ABSTRACT
A Shakespeare play is a dramatic poem. It uses action, gesture, formal grouping and symbols, and it relies upon the general conventions governing Elizabethan plays. He represents both the most constrained and the most open aspect of the secondary English curriculum. The only author whose works have been a compulsory element in every version of the English National Curriculum. There are real advantages to an approach that first zooms in on a single speech. This might be Lady Macbeth's soliloquy when she has just received Macbeth's letter, Juliet's balcony speech. Christopher Marlowe is alleged to have made a series of heretical and blasphemous statements. In the case of scripted dramatic performance, the multi-accentual nature of utterance is much more complex. Comparing editions of Shakespeare are designed with school pupils in mind, are particularly suitable for use with Key Stage 3 (KS3) and Key Stage 4 (KS4). The Cambridge and Oxford School Shakespeare texts are very widely used.
