Imagining Shakespeare's Wife: The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway

by Katherine West Scheil

What has been the appeal of Anne Hathaway, both globally and temporally, over the past four hundred years? Why does she continue to be reinterpreted and reshaped? Imagining Shakespeare's Wife examines representations of Hathaway, from the earliest depictions and details in the eighteenth century, to contemporary portrayals in theatre, biographies and novels. Residing in the nexus between Shakespeare's life and works, Hathaway has been constructed to explain the women in the plays but also composed from the material in the plays. Presenting the very first cultural history of Hathaway, Katherine Scheil offers a richly original study that uncovers how the material circumstances of history affect the later reconstruction of lives.

Genres: History, Shakespeare, Nonfiction

294 pages, Paperback

Published August 9, 2018

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this cultural biography of Anne Hathaway, West Scheil explores how Shakespeare's wife has been imagined: from grotesque and sexually-dominant hag preying on an innocent boy-Shakespeare, to modern working mother who secretly wrote the Shakespearean canon in between the housework.

Along the way we meet absent Annes replaced by other more alluring and urban mistresses for a libertine Shakespeare, to a bodice-ripping Anne who indulges in light erotica with not just Shakespeare but also Marlowe and a portly Ben Jonson! My particular favourite is the Victorian Anne who is an 'angel in the house' devoted wife and mother who takes her husband's dark secret to the grave: that Shakespeare secretly murdered his theatrical rivals and buried them under an elm in Stratford!

West Scheil takes her material from biographies and fiction (and makes the crucial point that many biographies of Shakespeare are fiction (she's looking at you, Stephen Greenblatt!) from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first. Some works are supposedly scholarly, others unashamedly not, and the last section includes receptions of receptions, as it were, as W-S draws on readers' comments and responses here on Goodreads to fictionalised 'confessions' of Anne Hathaway.

There are places where this feels somewhat unwieldy and too much like a PhD dissertation as W-S tells us something then tells us she's going to tell us more about it in the following chapter, and there is some irritating repetition. While this doesn't make theoretical interventions - the conclusion that Anne H or, indeed, any other cultural figure, is constantly re-imagined according to prevailing personal, historical, social, political and ideological agendas is hardly new - it's both entertaining and informative on the vast amount of material that makes use of Anne Hathaway both as a way of constructing an inner life for 'Shakespeare the man' and, increasingly, as an independent woman in her own right.

Thanks to CUP for an ARC

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am about halfway through Imagining Shakespeare's Wife and am electing to not finish it.

The research is amazing and the author covers every imaginable aspect of Anne Hathaway, from the scanty historical records to the many ways she has been portrayed over time.

The book is divided into Establishing Anne and Portraying Anne. The first part "traced Anne Hathaway's evolution in Shakespeare's life story from a bare reference...to the occupant of a Cottage that has been exported worldwide." In the second part, the author traces"How Anne has been imagined, in fictional and biographical works alike" over time.

This scholarly work will be of interest to serious scholars.

I received a free book through NetGalley.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: ARC via Cambridge University Press and Netgalley. Read in exchange for a fair review.

I have some deal breakers when it comes to the books I read. I am not fond, sometimes even hate, books where the eldest sibling is by default the bad one. I am fond of wives being blamed for their husbands porking anything that moves. I judge Shakespeare biographies by how the writer treats Anne Hathaway.

No, you fool, not the actress.

Shakespeare’s wife.

A few years, Germaine Greer published Shakespeare’s Wife, a biography/study of Anne Hathaway. In large part, Greer’s book seemed to be a rebuttal to Stephen Greenblatt’s harsh attack on Hathaway in his Will in the World. Katherine West Scheil’s book, Imagining Shakespeare’s Wife, also takes Greenblatt to task, but Scheil’s purpose to look at how the image or reputation of Shakespeare’s wife reflects on the period in which a work is published.

While Scheil does seem partial to Anne, the beginning of the book, dealing with the known facts of Hathaway’s life is fair. Scheil remembers that there is no way we can do for sure what exactly happened between the Shakespeares. She presents the facts, she presents the debates, but she keeps her view out and lets the reader reach a decision, if the reader wants to. The rest of the book deals largely with how people at various times have viewed Anne Hathaway. As Scheil notes, many times writers have made their Anne Hathaway as opposed to writing about the real Hathaway.

This starts, in part, Scheil notes with the romance of the Anne Hathaway Cottage – which, to be frank, you can understand the romance part because it is absolutely beautiful. Scheil notes that the one time owner and tour guide of the house, Mary Baker, had connections to the Hathaways and was, in part, making sure of her family’s connection to the Bard of Avon. My guess is that Mary Baker was getting a bit pissed off about all the people standing on Anne Hathaway’s grave to get a better look at her husbands. Taking about wiping their feet on the woman.

ON the other hand, Scheil notes that the anti-Anne venom was set by Malone whose biography of Shakespeare was one of the earliest. She even ties Malone’s view of Anne to his proving the Ireland forgeries as fakes. We then tour other early biographies and fictional accounts, all of which even the non-fiction, seem to be proto-fanfiction if not outright fanfiction.

The analysis is best when looking at recent authors, though she doesn’t fully account Peter Ackroyd’s unwillingness to admit to certain sexual misconduct on the part of his heroes – she acknowledges Ackroyd’s seeming blindness of a sexual relationship between the Shakespeares before marriage as willful disregard of the time of their daughter’s birth, but Ackroyd also contorts himself in regards to Dickens extra-marital life as well. Scheil doesn’t pull punches, and if you, like me, were luke- warm to Greenblatt, Scheil aims and hits torpedoes at him.

Hence I love her.

It is a bit of surprise that Greer’s book doesn’t get more coverage. The response, in many cases unfair and overly harsh, is noted, but Scheil gives little speculation why – is it due to sexism or how someone suggest that Hathaway might have been worthy (or over worthy) of our Shakespeare? Additionally, she doesn’t ponders some of the more reaching claims of Greer, which also fall into the realm of this book. Greer’s book is a must read, but surely some of her conclusions were also influenced by feminist views. It seems strange not to discuss this year.

The most horrifying aspect of the back is the discussion of the modern historical romance novels and movies (such as Shakespeare in Love). This is not because of Scheil’s writing, but of some of the response of readers and movie viewers as well as the writers who have a tendency to either write Anne of as Shrew who deserves to have her husband cheat on her (common) to an Anne who embodies the traditional good wife that young female reader should aim to be (less common). There is some hope, though. Scheil covers more recent works that are fairer to Anne in terms of fiction. Her book about Hathaway will also add to your must read shelf, if you are a Shakespeare fan.

Considering the mutability of Shakespeare the man, it is hardly surprising that Anne Hathaway has become a channel on which writers sail their version of Shakespeare – family man, unhappy husband, child of nature. It is too Scheil’s credit that while she presents and discusses these myriad Annes, she always keeps the reader aware of the true Anne, the one who we cannot know, who is impossible to know, but who deserves to be acknowledged simply because she is human.
Highly recommended.

[Scarlett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Cambridge University Press for an ARC of this book! Release date - September 24, 2018

I have mixed feelings about this one. I wanted to read it because I'm a big fan of Shakespeare and I knew little to nothing about his wife, Anne Hathaway. Turns out, little to nothing is known about her other than when they married, where she's from, when she died, how many children they had, and that Shakespeare left her the "second best bed" in his will. No one knows how they met, why they married, what their relationship was like, what her personality was like, whether she was literate...pretty much nothing. Her life is a blank slate. This book took those bare minimum facts about Anne, and then went on to show how other authors and playwrights and biographers and others have imagined her over the years, from no mention of her at all in Shakespeare's life, to an unhappy marriage that Shakespeare gladly left behind, to a romantic love story, to the secret author of Shakespeare's plays, and everything in between. Was the "second best bed" an inside joke between lovers or a dismissal of a cast-off wife? Was Anne pining for Shakespeare while he was away, or glad to be rid of him? So many questions that we can't know the answers to today, and that's why she has been imagined so many countless different ways.

This examination was really interesting and I learned a lot for sure. I found several other books I want to read that were mentioned in this book, and I did overall enjoy the book.

However, I have a few complaints about the writing. For one, the author was too present. I know this isn't meant to be a "story," but it was somewhat jarring and would take me out of the enjoyment of reading when the author would say things along the lines of "in this chapter I will show you..."; "I have found that..." and things like that. It was also too wordy at times, when over and over at the beginning of chapters or sections we'd get "in this chapter we will discuss...", then a lengthy summary, before actually getting into the discussion of that topic. Why was the introduction even necessary?

Overall I do feel like I enjoyed this, but it really was just a mishmash of quotes from other books and plays and biographies compiled into one book. I feel like it would have been better as an article than an entire book, because I felt like it got very repetitive at times and kept referring back to the same things.

I'm glad I read this because I learned a lot and feel like I've got a more fully formed opinion of who the real Anne Hathaway was, as well as some entertaining unrealistic fictional portrayals too. It was a little too long at times, and the writing could have been a little better, but overall very interesting and informative.

[Jaci McCon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Cambridge University Press via NetGalley.

I have studied a bit of Shakespeare, dating back to college and even more recently as my reading of The Year of Lear with a look at the historical context of Shakespeare’s work in 1606. But I had not read much about Shakespeare’s family life, particularly his wife Anne Hathaway, and so this title - Imagining Shakespeare’s Wife - immediately caught my interest.

The text starts out by establishing a set of expectations which I quite appreciated. Too many histories overextend themselves or pretend to know more facts than there are facts to be had. This book does not make that mistake. We learn promptly in the Preface that very little is known of Anne Hathaway, and Scheil makes it clear what is fact and what is the result of imaginings by authors and historians over the centuries. Anne Hathaway is more than a wife; she is a myth and a legend built up researchers and artists desirous of answers: “the material circumstances of history...affect the later reconstruction of lives” (pg. xi).

Imagining Shakespeare’s Wife is a critique of nearly all prior attempts by contemporaries, historians, writers, tourists, and fans to personify a woman that we simply cannot know on a deeper level. Scheil does an excellent job presenting the facts we know about Anne Hathaway and then casting light on how she came to be characterized. There is careful intent to ensure the facts are kept separate from speculation with qualifiers such as “maybe,” “possibly,” “likely,” and “could have”. While this felt disruptive at first, the story Scheil pieces together quickly begins to merit this language.

Scheil makes it clear that Anne’s history has been used and revised by others to support their own Shakespearean agendas. This revisionist history is unsettling. Over the centuries, writers have reframed Anne’s life in a way to legitimize their own views. As the focus on Shakespeare changed with societies, cultures, and generations, the way writers sought to portray him changed as well. And with few available facts, Anne was conjured as a plot device: the more we “know” Anne, the more we can know William. Tales of their courtship were made up, right down to the furniture. In some cases, Anne is shown as a dedicated wife and mother demonstrating his ties to the region and his superior morality. In others, she is simply left out to support a view of Shakespeare as a womanizer and the ultimate romantic. None of this can be substantiated.

Scheil does an excellent job showing in depth, different versions of Anne, right down to investigations of forged items. This review of her various histories (and her sometimes intentional exclusion) was fascinating. That a real person can be misrepresented or omitted to fit the fancy of others is staggering. Anne has been quite sorely misused over time. Her own descendents used her as a means of income, notoriety, and tourism by presenting tours of her childhood home and telling elaborate tales about Anne and William’s courtship. While these stories and their props are largely falsified or speculative, tourists and researchers chose to go along with them in search of stories that support their beliefs in the Immortal Bard.

Scheil states: “The central argument of this book is that the afterlife of Anne Hathaway is connected more so with developments in literary criticism, in literary forms and in ideological aims over the last three centuries, rather than with the accumulation of newly discovered factual evidence that eventually coalesce into a fully-formed, definitive result.” (pg. xv, Preface). Scheil strongly proves this thesis throughout the text. She walks us through centuries of changing tides in European and American focus and culture, showing us how the Anne’s portrayals mirror changing tides. As women's suffrage movements took storm, Anne was seen as a strong person and cornerstone for Shakespeare’s success. In women's clubs, Anne and Will’s relationship is played up as a romance. Post WWII, domestic housewives take centerstage and Anne becomes a faithful wife, mother, and housekeeper while Shakespeare earns a living.

