A bit frustrating, really. My brain is too scientific to find vague references in a monologue given by an unlikable character to be indicative of *anything*, much less who his drinking buddies were.

But I appreciate the effort, the breadth of sources, and the fact that just about every play and a large number of sonnets get referenced--it is a good way of humanizing him, and certainly got me interested in a few of the plays I hadn't read. I think I might have enjoyed it more in bits and pieces--read the Macbeth chapter while I read the play. A potential for re-read, even though the overall book didn't really do it for me. ( )

Much of the life of William Shakespeare is a mystery. He carefully did not keep a diary nor send love letters to his wife. Shakespeare, the prolific writer who, in just over 50 years wrote an almost unbelievable number of remarkable poems and plays, did not leave many personal details of his life beyond public records (which are spotty 400 years later). There was not a market for biographies of famous playwrights in the 1600s, and many details of his life were not written down until he was long gone.

Yet, in Will in the World, Stephen Greenblatt attempts to explain Shakespeare’s life by reading what he did write: his plays. In a truly remarkable way, Greenblatt ties the Bard’s life into the context of Victorian England by visiting the context of his plays.

Despite being an English major, I am not very familiar with most of Shakespeare’s work, let alone his life. I found Greenblatt’s look at Shakespeare’s life through his plays be utterly fascinating. Even if none of the suppositions Greenblatt provides were true, understanding the cultural context of the plays will help me in my future studies of the plays. I loved this “literary” biography, and I’d highly recommend it to those interested in the cultural context of the Bard.

More detailed review on my blog

The author brings together little-known historical facts and elements of Shakespeare's plays and connects them to his life and the prevailing 16th Century environment in which he lived. This book provides the best description of life for the common people in 16th Century England that I've ever been exposed to. The book also makes Shakespeare's plays very accessible to the modern reader and exposes the extraordinary depth of humanity depicted by his plays.

Read in May, 2007 ( )

Neither a history book nor a work of fiction, but the author's fantasy about what Shakespeare's life might have been like. The author lost me at the end of Chapter 4: too much idle fantasy when I had hoped for a window onto Will's world. Bill Bryson's book on Shakespeare is better: all history, plus his self-deprecating humor. ( )