Twelfth Night (Arden Shakespeare) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William, Lothian, J.M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0416179606 ISBN 13: 9780416179606

Publisher: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1975

Synopsis

Webster's paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running English-to-Wolof thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare was edited for three audiences. The first includes Wolof-speaking students enrolled in an English Language Program (ELP), an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program, an English as a Second Language Program (ESL), or in a TOEFL or TOEIC preparation program. The second audience includes English-speaking students enrolled in bilingual education programs or Wolof speakers enrolled in English-speaking schools. The third audience consists of students who are actively building their vocabularies in Wolof in order to take foreign service, translation certification, Advanced Placement (AP) or similar examinations. By using the Webster's Wolof Thesaurus Edition when assigned for an English course, the reader can enrich their vocabulary in anticipation of an examination in Wolof or English.
TOEFL, TOEIC, AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.

About this title

Review:

One of Shakespeare's finest comedies, Twelfth Night, was written at the same time as Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida, and while it shares their fascination with sex, death and confused identities, its exuberant comedy and linguistic inventiveness rises above the introspection of these plays. Viola and her twin brother Sebastian are separated in a storm that washes them both up at different points on the shores of Illyria. Believing each other to be dead, both attempt to survive by using their wits. Viola cross-dresses and enters the service of the lovesick Orsino, in love with Olivia, an heiress in mourning for the loss of her brother. Orsino's saucy young page Cesario (Viola) soon falls in love with "his" master, who tells "him", "all is semblative a woman's part". Unfortunately, while Viola falls in love with Orsino, Olivia falls in love with her alter ego, Cesario, while also being pursued at the same time by her pompous servant Malvolio. Olivia's house is also turned upside down by the antics of her drunker uncle, Sir Toby Belch, and the whole crazy situation reaches boiling point when Sebastian reappears.

Despite the madcap plot, Twelfth Night remains one of Shakespeare's most complex and inventive comedies, fascinated with questions of cross-dressing, gender confusion, language and inversion, as well as retaining a darker edge to some of its laughter. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

'refreshing and of immense practical use ... Sources and provenances are fascinatingly discussed.'Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post Weekend

The commentary on Twelfth Night is alive with the editors' feeling for the play in performance. (M.M. Mahoud, University of Kent, YES, 27, 1996)

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 1975
• ISBN 10: 0416179606
• ISBN 13: 9780416179606
• Binding: Paperback