Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

by Stephen Greenblatt

There is no direct relation between the staging of various forms of restoration in Will’s plays and the renewal of the lapsed application for the status of gentleman. Art rarely emerges so transparently from the circumstances of life and would be far less compelling if it did. Shakespeare was in the business of reaching thousands of people, none of whom had any reason to be interested in the business affairs and social status of a Stratford glover. But there were many ways in which he might have tried to reach his audience, and his fascination with a particular set of stories—his sense that these might work and, still more, that he might have it in him to work with them—does not seem entirely random. Though his imagination soared to