Shakespeare's Language

Sir Frank Kermode's Shakespeare's Language is a deeply significant publication, the result of a lifetime of writing and thinking on the Bard by one of our greatest critics, and it certainly lives up to its expectations. Kermode's numerous critical studies, such as The Sense of an Ending, have become classics and his recent memoir Not Entitled vividly captured a life of letters, characterised by a passionate commitment to the value of literature.

The author begins by lamenting the fact that general readers have not "been well served by modern critics, who on the whole seem to have little time for [Shakespeare's] language". However, rather than launching into a diatribe against current literary fashions, he proceeds to offer an elegant and detailed account of how "Shakespeare became, between 1594 and 1608, a different kind of poet". For Kermode, Shakespeare "moved up to a new level of achievement and difficulty", associated with the rich complexities of Hamlet and the enigmatic poem The Phoenix and the Turtle. Kermode defines that shift as "the pace of the speech, its sudden turns, its backtrackings, its metaphors flashing before us and disappearing before we can consider them. This is new: the representation of excited, anxious thought; the weighing of confused possibilities and dubious motives". This leads Kermode to break his book into two parts. The first deals with the plays up to 1600, including some controversial dismissals of plays, including As You Like It, whilst the second part offers 15 detailed chapters on the tragedies, problem plays and romances. Each chapter is full of detailed and illuminating interpretations of the difficulties, but also pleasures of Shakespeare's language. This is classic Shakespeare criticism, written in the mould of Johnson and Coleridge.--Jerry Brotton

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The best book about Shakespeare's plays - Rated
This is easily the finest, most intelligent, most helpful, most gripping book about Shakespeare's plays that I have ever read. Everyone who sees or reads any of Shakespeare's later and greater dramas should read the relevant chapter of this book either immediately before or afterwards: their enjoyment and appreciation of these plays can only be massively increased. Packed with insights and beautifully written. Trenchant, scholarly and deeply intelligent yet entirely accessible. A masterpiece.

A wonderful book that I hope to read many times - Rated
I think that the true mark of an expert is one who can get his point across to a non professional audience - and Frank Kermode is an expert.

This book demonstrates a level of learning and understanding that few can match, and if I were to try to sum this book up in one word it would be - glorious

A magnificently erudite, readable study - Rated
If you never thought that Shakespeare criticism could be compulsive reading, then think again. Frank Kermode's book is a masterpiece that lives up to the justified reputation of his other works. In the wake of Harold Bloom's atrocious rubbish, it is bracing to read a study that is enriching, sensible and rooted in the reality of Shakespeare's words, rather than abstract musings and supposition. Kermode's book really does enhance appreciation and enjoyment of Shakespeare's plays, by reminding us of what it is that makes them peerless - their language and the unparalleled mastery that Shakespeare demonstrates in his technique.