Match BookThe Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1
Harold Clarke Goddard
1951 · 408 pages · Narrative nonfiction
How it reads
The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1 is narrative nonfiction (shakespearean criticism, specifically), and its dominant mood is cosy. Low stakes, warm company: the kind of book you read under a blanket. It's a slow burn: character-driven, with a payoff that comes from accumulation rather than twists. It rewards attention and suits unhurried reading more than five-minute gaps.
It's set in several locations, in the historical past, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are art and creativity, identity and power and politics. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It opens a series. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 408 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's moderately known: read by plenty of people, but not a household name.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something cosy
- you have time to settle in
- you want something to chew on
Maybe not if…
- you need something dark, tense or eerie
- you're reading in five-minute gaps
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- narrative nonfiction
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- prolific veteran
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- historical
- Mood / feeling
- cosy
- Pace
- slow burn
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- classic
- Popularity
- moderately known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- art and creativity, identity, power and politics
- Ending style
- ambiguous
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- The Perennial PhilosophyAldous HuxleyShares: narrative nonfiction, cosy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
- Between the World and MeTa-Nehisi CoatesShares: narrative nonfiction, cosy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
- The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About ItMary Ann SieghartShares: narrative nonfiction, cosy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
- On the Genealogy of MoralsFriedrich NietzscheShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, slow burn, ambiguous ending
- Women & Power: A ManifestoMary BeardShares: narrative nonfiction, cosy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
- GODDESS OF THE MARKETBurnsShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, set in multiple locations, historical setting
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