What makes this book on Shakespeare unlike so many other books on the ultimate author of English literature?  Several things.  My fond hope is that this book will, first, help teachers of the next generation develop the skills of independent, reflective, and critical thinking because I know that authentic learning begins only when teachers challenge students with real questions (problems about meaning) that demand solutions. 

Second, I also believe that a person can acquire a life-long and life-changing education from reading the works of Shakespeare--the ultimate English author who, according to Harold Bloom, invented our sense of the human.  As a result, careful, thoughtful, reading and rereading and meditation on these plays can become formative of values in our personal lives. 

Third, the focus of these two books is on the text of two tragedies,  two comedies,  and a history, and what the individual is able to draw from them alone.  I am not concerned with what expert critics think these plays are about since such an enormous amount of this criticism has already been published and I do not presume to add to it. 

And finally, since these plays were meant to be witnessed, not merely read, these two volumes explain how to use film to bring Shakespeare to life through comparison-contrast discussion and writing.  Together may we continue to make the eloquence and wisdom of Shakespeare more accessible and understandable to our students, and, as a result develop their passion for and love of life.