakespeare's plays throughout history for reading. On one hand, it helps readers better understand Shakespeare, and on the more important hand, it stages a series of "plays within plays," revealing universal human emotions and rich inner worlds.
Ten Reasons to Read Shakespeare:
1. He is one of the greatest geniuses in human history.
2. He was a great humanist with profound insights into human nature.
3. He "belonged not to one age but to all ages."
4. For over 400 years after his death, the world has been staging his "immortal" plays almost every day. Especially in film and television, in just over 100 years, an average of three films or TV dramas adapted from his works have been released worldwide each year.
5. He is the most beloved and selfless playwright, refusing millions of dollars in payment and never losing his temper over script changes. Actors all compete to play his roles.
6. Over 400 years after his death, the British BBC TV station still awarded him the title of "20th Century Icon."
7. He wrote the most touching love stories in human history.
8. His comedies are among the most laugh-out-loud plays ever staged on the British stage.
9. The anxious and compassionate characters he portrayed can awaken us, allowing us to more authentically touch the sorrow of the world and the struggles within our own hearts.
10. In the 1990s, he was given new meaning and became a quintessential example of a postmodern figure.