THIS IS SHAKESPEARE

Oxford professor Emma Smith is not only an esteemed Shakespeare scholar, she is also a skilled communicator whose long experience as a podcaster comes through in her excellent narration of her own work. The audiobook's declarative title is ironic: Smith does not set out to tell audiences how to interpret the Bard. Rather, in chapters devoted to individual plays, she explores the ambiguity (what she calls "gappiness") that is integral to Shakespeare's work. It's about questions, not answers. Why is his King Lear so much more bleak than its source material? Did Lady Macbeth really manipulate her husband to commit murder? Smith's narrative style is academic but engaging, and there's little jargon here, as her audience is primarily theatergoers, not scholars. D.B. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2020]