∎ [PDF] Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Stephen Greenblatt Books

Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Stephen Greenblatt Books

Download As PDF : Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Stephen Greenblatt Books

Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Stephen Greenblatt Books

I'm a huge Shakespeare fan and looked forward to this book perhaps shedding some light on some of the murkier aspects of his life. Unfortunately, the "information" provided runs something like: "Elizabethans often wore gloves and, in fact, Shakespeare mentions a glove in Romeo and Juliet: 'O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!'. Given that Will's father also worked with gloves, we can determine that it's very likely that Shakespeare possibly wore gloves at some point in his life."

Ugh. After more than a few of Greenblatt's "insightful facts" I had to stop reading. Tedious and frustrating.


Tags : Amazon.com: Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (9780393327373): Stephen Greenblatt: Books,Stephen Greenblatt,Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare,W. W. Norton,039332737X,Literary,Shakespeare,Dramatists, English - Early modern, 1500-1700,Dramatists, English;Early modern, 1500-1700;Biography.,England - Intellectual life - 16th century,England;Intellectual life;16th century.,Shakespeare, William,Theater - England - History - 16th century,Theater;England;History;16th century.,1564-1616,16th century,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Literary Figures,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography & Autobiography Literary,Biography Autobiography,Biography And Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,DRAMA Shakespeare,Dramatists, English,Early modern, 1500-1700,England,English,History,Literary CriticismShakespeare,Literature: Texts,Miscellaneous items,Shakespeare, William,,Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616,Theater

Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Stephen Greenblatt Books Reviews

Greenblatt has a great idea. There's so little to go on with Shakespeare that biographies have been halting, and even the idea of using biographical information to interpret Shakespeare has been on the edge of taboo. Pick up Bloom's Shakespeare, and you can see the delight at tweaking authority leap off the page when he trots out a chestnut about Marlowe being killed by the Elizabethan CIA. The degree of critical insight through biography and historical context brought Bloom's 800 page book by is dwarfed by a short chapter of WiW.

Even better (and this is the true test of an hypothesis), the biographical lodestars brought forth are predictive in works not mentioned. That's sort of a strange claim, but I'm going through it at the moment, so here's the current example - I bet there will be more. One of the main events in the book is WS's relationship with the Earl of Southampton, whom it is affirmed was a patron of WS and the addressee of Venus and Adonis, and some Sonnets (I think that part's affirmed, but the early, non (actually less) sexual ones). ESH was being pushed into a marriage, and he was delaying. WS was supposed to coax him through poetry closer to the marriage, and ended up possibly falling in love with ESH himself. That last bit is more interesting than salient to my point, but nice to have a little scandal. So I'm reading All's Well that Ends Well, and bam! the central action is a courtier that refuses to marry someone the king is commanding him to marry using various delaying tactics, etc. Seems a cartoonish bit of court intrigue in the play, but the real life example is undeniably there in WiW, but unclaimed for AWEW. It's absolutely ridiculous to believe that Shakespeare, unlike all other writers, did not use his life as a primary source for his fiction just because we have so little documentation of it. Greenblatt calls BS on that thought and does everything he can to piece together what's likely and put it on the table.

What seems amazing to me is how airtight his suppositions seem. I think that's a combination of knowledge of the time, knowledge of the work, the discretion not to go out too far on a limb, but the courage to make a claim that fits common sense and has explanatory power. If you're considering a Shakespeare dive, I think this is the book you want as a companion. It's a little better if you have some of the plays under your belt, you'll be nodding a lot more. But it's nice to know the man and the time as you're reading at a higher level than the scattered details that critical volumes of the plays will give.
Dr Greenblatt has achieved that very rare success for an author, and particularly for a successful academic, of producing a book that it not only highly informative on an interesting subject, but is also a pure pleasure to read. He is honest in not claiming an excess of knowledge of Shakespeare personally, since there is so very little, but instead presents excellent research into his times, his profession and other significant individuals about whom more is recorded. For one point, I had not realized exactly how much accuracy was contained in Sir Tom Stoppard's Shakespeare in Love, a fictional production if there ever was one. Similarly, the information and commentary on early Reformation England is unusually worthwhile in explaining just how the unique phenomenon of The Bard's work came about. It is very rare that a book including this much information and commentary is so enjoyable to read. I can't recommend it too highly.
I studied Shakespeare as an undergraduate English literature major, taking the two best courses I ever took in college. I think we read close to half of Shakespeare's plays. Over the years I've seen many of his plays performed, always enjoying them. I've moved far away from English literature as a profession, having gone to graduate school in cognitive psychology and ended up now in a school of computer science. But literature is still an interest. Having read Greenblatt's book while on vacation in Hawaii, I've been flooded again with the emotions I've always felt from reading or seeing Shakespeare. While the book has a considerable amount of speculation, I enjoyed that. The documentary record of Shakespeare's life is famously sketchy, so I find intelligent speculation to be warranted. I'm sure his ideas will be reviewed and discussed for years. But he has made, to me at least, Shakespeare an interesting and believable person of his times. I learned a lot about the interesting interconnections in his life, and the possible sources of ideas seen in the plays. I've read many of the less enthusiastic reviews here, but they do not dampen my own enthusiasm for this volume. It is a superb read.
I'm a huge Shakespeare fan and looked forward to this book perhaps shedding some light on some of the murkier aspects of his life. Unfortunately, the "information" provided runs something like "Elizabethans often wore gloves and, in fact, Shakespeare mentions a glove in Romeo and Juliet 'O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!'. Given that Will's father also worked with gloves, we can determine that it's very likely that Shakespeare possibly wore gloves at some point in his life."

Ugh. After more than a few of Greenblatt's "insightful facts" I had to stop reading. Tedious and frustrating.