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2nd out of 117 books
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Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
Stephen Greenblatt, the charismatic Harvard professor who "knows more about Shakespeare than Ben Jonson or the Dark Lady did" (John Leonard, Harper's), has written a biography that enables us to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life; full of drama and pageantry, and also cruelty and dang...more
Paperback, 430 pages
Published
September 19th 2005
by W.W. Norton
(first published 2004)
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Stephen Greenblatt is just wonderful. This book makes blood flow between the sonnets, plays and legal records that comprise the slim documentary record of Shakespeare's career.
His analysis is contextual. As you read the book, your attention is driven through a route that wends alternatingly through the terrains of Shakespeare's world, life and work. Greenblatt is a spectacular writer with amazing structural control.
Some bullet points will give you a sense of what I l...more
His analysis is contextual. As you read the book, your attention is driven through a route that wends alternatingly through the terrains of Shakespeare's world, life and work. Greenblatt is a spectacular writer with amazing structural control.
Some bullet points will give you a sense of what I l...more
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I think the theory of Shakespeare that he's espousing is a little far fetched. I'm just going to put it out there. The way he gets from argument to argument is 'well, this probably didn't happen... but what if it /did/.... then this would be true...' and then he'll go on to spout some more historical facts that would then fall into place of that was true. So, as an academic argument? I don't find this book particularly strong.
However. There is a lot of information here about the life...more
However. There is a lot of information here about the life...more
This is a thrilling read; even at its most speculative (and sometimes it goes a bit far), WILL IN THE WORLD is a feat of scholarship, an example of how a lively but discriminating imagination can engage with historical evidence. Greenblatt makes me feel that Shakesepare was human...which should be a given (after all, he wasn't a wookie), but I've always pictured him as a magical marble bust of himself from which lightning crackled and astounding language (in blank verse) emanated. Or as Joseph...more
Jonathan
rated it
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review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
um, Shakespeare fans? duh.
Recommended to Jonathan by:
Puck
Shelves:
history-biography
Not just a bio of Will, but also a great look into what made him tick, and how he may have come to write his plays. The book is an interesting look into the history of the late 16th and early 17th century, and how the events of the times shaped Shakespeare's life. Unfortunately, many of the details of Shakespeare's life are lost, but Greenblatt uses what is available to make educated guesses as what influences and experiences Shakespeare used to create his masterworks. An altogether fascinati...more
This book could have been (perhaps even should have been) so much worse than it turned out. Even stating the premise sends a shiver down my spine. The premise is, “How about we speculate on the life and loves of Shakespeare on the basis of the evidence we can find in his plays, poems and sonnets!” You can feel it can't you? It is like the shiver you get from a wind blowing off snow.
If I’d guessed the book was going to be about such speculations I would never have started it. I m...more
If I’d guessed the book was going to be about such speculations I would never have started it. I m...more
"If Shakespeare wore shoes--and we have reason to suppose he did--he might have worn some like the ones in this picture."
I'm paraphrasing, but not by much. This is Greenblatt's own special brand of persiflage that drove Germaine Greer to write her excellent Shakespeare's Wife, so I guess this book was good for something.
Read Greer instead. On her way to responsible speculation about the character of Anne Hathaway, traditionally assumed to have been a millston...more
I'm paraphrasing, but not by much. This is Greenblatt's own special brand of persiflage that drove Germaine Greer to write her excellent Shakespeare's Wife, so I guess this book was good for something.
Read Greer instead. On her way to responsible speculation about the character of Anne Hathaway, traditionally assumed to have been a millston...more
Lively, interesting & structured account of Shakespeare's life and times in the context of his work. I wanted to read this now, in preparation for the upcoming movie (have forgotten its name) which is going to strut the theory that Shakespeare was not the actor/playwright from Stratford, but rather the Earl of Oxford. This is the most flagrant elitism. Yes, there are a lot of theories in Greenblatt's work - & that's all one can have about Shakespeare, given the lack of source material. In additi...more
I read this book in the middle of a three-Shakespeare bio binge recently on audiobook. It was a critical part of my three-hour-a-day-commute summer. I highly recommend the trifecta of Will in the World, Shakespeare: The Biography and A Year in the Life of Shakespeare.
Will in the World moves away from timeline biography and addresses Shakespeare's life through themes represented in his plays. It's fun for us who like to think that Shakespeare's life is somehow on the stage. Greenblatt ...more
Will in the World moves away from timeline biography and addresses Shakespeare's life through themes represented in his plays. It's fun for us who like to think that Shakespeare's life is somehow on the stage. Greenblatt ...more
More than any other single author, past or present, who wrote in the English language, none has been the focus of more essays, criticisms, and analysis than The Bard. But for the majority of his plays, sonnets, and poems that are known and can be read in their entirety by us, William Shakespeare still remains an historical and biographical enigma for scholars and enthusiasts alike, until Harvard Professor Stephen Greenblatt's biography of Shakespeare was first published in 2004.
