A throroughly revised edition of the successful student text Doing Shakespeare, first published in 2005. The book's success lies in the close readings it gives students, demystifying the language of the plays and critical approaches to it.The new edition introduces a new way of approaching Shakespeare's text, through ideas of performance and the actor's role and restructures the content to make it easier to navigate.Simon Palfrey takes a direct approach to the common difficulties faced by students "doing" Shakespeare and tackles them head on in a no-nonsense style which makes the book especially accessible. He bring us much closer to the animate life of the plays, as things that are not finished monuments but living material, in process and up for grabs, empowering students to see opportunities for their own creative or re-creative readings of Shakespeare.