The Complete Works of William Shakespeare review

As you'd rightfully expect, this disc holds the complete works of William Shakespeare.

All the plays from All's Well That Ends Well to The Winter's Tale are here, as are the Bard's 154 sonnets. And, as promised, you can either read them on the screen, print part or whole pieces, and search for key words or dates in the texts. For any student of English literature, it seems like an absolute essential.

And when you consider that a single school or university-recommended Shakespeare book can cost more than this entire collection, the CD does appear exceptional value for money. The problem is that, unlike those recommended texts, The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare CD provides no explanatory detail. There are no descriptions of archaic words, or notes on their pronunciation or by-gone usage. Neither will you find any notes about the historical context, such as the Elizabethan political climate or the religious backdrop to Shakespeare's plays, or any discussion of cultural nuances.

For experienced Shakespearean scholars, this is no great shakes. For new or unfamiliar readers, though, these details are essential in bringing the Bard's work to life.

The program's ability to search through the complete works is, however, good fun. It makes it easy to look for those half-remembered lines and quotes. Within seconds you can refresh your memory of the deliciously offensive line "whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave". The trouble is, having found it, cutting and pasting a phrase from the text is an annoying business. After highlighting the text, you have to copy it to the Windows clipboard - right-clicking or using the conventional Ctrl+C Windows shortcut won't work. Having copied it, pasting it into a Word document reveals a mass of additional spaces and extra returns. For a program that purports to be a tool for essay writers, this is a poor performance.

As you delve further into the program, other grating problems come to light. For example, the scroll wheel on your mouse won't work. The menu system is annoyingly clunky. This and more can be blamed on the program being very old. Now on budget re-release, the disc dates back to well before Windows XP.

It's a disappointing program, despite the price. You'd be better advised to download Shakespearean texts (as well as a plethora of other classics) from the Project Gutenburg Web site at http://promo.net/pg.

Author: Martin Cooper