Perhap...more
Perhap...more
Enjoyed it tremendously: very readable, very good scholarship. Didn't catch him in any outrageous errors in theater history; his portrayal of the world of the theater and its interactions with Elizabethan/Jacobean theater made sense. Will was amazingly accomplished, well beyond his wordcraft: he must have been an exceptionally busy man when he was in London. The teases are there as well -- the things we'll never know, as there is nothing surviving to tell us -- why he went off to London to seek ...more
"So engrossing, clearheaded, and lucid that its arrival is not just welcome but cause for celebration."—Dan Cryer, Newsday
Stephen Greenblatt, the charismatic Harvard professor who "knows more about Shakespeare than Ben Jonson or the Dark Lady did" (John Leonard, Harper's), has written a biography that enables us to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life—full of drama and pageantry, and al...more
Stephen Greenblatt, the charismatic Harvard professor who "knows more about Shakespeare than Ben Jonson or the Dark Lady did" (John Leonard, Harper's), has written a biography that enables us to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life—full of drama and pageantry, and al...more
Perhaps. Probably. Maybe. These words hiccup through any biography of Shakespeare, and Stephen Greenblatt's is no exception. For the facts about Shakespeare's life are, as Greenblatt puts it, ''abundant but thin.'' We know all sorts of stuff about the property he bought and sold, the taxes he paid, the theatrical companies he worked for. We have his baptismal record, his marriage license and his last will and testament.
What we don't have are letters, diaries, manuscripts or anything...more
What we don't have are letters, diaries, manuscripts or anything...more
This was fun in the way it would be fun to take a very good Honors Literature class in high school (except it would be fun in a different way, now that I am an adult, as opposed to the way it was fun when I actually took Honors Lit in high school and spent a great deal of time passing notes to my friend Kim about how to best coordinate our outfits for the upcoming weekend). Because we don't know very much about Shakespeare's life -- and I do in fact remember learning that in high school and thin...more
Although Greenblatt's rumination on the life of England, and, some would say, the world's, greatest playwright and poet William Shakespeare is, at times, stiff and cumbersome with its nitpicking over historical fact, speculation, etc., this biography does provide the reader with alternative and interesting viewpoints of what Shakespeare may have been like from the only substantial source we have: the plays and sonnets. Greenblatt's premise is bold - after all, I'm sure many of us remember high s...more
I suppose the impulse to write biography is entirely irrepressible - especially for those among us who, like Greenblatt, devote decades to the study of the literary remains of supremely gifted persons whose lives are and always will remain obscure. What sort of person could create works of such genius that they extend the language and the imagination? How is such a life possible?
Of course, in such cases the most that even the most indefatigible biographer can achieve is plausibility, which...more
Of course, in such cases the most that even the most indefatigible biographer can achieve is plausibility, which...more
This isn't really a straight-forward biography of Shakespeare - it's more an attempt to tease out biographical details from the plays themselves, more what the plays tell us about the man than what details we know about the man himself. This is very much one author's personal interpretation, as more Shakespearean scholarship is, despite what many academics might claim. But it's engaging and very readable, even if there is a lot of 'Shakespeare must have' and 'almost certainly Shakespeare...' but...more
To say this is a biography of Shakespeare - and despite the title, which implies that it is as much about the world of the Renaissance as Shakespeare himself, it DOES present as a biography - is incredibly disingenous. Greenblatt makes a lot of interesting speculations, but that's all they are: speculations. He has no historical records to back up almost any of his claims. Some of the claims make sense; others are so out there they shouldn't even be taken seriously.
