"What is so special about Shakespeare's plays? They make readers and audiences feel pity, fear, compassion, horror, laughter, delight, joy, aural and visual pleasure, enlightenment, wonder, and sublimity. What enables the plays to do this? Specific aspects of their plot, character, thought, language, song, and spectacle. By answering these questions in this way, and citing the plays to support these answers, Engagements with Shakespearean Drama aims to - enhance your enjoyment of the plays - enrich your knowledge of the plays and criticism devoted to them over the last four centuries - show you how to use a special vocabulary to describe Shakespeare's language - help you understand why the plays are divided up into tragedies, comedies, histories, and romances, but also why and how Shakespeare mixes these genres - improve your ability to evaluate Shakespeare's achievement In pursing these aims, this book also encourages you to think of the plays as works that are designed to entertain an audience--including you. It asks you to take your own response to the plays seriously as something that is relevant to their success and their value to your society. It asks you to take your own engagement with the plays as an occasion to discover what makes them special"--