by Stephen Greenblatt
Is there a Shakespearean lover who does not know that there is precious little actual information about Shakespeare and as a result there are all these theories speculating about who he really was? I’ve read a few of them, and I’ve always considered these to be crap that show us more about the enthu...
”To understand who Shakespeare was, it is important to follow the verbal traces he left behind back into the life he lived and into the world to which he was so open. And to understand how Shakespeare used his imagination to transform his life into his art, it is important to use our own imagination...
I never thought this would happen to me, but while I was reading this book, I actually had a sense of nostalgia for Harold Bloom. A woman I work with forced this book on me with the guarantee that I would adore it. I later found out that she "hates music like the Velvet Underground." It's always p...
I studied a lot of Shakespeare in college. I just like that guy. No one else can explore such huge themes so concisely and so beautifully, and I think he's the real deal.And he's hard to biographize, partly because we famously don't know a ton about him, but also I think partly because he was just s...
Stephen Greenblatt's reconstruction of Shakespeare's life and era. Read (nasally with added word drag) by Toby Stephens.Broadcast on:BBC Radio 7, 3:15pm Monday 2nd August 2010Duration:15 minutesAvailable until:3:32pm Monday 9th August 2010Categories:Drama, Historical
A fascinating and educating (and not boring!) look at the life and times of William Shakespeare, or rather, as much as it is possible to know. Greenblatt's research is very thorough and his knowledge of the time period is almost astounding, but I'm holding off on the fifth star for this one because ...
Some parts of this book raise very good points about the plays and sonnets (though a little over heavy on guesswork). I did like some of his comments on the later plays in relation to Shakespeare's daughter. Some parts of this book caused me to raise eyebrows. Greenblatt's reading of Shylock seem...
This book just had a really interesting premise. Instead of being just another biography of Shakespeare, this attempt to chronicle his life looked at the world in which Shakespeare lived and the influence that that world had on the playwright's works.The author takes a very systematic approach to th...
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 bee...