Why is Shakespeare as highly regarded now as he ever has been? The plays, Belsey argues, entice us into a world we recognize by retelling traditional fairy tales with a difference, each chapter providing a detailed reading.

Preface
Shakespeare's Singularity
As You Like It  and  The Golden Goose
King Lear and the Missing Salt
The Exiled Princes in  The Winter's Tale
Fairy Tales for Grown-ups in  A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hamlet  and the Reluctant Hero
Twelfth Night  and the Riddle of Gender
Cultural Difference as Conundrum in The Merchant of Venice
Happily Ever After?
Further Reading
Abbreviations and References
Notes
Index.

Shortlisted for the 2008 ESSE Book Award in the field of Literatures in the English Language. Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2008. 'Belsey invites us to revalue our own childhood reading, and to reconsider its abiding relevance to some central texts that continue to reshape out culture and our thinking about literature and drama.' - John Drakakis, Professor of English Studies, University of Stirling, UK 'An outstanding, original study, which miraculously manages to provide both an ideal introduction for beginners and a bold reinterpretation of the plays that will make the most seasoned students and teachers of Shakespeare see them afresh.' - Kiernan Ryan, Professor of English, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK 'An example of that rare beast, genuinely popular literary criticism...The book is both a fascinating guide to the folk tale sources of the plays, and, of all things, a most accessible and original post-structuralist critique.' - Sean McEvoy, The Professional Journal of the National Association for the Teaching of English 'A distinguished critic's relaxed reflections on Shakespeare and folk tales.' - Times Literary Supplement 'Partly due to Belsey's wondering tone and to her invitingly informal style, Why Shakespeare? is an enchanting and even, in some ways, enchanted book.' - Professor R. S. White, University of Western Australia