Numerous biographies written take liberties with Anne’s story (or what little we have of it). Many of these biographies break the code between reader and biographer. Readers place a level of trust in a biographer that the information presented is well-researched and factual. When a biographer includes impressions or fantasies as facts, they are breaking a code of conduct and are in a powerful position to mislead our understanding of topics. A direct target of Scheil’s is Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World in which he invents stories to form Shakespeare’s relationships and personality. Many of Greenblatt’s claims lack evidence; Scheil calls this his “problematic overuse of fiction”. Scheil is not the only critic for this text; many question the book’s lack of facts, its finite language (as opposed to open ended wording), and its inability to explore other possibilities. That this is a problem not unique to Greenblatt makes the question of Shakespeare scholarship quite troublesome to me.

Stylistically, the book reads a bit like a dissertation rather that a standard non-fiction text. Scheil often begins sections by stating what a chapter will present and ends sections with repetitive summaries. The style may be jarring to some; I found it familiar (I’ve written my share of research papers) but tedious at times.

I thought that this book was fantastic and recommend it as a valuable asset to any scholar as well as more general readers with some prior exposure or interest in Shakespeare’s life and works. What you will not find is a fictionalized account of a woman who, unfortunately, we will never truly be able to know. But we can certainly imagine her.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had a slight increase in interest in Shakespeare ever since last year when we visited Stratford-upon-Avon and the Globe in London. So when I saw this book on Anne Hathaway, I decided to request a copy.

As with Shakespeare, we know very few details about Anne Hathaway's life, which makes it very easy for historians to reimagine her the way they want. Imagining Shakespeare's Wife first takes us through the known facts of Anne Hathaway and her legacy, and then goes through the ways that she has been represented in great detail.

The sad fact is that Anne has always been used to illuminate aspects of her husband. As his wife, she would have known (and could have said) a lot about his character. And since she was about seven years older than him, speculation about their marriage has been rife. If people want to portray Shakespeare as a libertine man about town, they tend to view Anne and her marriage to Shakespeare very negatively. If people want to view Shakespeare as a great moral character, they tend to view Anne as someone embodying feminine virtues. And in recent years, Anne has been re-interpreted (sometimes drastically in novels) to fit certain feminist messages.

Obviously, this was a fascinating read. I've always felt a certain sympathy for the way Anne has been portrayed because it has been really unflattering at times. To see how people have interpreted her silence is really astounding. And like James Shapiro said in Contested Will, there is very little we know about Shakespeare's personal life, which means that the temptation to read into his marriage through his works is very great.

If you're interested in Shakespeare, I think you'd enjoy this. It's fairly easy to read and contains a lot of great analysis about the ways Anne Hathaway has been interpreted throughout history. It's probably not related to any of Shakespeare's plays (except for the part where people use his plays to pass judgment on her) but if you want to know more about the Bard and his Wife, this is a book to read.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile

[Michelle Kidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagining Shakespeare's Wife
The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway
by Katherine West Scheil

Cambridge University Press


Biographies & Memoirs , Nonfiction (Adult)
Pub Date 24 Sep 2018


I am reviewing a copy of Imaging Shakespeare's Wife through Cambridge University Press and Netgalley:


For four hundred plus years Anne Hathaway has held interest both globally and temporally. She continues to be reinterpreted and reshaped.


Imagining Shakespeare's Wife examines descriptions of Hathaway from the earliest eighteenth century , to modern portrayals in theatre as well as biographies and novels.


I give Shakespeare's Wife five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not uninteresting, but it's a tedious read. As noted by others, it's a historiographical account, because we know next to nothing about Anne, other than her lineage. The problem is that there is far too much repetition of the essential points. In part, this is because the thematic treatment entails visiting the same insights over and over.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic cultural history that also doubles as a Shakespeare reception history. Really wonderful.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Schell examines the various imagined afterlives of Anne Hathaway, William Shakespeare's wife, drawing on a wide variety of sources. Written for a general audience, the book offers readers some insight into the ways Hathaway has been used and abused by Shakespeare fans and scholars. The book could do with less repetition (I suspect the chapters began as standalone essays, which is common for academics) and sign-posting (there's an awful lot of "in the next section....," "in the following chapter...." etc.), both of which should have been fixed in copyediting.