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William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of supposition arranged around scant facts. With his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. Bryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, and, emulating the style of his travelogues, records episodes in his own research. He celebrates Shakespeare as a writer of unimaginable talent and enormous inventiveness, a coiner of phrases ("vanish into thin air," "foregone conclusion," "one fell swoop") that even today have common currency. His Shakespeare is like no one else's--the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and an unrivaled gift for storytelling.--From publisher description.… (more)
Anonymous user: Older and shorter, more scholarly but only slightly less witty, introduction. Mr Harrison's accounts of the Elizabethan playhouse and the development of Shakespeare's style are erudite and illuminating. Contains also revealing excerpts from Shakespearean criticism through the centuries (Dryden, Pope, Dr Jonhson, Coleridge). Excellent complement to Mr Bryson's book. Be sure to get (post-)1954 edition (the year of last revision, first published in 1939). Very little dated. Excellent bibliography of scholarly editions of original documents (Henslowe's Diary and Papers, the volumes edited by E. K. Chambers, Mr Harrison's own Elizabethan Journals, and others).… (more)
Though not an academic, Bryson's written a well-researched book designed to illustrate how little we really know about Shakespeare. Nevertheless, through reading it we learn a great deal about the theatre of the time and many of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Bryson has fun de-bunking the various theories about who wrote Shakespeare's oeuvre if it was not the man himself. In fact the whole book is fun: light and easy to read, and yet by the end you feel you've learned a lot ( )
If you’re looking for a concise biography of William Shakespeare then Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare: The World as a Stage could fit the bill. With his typical wit and dry sense of humor, Bryson outlines the facts without a lot of conjecture while still managing to cover a lot of ground and outlooks. I listened to the audiobook that Bryson reads himself and does an excellent job (as always!). ( )
There are 120 notes and highlights in my ebook version of this work, and quite a number of them are words I especially like or wasn’t sure about. Very apt indeed that a book written about the creator of several hundred English words is written using such a wide range of vocabulary.
As always, I enjoyed Bryson’s wit and style immensely. Every piece of information he provided appeared to be exceptionally exciting (for instance, the origin of the phrase ‘box office’), and his level-headed appreciation of the subject of others’ obsession made it pure joy to read this book. ( )
Before he came into a lot of money in 1839, Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, led a largely uneventful life.
Quotations
We don't know if [Shakespeare] ever left England. We don't know who his principal companions were or how he amused himself. His sexuality is an irreconcilable mystery. On only a handful of days in his life can we say with complete certainty where he was. . . . For the rest, he is a kind of literary equivalent of an electron—forever there and not there.
In fact it cannot be emphasized too strenuously that there is nothing—not a scrap, not a mote—that gives any certain insight into Shakespeare's feelings or beliefs as a private person. We can know only what came out of his work, never what went into it.
One variation [of bearbaiting] was to put a chimpanzee on the back of a horse and let the dogs go for both together. The sight of a screeching ape clinging for dear life to a bucking horse while dogs leaped at it from below was considered about as rich an amusement as public life could offer. That an audience that could be moved to tears one day by a performance of Doctor Faustus could return the next to the same space and be just as entertained by the frantic deaths of helpless animals may say as much about the age as any single statement could.
[I]t needs to be said that nearly all of the anti-Shakespeare sentiment—actually all of it, every bit—involves manipulative scholarship or sweeping misstatements of fact.
"In some ways the records are extremely good," Thomas told me. "Sheepskin is a marvellously durable medium, though it has to be treated with some care. Whereas ink soaks into the fibres on paper, on sheepskin it stays on the surface, rather like chalk on a blackboard, and so can be rubbed away comparatively easily. Sixteenth-century paper was of good quality ... It was made of rags and was virtually acid free, so it has lasted very well." ... Paper and parchment were expensive, so no space was wasted. There were no gaps between paragraphs - indeed, no paragraphs.
Last words
Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably that man -- whoever he was.
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of supposition arranged around scant facts. With his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. Bryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, and, emulating the style of his travelogues, records episodes in his own research. He celebrates Shakespeare as a writer of unimaginable talent and enormous inventiveness, a coiner of phrases ("vanish into thin air," "foregone conclusion," "one fell swoop") that even today have common currency. His Shakespeare is like no one else's--the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and an unrivaled gift for storytelling.--From publisher description.
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Haiku summary
William Shakespeare: at Once the best and least known of Figures. Well put, Bill! (passion4reading)
A biography Of the Bard: amazingly Little is known, though. (passion4reading)
Shakespeare: Who? What? Why? Bill can't answer these questions In extensive depth. (WilliamOrmond)
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