Shakespeare's Plays Outlined in Rhyme

Ron Larson (Ph.D.) is a retired professor of social science. He has long been interested in the sociology of literature and has written a number of plays influenced by this interest. One of his plays, "Vexed to Nightmare" won first place in the 1981 Virginia Highlands Creative Writing Festival. The play was sparked by a 1975 visit to Wytheville, VA by internationally known sociologist Erving Goffman. Goffman's classic work, "The Sociology of Everyday Life," was influenced by the dramaturgical technique. Goffman adopted Shakespeare's idea that we are all actors on a stage. We try to manage "impressions given" (the script) and "impressions given off" (how we convey the script) in order to at least appear competent in social interactions. In sixty pages, Larson's "Shakespeare's Plays Outlined in Rhyme" covers all of Shakespeare's 38 plays. Larson hopes that his book will stimulate interest in Shakespeare. The book is also written for those who will never be particularly interested in the Bard, but who would like to hold their own at that cocktail party or in the English literature classroom when Shakespeare is discussed. His historical dramas and "Fables in Rhyme for All Ages: Aesop and Bierce" are available online.