Format: Hardback
Published: January 1st, 2007
Age: Adult
Genre: Nonfiction – Historical – Biography
Rating: 5/5 Stars
I love William Shakespeare. I love that he’s forever a mystery, and a contradiction – we can see his depth and range of emotion in his surviving plays, but we have very little knowledge of his life, how he might have felt about one thing or another, or even how he felt towards his own wife. There are chunks of his life where we simply don’t know what he was doing, and it’s no surprise there are so many theories – conspiracy and otherwise – surrounding him, as people become fixated on who, exactly, England’s greatest literary hero was.
What Bill Bryson does quite cleverly here is use this space to take the reader on a tour of Elizabethan and Jacobian London, and a wider idea of what life might have been like for Shakespeare. And it’s a point Bryson reiterates – he makes it clear what we do definitely know, and the parts which are unlikely to ever be known, like is the image we have of Shakespeare actually Shakespeare, or someone else entirely?
This book doesn’t seek to fill in those gaps, either, but revels in them, painting different pictures of what Shakespeare could have been doing, and devoting some time to the theories, explaining which ones seem credible and which ones not so much, as well as where they came from, drawing a firm line between the reality and the unknown.
I don’t think this is a book for a diehard Shakespeare scholar, unless they’re looking for a refresher or light reading! I do think, however, this is perfect for more casual Shakespeare fans, who would appreciate the accessibility and ease with which Bryson guides you though Shakespeare’s life, or what little we know of it, anyway.
Bryson also addresses the biggest controversies surrounding The Bard, and again he details (briefly) where they emerged from, why some have taken such a hold, and manages to push back against some, especially when it comes to those who are of the firm belief Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare.
This is a really great book that eases you into the topics at hand, in Bryson’s signature smile and with enough humour there’s at least a few chuckles along the way, without distracting from the biography itself.
Reading Challenge
Musicals Reading Challenge 2024
Prompt: Hamilton – My Shot – a book about/featuring a key historical figure
Progress: 17/24 Completed
Unwrapping Words 