Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us

by Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon

Book Overview

Caroline Spurgeon's pioneer study of the imagery of Shakespeare's plays shows how much light can be thrown on Shakespeare's own mind and thought and on the themes and characters of the plays by a detailed examination of his imagery. At the same time she contrasts Shakespeare with other dramatists of his time, including Marlowe, Bacon, Ben Jonson and Dekker.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521092582
• ISBN13: 9780521092586
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 444 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

shakespeare revealed

First the author shows that an author's choice of metaphor reflects his life experience. Then she masterfully and convincingly developes what shakespeare's imagery tells us about HIM. Perhaps the most penetrating analysis of this man of genius we will ever have. Charming and moving.

Scholarly research at its best

Caroline Spurgeon's "Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us" is one of the books you'll most definitely find on the Shakespeare students' bookshelf, and for good reason: nobody outlines the visual images, themes, and motifs in Shakespeare's plays as well as Spurgeon does. Furthermore, Spurgeon doesn't outline themes on a play-by-play basis; instead, she takes a particular image and tells us about ALL of the ways it appears in ANY of the plays. Example: she outlines dream imagery in Richard II, Winter's Tale, Henry VIII, and Romeo and Juliet. This may sound a little confusing, and indeed can be, but it allows a real glimpse into Shakespeare's mind, and allows the reader to see common threads in all of the plays.Also intriguing are the detailed charts in the back of the book that give a visual reference of how prevalent certain images are in Shakespeare's plays: for instance, one chart shows how prevalent sickness, disease, and medicine are in each of the plays. Spurgeon did an amazing amount of work in order to complete this book, and it shows--it's one of the most thorough references available, and it is invaluable to the Shakespeare student, teacher, or scholar. Spurgeon didn't cover EVERYTHING--who could?--and a true scholar might find himself noting what's absent at times. Also, the reading can be a bit boring at times, but it always picks back up quickly, and it really highlights the machinations of Shakespeare's mind. Highly recommended!

part of the heart of shakespeare...

This is an innocent book, no scholarly posing (though she is, no doubt, a scholar)... It's a very readable book as well... In fact it's a devourable book... Plays are obviously short on description and description is the most edible part of imaginative writing, so to have all of Shakespeare's imagery for metaphor and symbol and so forth all together right in front of you is very attractive and appetite, if not lust, inducing... She also creatively categorizes everything and compares it all in different ways including comparisons with contemporaries like Marlowe and Jonson and Bacon... A very interesting and delightful Shakespeare (and language) book...

One of the two best books on Shakespeare

As a Shakespeare scholar, I have read countless books on my favorite writer. Two books stand out as the best: John Dover Wilson's "What Happens in Hamlet?" and Caroline Spurgeon's "Shakespeare's Imagery." If I could only keep two Shakespeare books in my library, I would choose these. Dr. Spurgeon spent ten years sifting through the entire Shakespeare canon and pulling out every metaphor and simile she could find. Then, she organized them into like groups. This offered her, and us through her writing, an insight into Shakespeare's creative genius. With evidence in hand, Dr. Spurgeon explored how Shakepeare's mind actually worked; she uncovered his patterns of creative thinking. His abundant use of garden and household images and his relatively few uses of classical or scholarly images show us a writer more in touch with the real everyday world. His childhood homelife, the images one tends to carry throughout one's life, become crystal clear when set side by side in this fashion. In Spurgeon's book, we clearly see that the works of Shakespeare had to have been written by Shakespeare, who was born in small town Stratford, and not the works of a university trained dramatist or a member of Queen Elizabeth's court. It is fascinating to see Shakespeare's images compared and contrasted to those of Marlowe, Dekker, and Johnson. Each writer thought and created images in a unique manner. Seeing and understanding the differences, as expertly explained by Dr. Spurgeon, gives one a deeper insight into and appreciation of one of the greatest minds of all time. If you love Shakespeare then do not miss reading this book.