Great for AS coursework
|
|
I used this book for my AS coursework and it really helped! If you have problems understanding shakespeare and the plot seems confusing then this book will help. It explains the language used by shakespeare and explores themes, structure and imagery. I used it to help me write my essay on Honour and Reputation and got an A.
|
|
Terrible study guide!!
|
|
This book is really bad. Do not use for any English Literature course, please! It is very narrative and contains no in-depth points about Shakespeare's language and literary techniques at all! These are the points that you need in essays to get the good grades. What the book really does is re-tell the story using descriptive language that nearly all literature students will find confusing - it is very ambigious and over-ellaborate as though the book itself is meant to be a piece of original writing itself - we as english students are not reading it to be impressed by the language of the York Notes author - we want clear and concise points that will get us marks in essays. It is certainly not written in a focussed way at all. For English Literature you need to explain a language point etc and then comment on its effects - this book doesn't do this anywhere! The character analyses explain what the characters do, with no literary analysis of their language etc. It is good if you want to be told what happens in Much Ado but please don't expect anything from it as a study guide, especially for A-level literature students. You could probably go through and analyses it better yourself! Very disappointing indeed.
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada