Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from His Life

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Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from His Life

by Katherine Duncan-Jones

3.83 · rating details · 6 ratings · 2 reviews

This lively, readable and challenging new biography, by the editor of the acclaimed Arden edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, takes a fresh look at an enduring cultural icon, about whose life it is widely claimed that nothing is known. As a result Shakespeare has tended to be viewed in Romantic isolation: the Bard as lonely inspired singer enthroned on a mountain peak. The a...more

Hardcover, 322 pages

Published March 22nd 2001 by Arden Shakespeare

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Nov 09, 2011

matt rated it

Shelves: literary-crit, biography

Blah. Duncan-Jones seems to know her material well enough certainly, though she writes with this stacatto, parrot-with-a-typewriter rythmn, which is quickly read but doesn't sink in all that much, or get penetrating with insights into the elusive, compelling Bard of Avon.

The history gets more of a focus here, which is a good thing, but when I read a bio of Shakespeare (it's for a class, not my personal whim) I kind of want to...I dunno...HEAR ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. This is of c...more
Blah. Duncan-Jones seems to know her material well enough certainly, though she writes with this stacatto, parrot-with-a-typewriter rythmn, which is quickly read but doesn't sink in all that much, or get penetrating with insights into the elusive, compelling Bard of Avon.

The history gets more of a focus here, which is a good thing, but when I read a bio of Shakespeare (it's for a class, not my personal whim) I kind of want to...I dunno...HEAR ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. This is of course totally different than perusing a tome on, say, Tolstoy or Dickens or Sartre or something, since we know a heck of a lot more about them then we do Big Willy. Pretty much every attempt is essentially a conjecture. Fine. OK, then, conjecturize then! go for it! the other one I read, Rene Weis, was interesting for the precise reason that it seemed like he just did some amateur sleuthing and came up with interesting conclusions as per the Dark Lady, the eroticism of the sonnets, the marriage, the politics, etc.

Duncan-Jones doesn't do that, and it's not because of an obsession with responsibility. She makes her conjectures too, since every biographer must behold his subject with a blur in the looking-glass, but they aren't all that novel or exciting.

Also, I really hate when biographies wrap up by saying something to the effect of "well, really the best way to understand the person behind the work is to 'read the ___ (poems, novels, plays, whatever)'...well....yeah, obviously. but guess what? That's probably why and how I came upon this bio in the first place, let alone decided to spend the time reading it. It's almost a cop-out, and it seals the deal on what was a somewhat interesting but ultimately annoying and unenlightning investigation on what is justifiably a fascinating figure.

PS
I also hate to admit that reading this book sort of explodes my theory that Brits make the best biographers. Ah well, you can't win 'em all, and this is the fly in the proverbial ointment...(less)

· see review

Oct 13, 2011

Tom Delise rated it

Shelves: shakespeare, biography

Don't buy a number of things -- and it is not just idolatry.

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Jan 10, 2012

Maree rated it

Shelves: shakespeare, read-in-2012

Sep 16, 2011

Kristen McDermott rated it

Shelves: shakespeare

Jul 28, 2011

Mark Woodland marked it as to-read

Dec 11, 2010

Kim Martin marked it as to-read

Jul 13, 2010

Charlene rated it

Jan 16, 2009

Judith rated it

Shelves: shakespeare

Jul 07, 2008

Gary rated it

Shelves: shakespeare, own

Mar 04, 2008

Scott E. added it

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