Brush Up Your Shakespeare!

by Michael Macrone and Cader Company

Book Overview

A Lively Compendium of Shakespeare's Wisest and Wittiest WordsFrom the doomed Othello, who first assumed a "foregone conclusion," to the impetuous Mercutio, who went off on the first "wild-goose... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517189356
• ISBN13: 9780517189351
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Gramercy Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A Hit, a Very Palpable Hit

This book is a great introduction to various plays of Shakespeare. Each couple of pages consists, first of a few lines of a play or sonnet, and then a few paragraphs describing the context of the scene and play, and then the meaning of the particular Elizabethan wordings and expressions. I found it took some concentrative reading that I normally do not use in reading and it conveyed some truly valuable gems of insight. For instance on from pages 152 to 157 consisted of various Buddhistic teachings I have read from the East such as page 152, "That Within which Passes Show," - Hamlet, Act I, scene I, observes the insight of an inner self within us that surpasses the transient show of our physical lives, the silent observer. And this is why Shakespeare could say that "All the world's a stage. And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts." - As You Like it. To be human one must play the many roles, as the world is the stage, while within there is a self that surpasses show. "There are many more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio", Hamlet, Act 1, theres the world of symbols (Jung), mantras, metaphor, quantum, and spiritual, all beyond science and philosophical discursive reasonings and university education, like Marlowe and Goethe's Doctor Faustus consulting a ghost, a demonic spirit. "Thinking too precisely on the event" from Hamlet is letting go in thinking, that is, first steering the ship, but then ceasing in thoughts to rest in mindfulness, where you become one with the object where all conscious deliberation, fears and anxieties cease. This particular problem of thinking is one many despots and tyrants have argued against democratic participatory deliberations and indecisiveness. And the famous "To be or not to be" from Hamlet, can be interpreted in something as this: To live is to die in inertia and to die is to live by taking action against the weariness of life into the world of the unknown, the dangerous unknown, go there - that is living. Ah, but here's the rub (catch): That while our mortal life is turmoil, unbalance and hard in work in weariness, to journey to the unknown by dying is something permanent, and we do not know of anyone who has ever returned. And so it is our thinking minds, that which cause us to deliberate in stagnant conflicting thoughts, which causes fears, preventing us from the courage of seeking the unknown. Ah, but I'm not trippingly on the tongue here, but can say that Prospero's words and later Bogarts, show this life, this world, are the mental catoregoriztations created by man (Kant) and maya (illusions) in which such stuff as dreams are made on and nature itself, not the elaborate teachings of man, are the sweet we find from adversity.

Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be...

Buy and Keep this book only for thee! The perfect size book to keep with you to brush up on your Shakespeare. A unique list of illustrations is followed by "At First Brush," which helps you to dive right in to subjects such as: Spelling and punctuation, organization and dating (A list of plays and dates, with revision noted). The second section is called: The Quotable and the Notable. This area is a larger section devoted to famous phrases. Each phrase is followed by a small paragraph to give explanations and background for say...how Shakespeare wanted the actor to express the phrases. These sections are filled with tidbits worth reading and also help to "set the stage" or point to where the phrase is used in the play. "King Lear has cut a deal with the two more flattering of his three daughters: he will turn power over to them as long as he can keep the name and respect due to a king......" pg. 131 "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!" then makes more sense after we understand that his "snakelike daughters represent a quality he feels all women possess." The section on Household Words explains common and uncommon words coined by Shakespeare. Here the author lists a partial list of words for which Shakespeare is said to be the first authority according to the Oxford English Dictionary. "well-read" is in this list. ;> <br /> <br />Faux Shakespeare is a list of phrases often misattributed to Shakespeare. So, who really said: "Fool's Paradise?" It is interesting how "I wold not be in a flis paradyce." turns up in Love's Labor's Lost and Romeo and Juliet. <br /> <br />Good Enough to Call Your Own is a list of titles borrowed from Shakespeare and many a catchy phrase has turned into a title. <br /> <br />An Index of Words and Phrases and an Index of Characters by Play will make it easy to find phrases and set them in their original context. <br /> <br />Another favorite: Shakespeare's Insults by Wayne F. Hill, however..the quotes are mostly insults. I much preferred this work, but did find the Insult book amusing when I found a quote I just knew I could use! <br /> <br />Similar books by Michael Macrone: It's Greek to Me! By Jove! Brush Up Your Bible! <br /> <br />These are perfect books to carry along with you <br />so you always have something to read. They fit <br />nicely in a purse or coat pocket. <br /> <br />A book you could give to anyone who loves Shakespeare or <br />to those who are just being introduced to the most famous and quotable words and phrases from the Bard! <br /> <br />~The Rebecca Review

He hath been at a great feast of language....

BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE. By Michael Macrone. With Illustrations by Tom Lulevitch. 235 pp. New York : Harper Perennial, 1990 and Reprinted.There are many possible approaches to Shakespeare, and in the present book Macrone has hit on the new and interesting idea of giving us, not yet another standard anthology or ponderous critical study, but a lighthearted "tour through the most famous and quotable words and phrases from the bard." Macrone writes : "We're here to give you a handle on the famous lines you already know are Shakespeare's, and to alert you to our quieter, less conspicuous borrowings. . . . In the meantime, you'll be offered an incidental introduction (or reintroduction) to famous passages, concisely explained. . . ." (page xii).In other words, to paraphrase Moth in 'Love's Labor's Lost' - 'He hath been at a great feast of language, and stol'n the scraps.' The main body of the book - 'THE QUOTABLE AND THE NOTABLE : Famous Phrases from Shakespeare' - gives us well over one hundred of these glorious 'scraps,' scraps such as Othello's :"My story being done, / She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; / She swore, in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; / 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful. / She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished / That heaven had made her such a man" (page 108). Each of the passages, which have been kept "as short as possible ... while still providing enough of the context to make the key phrase intelligible" (page xiii), has been chosen to highlight an original usage of Shakespeare - in this case "passing strange" - usages which seem to have set the course of the English language. They are accompanied, on average, by about two thirds of a page or so of Macrone's interesting comments, some of which may hold surprises even for the seasoned Shakespearean.Despite his light touch, the book is a work of careful scholarship, and is rounded out with several interesting extras : a 10-page list of 'Common and Uncommon Words Coined by Shakespeare;' a list of 'Phrases Often Misattributed to Shakespeare;' and a list of famous 'Titles Borrowed from Shakespeare.' We have also been given two useful indexes : an 'Index of Words and Phrases,' and an 'Index of Characters by Play.'Truly surprising is the first list. Who would have thought that we owe to Shakespeare such common words, for example, as - admirable, amazement, bloodstained, coldhearted, dewdrop, employment, eventful, hostile, laughable - and a whole host of others? Finally, to further enrich what is already a rich mix, interspersed throughout are thirty-nine clever and amusing drawings by Tom Lulevitch, drawings which remind me a bit of Tenniel's illustrations to the Alice books, and which add to the cheerful atmosphere of the book.Macrone seems to have spared no pains in making BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE as pleasing, useful, and interesting as he could. It would make a wonderful gift, not only for those who already like Shake

Brilliant Will

This book proves it: William Shakespeare was a brilliant man. I'm a huge Shakespeare fan and I'd love to get the chance to meet Macrone. Brush Up Your Shakespeare is intelligently divided into sub sections including Famous Quotes, Words Coined by the Bard, Words often misattributed to Shakespeare, and Titles Borrowed From Shakespeare. Not only is this book easy to read, it also is concise. It's great for a student who's just curious to learn a little more about Will, who doesn't have the time to pore over hundreds of research papers on him. It was also extremely interesting to me (a Linguistics minor) because of all the lexicography. A great book to own--at a reasonable price!

A wonderful addition to Shakespeare literature

This short little tome is a wonderful and welcome addition to the body of literature that reviews and analyzes the Bard's work. It is not a deep analysis, by any means. But it makes a nice read in the sub-catagory of Shakespearean trivia. The book lists dozens of phrases common to our language, and gives a quick review of the quip's context in the play, followed by a critique of the modern usage of the same. A fun tribute to the continuing legacy of Bard's body of work.