This posthumous collection of Rossiter's Shakespearean lectures reflects the authors belief that Shakespeare's unique preoccupation was with the equivocal nature of the State, of Man and of Nature. The essays emphasize Shakespeare's complexity and the danger of over-simplification. These essays were never meant for publication but were designed expressly for delivery. The author believed implicitly in the power of the spoken word as the centre of his educative method. The essays printed here are drawn from his more recent ones and from those which existed in a printable form. They concentrate most fully on the study of the histories, the so-called "problem plays" - "All's Well that Ends Well", "Measure for Measure" and "Troilus and Cressida" - and on the tragedies, since these were the plays that he was most interested in.