books on Shakespearean scholarship

[annise]

Email recieved -

From: Ariel Fe
To whom it may concern.
First of all, as an audiobook-fan, I just want to say your work is a blessing.
It has allowed me to go through so much material!
As a student of dramaturgy I believe there’s a need for Shakespearean scholarship in audio form.
I’ve even written to audio publishers pointing it out, letting them know that most of the scholars are long gone
and their work is in the public domain. Two good examples are:

William Hazlitt (1778 –1830) ‘Characters of Shakespeare's Plays’ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5085 COMPLETED
(You’ve recorded "Romeo and Juliet" from this book. THANK YOU!)

A.C. Bradley (1851–1935) ‘Shakespearean Tragedy.’ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16966
This last one, largely considered a classic in the subject, is available at gutenbergproject.org if you care to look it up.

From Wikipedia:
"Though Bradley has sometimes been criticized for writing of Shakespeare's characters as though they were real people, his book is probably the most influential single work of Shakespearean criticism ever published. Bradley's influence is perhaps better deserved than later critics acknowledge, for his readings of Shakespeare demonstrate an exquisite moral perceptiveness. For example, Bradley's treatment of Hamlet in Shakespearean Tragedy is an excellent corrective to the over-dreamy picture of Hamlet we inherit from the Romantics, for Bradley shows why Hamlet is not merely a soft contemplative, incapable action, but a truly great-souled figure, worthy of tragedy. Such appreciative criticism can be quite helpful to readers who are looking to understand what Shakespeare himself wrote and meant. Shakespearean Tragedy has been reprinted more than two dozen times and is itself the subject of a scholarly book, Katherine Cooke's A. C. Bradley and His Influence in Twentieth-Century Shakespeare Criticism."
Please, put someone in front of microphone to read it! It’s only three-hundred pages long. Please consider these suggestions and know that the public—especially students and professors—needs more than just Shakespeare’s biographies, which seem to pop like mushrooms almost every year. I’d be doing a great service to the literary community.
Thank you very much. Sincerely, Ariel Fe

I've added the links

Anne

[Cori]

Oh my goodness. That Bradley book is *scary*!!

It's 494 pages ... 300 of regular lectures, and 194 of notes. The Lectures have footnotes, and then longer Commentary Notes which also have footnotes, and then there are Supplementary Notes to the Commentary Notes which, it will not surprise you to learn, have further footnotes.

Making this intelligible in an audio format would take considerable thinking about. But if the whole lot were read, it'd be 17-20hrs long.

[wildemoose]

I had a look at the Bradley and I agree with Cori, it's a little too terrifying for me. The Hazlitt, though, has some possibilities. Hmm...

[JWMcC]

A brief reminder that the Librivox catalog also contains Charles Lambs' "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," in Short
English NonFiction 010, as well as the classic essay "On the Knocking at the Door in Macbeth," in Miscellaneous Essays of Thomas De Quincey. There are, of course, other works of Shakespearean scholarship, but as the poster cited Hazlitt and Bradley as two examples, it's reasonable to infer his or her already-existing knowledge of them.

[ColleenMc]

Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespeare's Plays has been recorded:

https://librivox.org/characters-of-shakespeares-plays-by-william-hazlitt/

Colleen

[alanmapstone]

Oh my goodness. That Bradley book is *scary*!!
It's 494 pages ... 300 of regular lectures, and 194 of notes. The Lectures have footnotes, and then longer Commentary Notes which also have footnotes, and then there are Supplementary Notes to the Commentary Notes which, it will not surprise you to learn, have further footnotes.
Making this intelligible in an audio format would take considerable thinking about. But if the whole lot were read, it'd be 17-20hrs long.

Someone could just record the basic 300 pages of lectures without any of the notes. That would be a more manageable project. From my memories of reading it years ago the lectures are interesting on their own.