Romeo and Juliet Paperback – November 20, 2019

Film, comic TV series adaptations multiply the story of Romeo and Juliet. I have enjoyed many of its mirrors as the version with Leonardo DiCaprio in Miami, the kung fu version with Jet Li, the black and white classic with Cantinflas ("London! I mean... Paris!"xD), or Juleo and Rumiet by Chespirito, among many others. But just now I dared to read the original and it was jaw-dropping...Shakespeare is invisible. He creates a world where he is not seen and all is doomed to fit or crash by its own accord. The first scenes indirectly set the following drama. In a world where Romeo and Juliet are not meant to be, they violently and inevitably fall in love with each other. There is Rosaline, whom Romeo loved with juvenile passion to her idealized shape. She is there and she is not there to make a contrast with the feelings toward Juliet. Juliet for her part has to clad her tears of love with the disguise of mourning for her cousin Tybalt; she utters words of revenge against Romeo because the world is against her love. Similar to the end of Don Quixote, when he awakes from madness to the tiredness of reality, Romeo also, at his end, has no romance but solitary longing; one that awakes him into a conscious lucidity of his "world-weary flesh" of man. The moment in which he is alone with himself after losing everything at hands of death... is not Hamlet that descends into madness, is Romeo that now seems to understand everything. Rather than romance Romeo and Juliet is about the struggle of small humanity against destiny, to do anything despite to have the whole universe plotting against you. As so this story is a triumph.Borges said that secretly the national book of Englishmen is the bible, not Shakespeare's works; and that Shakespeare's works was secretly the national book of Germany, not Goethe's works. I love so much the diverse authors of the United Kingdom, especially those at the end of 19th century and beginning of 20th century. But I have to concord that Shakespeare seems different. Clearly universal, not for the location of his plays, but because the human nature is common to each man and woman; a quality that Romanticism, in its insistence for exotic objects to clad the fellow citizens instead to get to to the heart of the exotic cultures, failed to accomplish (although in fairness perhaps that wasn't its goal). Maybe indeed Shakespeare is more akin to the Germanic and Nordic old sagas, those that have a wise understanding of men and women, with characters that deeply say far more in their actions or in subtle words.About the AmazonClassics Edition it has a minimal of X-Ray to indicate the allegiance of each character to the Capulet or Montague families. Beyond that there are not footnotes nor prologues; and I am happy for that because Shakespeare is better discovered without intermediaries.

For the Caribbean students, it works for my daughter for English literature for Csec

Llegó bien

I bought this for an independent study assignment for my 16 year old grandson. The assignment was to read it and to create a daily written diary as if you were one of the characters. The book he started with was simply the original poetry, and he really struggled. Once we got this version, he used the plain English side of the pages to read the story, and was able to understand what was happening. While writing the diary pages, he used the plain English side to find his place, to re-read and understand, but he used the poetry side to obtain quotes for his characters. The result was an "A" on an assignment that he had initially felt he simply couldn't do. We will use this series of books again.

Till now, I had always found Shakespeare's language so daunting that after a while I gave up on reading him. Thanks to the Barnes&Noble editions, this has changed for me. First of all, they have an outstanding introductory essay where I read for the first time that Shakespeare's language is difficult for everybody and why. The realization that the problem was not just me gave me the courage to persevere. But for me the main advantage of these editions is that I get just the right amount of help with Shakespeare's language, without being overburdened with extra information that might be interesting but slows me down and makes me lose interest (e.g. the Arden Shakespeare editions). Especially helpful is that the explanations are split into two. Just beside the text are the translations of archaic words or "false friends", words we know but that were used with a different meaning in Shakespeare's time, such as "jealous". In other editions you are forced to search somewhere far away for these explanations and the editors wrongly assume that explaining such words once is enough (a seemingly minor issue which can become extremely frustrating). On the opposite page of Barnes&Noble Shakespeare more complicated expressions are explained, such as allusions to things we are no longer familiar with or cleverly crafted poetic phrases that probably would have caused Shakespeare's contemporaries difficulties too. Somehow, I found it much easier and faster to look for these explanations on the side rather than at the bottom. I was also agreeably surprised by the cheapness of these Barnes&Noble editions, I don't know how to manage to make money on them. My only disappointment is that they have not brought out the whole Shakespeare yet, I sincerely hope they will.

I came across Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet by surprise at a Samuel French store here in Los Angeles. I've already read all of Shakespeare's works so I had no intention of purchasing any more; however, when I saw the beautiful laser cut designs on the front of these books I just had to take a look. The design is just incredible. I've never seen any book that looked like this. Just beautiful to hold, and the inside just leaves you breathless. So, I went home and immediately purchased them through Amazon. A few days later, they are now in my personal library and something I will treasure forever. I think readers will be appreciative that the plays are clearly defined. Each play includes a full history of the work. You can tell a lot of hard work went into making these books, and it really pays off. I understand that the publishers are deciding whether to issue all the plays based on the sales of these books. I really hope people take a look and spread the word to get them. Not only will you not be disappointed, but hopefully they will complete the entire series. I am so happy to have these in my collection, and can't wait to show them off to my friends and family. I'd give this ten stars if it was available!