Introduction to the Shakespeare Mind Map Series, Summer 2020

The Shakespeare Mind Map Series Introduction, Summer 2020 offers a section on each of Shakespeare’s plays, giving information about their major themes: a concise description of their principal characters, a breakdown of the action arranged by act and scene, and a full synopsis of their plots. This will be followed by information about each play’s reputation and impact over the ages. Also, I intend to include informative sections on Shakespeare’s narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, on his sonnets, and on his other two poems, A Lover’s Complaint and The Phoenix and the Turtle. The exact order in which Shakespeare wrote his works is uncertain. In these Mind Maps, I will follow both the text and the chronology of the Complete Oxford Shakespeare, General Editors Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, first published in 1986. It was reissued in 2005 with the addition of Edward III, which by that time was generally agreed to have been written at least partly by Shakespeare, and the full text of Sir Thomas More, a play that survives only in manuscript, and to which Shakespeare appears to have contributed at least one fine scene.