I'm giving the boo...more
I'm giving the boo...more
Every biographer has an angle when writing about someone as famous as Shakespeare--especially since so little is actually known about Shakespeare's life--and what is known has been exhausted by scholars for years. What I like about this biography is that instead of taking the bare facts and theorizing, Greenblatt looks at Shakespeare's life through the lense of the plays and sonnets, and places them in the historical context of both Elizabethan England and Shakespeare's personal background. Thi...more
Loved this book! I wish it were twice as long. Though I know some of Shakespeare's work very well, through repeated reading, viewing and a class from scholar Marjorie Garber that has stuck with me for nearly 3 decades now, I knew very little about the world in which he lived. To be honest, the movie "Shakespeare in Love" was my primary source of information, and I realize it might not be up to the strictest academic standards. Greenblatt's book was fascinating, comprehensive and ju...more
A fascinating and educating (and not boring!) look at the life and times of William Shakespeare, or rather, as much as it is possible to know. Greenblatt's research is very thorough and his knowledge of the time period is almost astounding, but I'm holding off on the fifth star for this one because at times it felt a little too much like guessing. Greenblatt comes off pretty sure of himself in the way he makes his (largely unsubstantiated) claims, despite most of them being based on evidence as ...more
In this well researched and well written book, Stephen Greenblatt, author of the current best seller "The Swerve", tells us how the events in Shakespeare's life influenced how he wrote his plays and sonnets. If you are a fan of Shakespeare, you will really appreciate the connections Greenblatt makes between the world in which Shakespeare lived, and his work. While much is conjecture, as some of Shakespeare's history is not recorded, Greenblatt does an excellent job of making logical c...more
I loved this book. It put me "on the ground" in Elizabethan England better than any other has. Most important, though, is it's contribution to the Shakespeare authorship question. It's been said that the book still does not 'prove' Shakespears' authorship of the plays, but proof (impossible for any writer of that period)is not what has been asked. The first accusation ever levied against Shakespeare's authorship was that no boy from a small English town with only a "grammar school...more
Interesting. I read this book because I wanted to see how Stephen Greenblatt used Shakespeare's writing to construct a book about his life. This meant a lot of 'what if' type stuff and an assumption that people are relatively consistent and sincere, and perhaps also that literature is always/usually an expression of self. However, it made for a thought-provoking book. Maybe it is best considered as linking the texts to their historical and geographical context rather than being massively reveali...more
This book is a fascinating biography of William Shakespeare. Greenblatt uses the best record of the Bard that we have - his plays and poems - to etch a convincing portrait of the greatest playwright of all time. Of course, we won't ever be able to know for sure what caused Shakespeare to write what he did, and Greenblatt acknowledges this time and again in the text. However, his use of primary documents from the time, along with records of events in and around Stratford and London do make his id...more
An interesting biography, especially since so little is known of Shakespeare's life. My only problem with this book was how much of it was based on the plays and sonnets. We cannot know that an attitude a writer expresses is a reflection of his own feelings on a subject, especially when he is portraying either historical figures, or well-known characters in the public mind. The fact that the largest part of his work was written for the stage, not to be read, would indicate even more that his cha...more
Already a fan of Greenblatt, I quickly became one of this book. I think the writing is excellent, but was even more impressed with the exhaustive research that had to come before the writing. And unlike most biographies that use the subject's stages in life as the structure, Greenblatt geniusly makes the reading more interesting by grouping each chapter around a theme in Shakespeare's writings--all while staying true to the chronology. And one more note--Greenblatt seemed to be restraining his a...more
There are those who think that to know the author is to ruin the fiction. And perhaps Shakespeare understood that best judging by the dearth of artifacts he left behind. So it's hard to say whether Greenblatt's account is of any true merit, but his imagination is certain to attract even the most wandering of eyes.
The most harrowing idea at work here is that of Shakespeare retiring to Stratford with a hollowed understanding of both faith and love -- a faith lost, and a love never fou...more
The most harrowing idea at work here is that of Shakespeare retiring to Stratford with a hollowed understanding of both faith and love -- a faith lost, and a love never fou...more
The problem inherent in any Shakespeare biography is that there just isn't that much information about him for us to study. This books solution is to use the bits we do know and expand it to what life was like in Stratford in Shakespeare's youth, life in the Elizabethan theater world, and so on combined with interpretations of Shakespeare's work. By and large this is a good approach except for when tue author goes on flights of fancy (maybe young Shakespeare went to he north where maybe he maybe...more
I agree with others that there is so much speculation in this book that it's beyond ridiculous. Does make me snicker a lot. What is fascinating for me is to read about the times in which Shakespeare was born, raised, wrote, etc. and see them in a new way. Surely, the time period and culture in which a person lives do have influence. The better bits also look at his work and see how the plays and sonnets may have been partly autobiographical. Could be WAY OFF, but it's fun. Well, I was an English...more
It's hard to argue with Greenblatt when it comes to Shakespeare. I did get a little tired of reading "Shakespeare WOULD PROBABLY HAVE know about [fill in the blank:]." But that's the problems in doing a pseudo-biography of Shakespeare since we have so little information about his personal life and even, relatively speaking, his professional career. You read this book and learn more about how Elizabethan England's social, cultural, and political realities could have shaped someone like ...more
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Stephen Greenblatt (Ph.D. Yale) is Cogan University Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University. Also General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Eighth Edition, he is the author of nine books, including Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Hamlet in Purgatory; Practicing New Historicism; Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of t...more
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