Germaine Greer

Opening with a famous proclamation that still goes to the heart of our social and sexual lives (“Women have very little idea of how much men hate them”), this book is a depth charge in the pits of misogyny: liberating, energizing, mind-bending, hilarious. As well as dark and difficult. The product of a brilliant and eccentric mind, it demands dialogue and brooks no complete agreement. Endowed with deep funds of love, language, and learning, it is also a swashbuckling work of show more scholarship-as-payback, rich in science and statistic but also in a vitriol which Greer directs like a cool assassin. (Though not always at deserving targets: beware an unabashed homophobia not uncharacteristic of second wave feminism, and predictive of Greer’s eventual career as a TERF.) show less

Germaine Greer has little time for the generations of scholars who have derided Shakespeare's wife. Her research demonstrates that there's precious little documentary evidence of Ann Hathaway's life - no one can say with any certainty that she was a shrew and a drain on the Bard's genius, so why not consider the possibility that she was instead an intelligent, resourceful and independent woman?

I think Greer had a lot of fun writing this book - and I had a lot of fun reading it.
I was attracted to the book by a quote from a reviewer who said something along the lines of - Greer has been as unprovocative as she could be, but the old men of academia still reacted with outrage and venom.
Well, if there were to be sides - I'd be on Greer's team.
The study of Shakespeare's life and times suffers from the lack of documentary evidence. Too many academics backfill the gap with commentary show more inmformed by later lives and times. Greer goes back to the basics, and gives the reader a great picture of what life was like in Stratford, and for women in particular. Life was different, but the reader comes away with a sense of what life may have been likely for Ann Hathaway.
The other interesting aspect of the book, for me, was the picture of the aging Shakespeare who retired back to Avon as a man of some wealth. There's a hint here of some sort of serious decline in abilities - dementia? It's only an aside in this book, but I would love to see if others have considered the issue. Just because he was a genius at his prime doesn't mean he waasn't mortally fragile as he aged. show less

I remember reading the review for this when it came out and was delighted to recently stumble upon it in my local library. I'm a fan of Germaine Greer and was intrigued at what she might have to say about the ways have been portrayed through art and history and if this has altered in our modern world...which seemingly it has a little.

This is packed full of beautiful images, of paintings, sculpture and photos, and it is the latter which Greer believes as altered our perception of 'the boy'. I show more particularly enjoyed the chapter on 'Soldiers' and 'The Female Gaze'. As the mother of sons some of this alarmed me and saddened me, I have never much considered the way boys have been objectified and defined by art. My ardent feminism has me constantly focusing on images of women, so what about the boy? He is beautiful and rare and over the centuries has been subjected to idealism with modifications as time, religion and culture move.

I loved this and will probably come back to it in a few years...meanwhile I am observing images of boys more and understanding their untouchability and sexuality, they are sacred and gorgeous and possibly as much the vicitms of scrunity as girls and women. Good one Germaine. show less