Hey /lit/, I'm a fucking pleb but I want to read Shakespeare because that's what smart people do, can you kind people point me in the right direction for some good annotated editions of his work?
Oxford Shakespeare
>>7981887
If English is your first language you shouldn't need annotations. If you ever reach a passage you don't totally get, read it through a few times and you should get it. Doing this, I've never had a problem understanding shakespeare. There's some words like ere and wherefore that you might need to learn the meaning of but t b h f a m I covered that in high school.
Get The Oxford Shakespeare and Shakespeare's Words. Get.
>>7981894
terrible advice. not everyone can just jump into shakespeare.
@ op: any decent publisher will have sufficient annotatiosn for you to get the meaning. oxford, arden (notes are a bit excessive), norton, riverside, pelican, cambridge, etc. etc.
don't be afraid to use something like sparknotes. if you're really having trouble try reading a summary of the play, or maybe a scene, before reading it, and then you'll fine words make a lot more sense when you know what happening.
start with a famous play. hamlet, macbeth, king lear, twelfth night, julius caesar, romeo and juliet, richard iii, henry v, are all good choices. avoid the slapstick comedies to start - they're usually very heavily based on 16th/17th century puns and jokes and slang.
>>7981894
There's arcane and out-of-use words in Shakespeare. Not saying there's enough to hinder the understanding but they are there, I'm too lazy to get up and open a book and flip through it to find a few. I like the Folger Shakespeare Library, they don't mark up the pages with annotations or footnotes, they're on the opposite page. I bought a copy of MacBeth that was very scholarly and printed at like Yale University or something, with commentary and criticism from Hungry Hungry Hippo Bloom, the Masticator, and I like reading it for all the meaty academia but the play is impossible to read it has so many notes.
Folger is the way to go. Plus I fold back pages like a savage and bring my books all around town, they're ugly and cheap copies (practically free) so I never feel any guilt.
>>7981890
>>7981898
These are excellent choices. I heartily second them.
From one pleb to another I'm going to give you some pleb advice: start with one of the lesser known, somewhat lighter plays - something like Twelfth Night. Also, read the play once, don't stress about not getting it all on the first pass, then go and WATCH the play on YouTube - not a film version of the play, but actually watch thespians performing the play. A play, for all that it is written, is meant to be seen and heard as well. Then read it again.
>>7981911
I'm the Folger Shakespeare guy I'm just wondering why these editions are never recommended on here. Are they bad? Do they have funky editing compared to Oxford? I have only read his plays and Sonnets from these books so I have nothing to compare them to, and don't know much about Shakespeare outside of reading and watching his plays (though I'm a big fan of them).
>>7981924
they';re not bad, they're just budget and designed for high school students. the complementary material tends to be sparse (read: non existent)
Watch it being performed, so you can "get" the mannerisms and the way they act
How's the RSC Complete?
I'd like one with a glossary and a reasonable amount of notes (but not overkill)
>>7981932
This, you can buy dvd's from the Globe's site and they are pretty cheap. Or you can download them illegally, of course. I would recommend you rather watch then read his plays, at least at first, especially his comedies. That's how I got into Shakespeare.
