Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
 Immortal Story Presented So Anyone Can Understand The Vocabulary December 4, 2006
John Boland (USA)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Of course this is an immortal story that has been read for centuries and at least one beautiful motion picture has been based on it. But, I guess I'm a "dunce" because I never could understand much of the dialogue. "What he say?" was my reaction to much of it. But, I discovered these Folger Shakespeare Library editions that have the dialogue as written by Shakespeare in Elizabethan English on the right side of the page and the "translations" and explanations on the left. Wow! That format makes it very easy to enjoy this book without going to a dictionary every 90 seconds or so! And, for teachers, I think they'll be overjoyed when they see the positive results they could get in class! If you have any opinions about this edition please email boland7214@aol.
Romeo & Juliet - Dover Thrift Edition October 29, 2000
Lauren (Wisconsin)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
For the cost of ..., you can own a copy of the world's greatestlove story: Romeo & Juliet. Made possible to own ... by the DoverThrift Edition line of books, this edition of Romeo & Juliet iscomplete and unabridged. Use this copy for your performance of theplay, for an English class when you have to buy (or want to buy) abook to have of your own to highlight and annotate as you wish, orsimply to read at your own leisure. The only downside of this editionis that there are no notes of any kind, so you have to throroughlyknow the play itself. Outside of that one setback, the book isdefinitely worth purchasing if you need it or want it, but don't wantto spend lots of money on a copy.
Understandable notations February 20, 2006
Nadine Mitchell (Eugene, Oregon)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
The Folger edition of Romeo and Juliet is very easy to read. The many notes and illustrations make it enjoyable.
Innocent young love doomed due to unavoidable circumstances April 18, 2002
Karina A. Suarez (Walt Disney World, USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
At least that's what I feel should have been a worthy epitaph for these two ill-fated lovers. I read this classic work of fiction because I've never read anything by Shakespeare before. Being a romantic, I found it appealed to me as one unfathomable story of doomed love, and may I say the ending could not have been any other, even if it hadn't been a fictitious story. I agree with Ms. Paster, who in this edition gives a final, parallel account of the story in comparison to modern times; when she says that Romeo and Juliet's only way out to consumate their love was through death, because they had trespassed socially acceptable conventions of the era, and not just due to a family feud. This is true especially of Juliet, who, because she was a woman, had the least advantages and the most pressures to be married to someone previously chosen and approved by her father. She defies the world - literally - and runs to the arms of her Romeo to be married in secret. I cannot imagine the terrible strain and fear a woman would have gone through in the 1500's should she choose to follow her heart in such a way. I find Juliet, in this sense, a true pioneer of women's rights. She definitely risks it all, defying even her own father (the man who would "owned" her until she got married). The passage where he confronts her about her arranged marriage to Count Paris has to be one of the cruelest speeches in classic literature. She certainly would have to make use of a humongous supply of nerve to defy convention.Romeo, on his behalf, is truly besotted with Juliet. He admires her beauty more than her courage and, like most men when in love, shows himself a pathetic spectacle. However, he loves her and cannot live without her. He only has eyes and, what's really important, heart for her. That is why, when he receives news of her death, he decides to go to her tomb and kill himself there. The ill-fated destiny plays these lovers a bad hand when Romeo does not get a letter in time explaining his beloved's circumstances for her death. I enjoyed Shakespeare's language the most during the first half of the book. When Romeo climbs to Juliet's window and stays with her for a few hours in the night (the only time the young lovers have for each other throughout the play). He expresses his love with unforgettable lines. He wishes he would be someone else, so that he could love her freely: "Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized." (2.2.54) This edition by the Folger Library has new comments and offers historical background on the life of William Shakespeare as well his times and his theatre. Dimensions of The Globe and explanations on how the plays were acted are shown in detail; together with illustrations of engravings of the period. It all helps to give a good understanding of the play. If, like me, you are new to Shakespeare, you will find the left pages in the book an invaluable resource since they are like a mini-dictionary clarifying words, idiomatic expressions of the era and even full verses. Above all, fear not; and dare to dive into this torrent of love.
Shakespeare as it should be... November 21, 2005
C. Berchild (USA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is Shakespeare as it should be... no extraneous notes, no unnecessary stage directions, nothing but the text. If you are looking for anything that explains character, language, theme, etc. don't look here, as Shakespeare never wrote any of that. This is purely the text as-is.
As a theatre professor, I would rather have my students work with a text like this rather than one littered with useless commentary and biased notations. If you don't understand a term or reference, use the Oxford English Dictionary rather than the limp and limited notes available in many editions.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
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