Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare (1970)

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare (1970) by Isaac Asimov is a two-volume guide to the works of the English writer William Shakespeare. The numerous maps were drafted by the artist Rafael Palacios.

Structure

The work gives a short guide to every Shakespeare play, as well as two epic poems. Asimov organizes the plays not in the usual way – as tragedies, comedies, and histories – but regionally, as follows:

Greek

Roman

Italian

English

The last two categories are treated broadly; "Italian" applies to neighbouring countries, and both Hamlet and Macbeth are listed with "The English Plays". Asimov gives a detailed justification for doing this.

Within each category, the plays are arranged according to internal (historical) chronology, making allowance for the several not based on actual events. Asimov notes how much is real history, and describes who the historical people were, where applicable. He traces those characters who appear in more than one play, and provides maps to explain key geographical elements.

Asimov’s categories

It being "the most straightforwardly mythological" and tracing "farthest backward (if only dimly so) in history," Asimov includes in his regional categorisation, beginning with the "Greek", Shakespeare’s first narrative poem, Venus and Adonis (1593). He also includes Shakespeare’s second narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece (1594), amongst the "Roman", it dealing with "the earliest event, the legendary fall of the Roman monarchy in 509 B.C.". More precise settings are indicated in superscript and parentheses.

Publication data

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, vols I and II (1970), ISBN 978-0-517-26825-4. Gramercy Books.

Nearly 800 pages long plus an index, the work was originally published in two volumes; Greek, Roman and Italian in the first and 'The English Plays' in the second.

Asimov dedicated the work in memory of his father, Judah Asimov.