This book - for a decade the most highly regarded general introduction to Shakespeare - offers students a clear and practical method of approaching a Shakespeare play. This major new edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded to include five new chapters that illustrate the nature and impact of the new approaches to Shakespeare that have swept through literary studies in recent years: structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, feminism, new historicism and cultural materialism.

Martin Coyle is Professor of English Literature at Cardiff University, UK.

General Editors' Preface
Preface
PART 1 How to Approach a Shakespeare Play
Studying a History
Play Studying a Tragedy
Studying a Comedy
Discussing an Extract from a Shakespeare Play
Writing an Essay
PART 2 New Approaches to Shakespeare
Structuralism, Poststructuralism and Deconstruction
Feminist Criticism
New Historicism and Cultural Materialism
Conclusion
Further Reading
A List of Shakespeare's Plays.