Product Description

Although Shakespeare is the world's greatest writer, his work familiar all over the world, we know virtually nothing about the man himself. In "Shakespeare", historian and television presenter Michael Wood pieces together a more convincing portrait of our most famous playwright than was previously thought possible. The book provides a fresh narrative of Shakepeare's life, drawing on a wide range of primary sources. Rather than approaching Shakespeare as an isolated genius, Michael argues that he was very much a product of his place and time - a period of great upheaval that straddled the medieval and modern worlds. In doing so, Michael reinstates the image of Shakespeare as a thinking artist, his work based firmly in the religion, politics, culture and class antagonisms of his day. In this revealing biography, Michael asks the questions the Shakespeare industry has previously failed to address.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130141 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
There can be few more appropriate writers and TV presenters to go In Search of Shakespeare than Michael Wood. Having already gone In Search of England and pursued the history of the Conquistadors in his recent acclaimed series, Wood has now taken on The Bard in the book to accompany his latest TV series. This is well-trodden ground, but Wood tells the story with relish and an historian's eye for detail, dismissing Bardolatry in favour of a "tale of one man's life, lived through a time of revolution--a time when not only England, but the larger world beyond, would go through momentous changes."

From Shakespeare's early days in Warwickshire to the sophisticated world of theatrical life and political skulduggery in London, Wood makes few claims to new discoveries, but offers a refreshingly global understanding of what drove Shakespeare and his creativity, from his Catholic origins to the Black Londoners that he met every day. Wood too often has to "enter the realm of diverting speculation rather than that of verifiable historical fact". Did Shakespeare have an affair with Emilia Lanier? Did he die an alcoholic? Wood colourfully poses such questions, though too many remain unanswered; he cheerfully admits that he's no Shakespeare scholar, but a popular historian who has enthusiastically placed Shakespeare back into the extraordinarily fertile world that produced him. --Jerry Brotton

Review
A book with success written all over it, notably in the name of the author and the subject matter. Michael Wood is such an accomplished popular historian that he could write about anything and his readership would pay for the finished product. For the new product to be about Shakespeare is a considerable bonus. Everyone has heard of Shakespeare. Many people have seen his plays, or Hollywood versions. But it is a common assumption that Shakespeare the author is a mystery, the Salinger of Tudor London. Wood shows that although there isn't a huge amount of documentary evidence about Shakespeare's life, there is enough about his times to place his extraordinary talent in its proper historical context. A lucid, extended footnote to the complete works of the world's greatest writer.

Sunday Times, Jun 8th 2003
Wood is a perceptive, entertaining and enthusiastic companion.

Customer Reviews

Shakespeare found
P>The book is dense with context, and Wood demonstrates how much biography can be teased out by a good historian. One nice touch is the reproduction of photographs taken in the late 19th century of Elizabethan-era buildings that are no longer standing. I am also surprised at how many buildings related to Shakespeare's family still exist.

I'm fairly familiar with Shakespeare's life, but Wood combines old information with fairly recent discoveries to come up with some new interpretations. He doesn't constrict himself by typical academic reticence to speculate on Shakespeare's inner life using the plays and the sonnets, but his speculations never seem far-fetched.

A fun and educational read; probably the second-best biography of Shakespeare, right behind Samuel Schoenbaum's *A Documentary Life*. Footnotes or endnotes would have been nice, though.

In search of Shakespeare - Michael Wood
I have to own up to being a Michael Wood fan. I now have about five of Wood's histories with a sixth still unread. Each one has been a well written entertaining, informative and well put together book. My favourite is still In search of the Trojan War and now closely followed by In search of Shakespeare. Wood gives the reader a clear view of Elizabethan England with its associated politicking and religious and racial intolerances and how the theatre companies waltzed their merry way around it all. From Shakespeare's family tree to his father's fall from grace as well as tracing the stories Will used for his plays it's a thorough work and a delight to read. While the book goes into greater detail the TV doco is also worth buying.

A real biography of Shakespeare
I picked up this book with no great optimism: so many writers have done their 'Shakespeare book' at a certain stage in their career. But the originality of the research (in a field which is supposed to have been exhaustively investigated many times over) and the succinct and judicious way in which it is presented--as a genuinely scholarly treatment but one accessible to any reader--was clear from the first page I read. This is not one of those books about Shakespeare mirrors that unconsciously its author and his or her attitudes rather than its subject, but a scrupulous examination of evidence a surprising amount of which was missed by the legions of earlier writers. I would have welcomed more of a scholarly apparatus:this book deserves it. Indeed it is a pity that it has been published as popular rather than an academic study. One hopes that it will not be treated as an ephemeral work. I do not buy many books linked to TV series but this one is an exception.