Product Description

This lively, readable and challenging new biography, by the editor of the acclaimed Arden edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, takes a fresh look at an enduring cultural icon, about whose life it is widely claimed that nothing is known. As a result Shakespeare has tended to be viewed in Romantic isolation: the Bard as lonely inspired singer enthroned on a mountain peak.The aim of this study is to replace the image of the lonely genius with one of Shakespeare as deeply involved, even enmired, in the geographical, social and literary context of his time. This Shakespeare is a man who lives in a congested city and has to deal with disease, debt and cut-throat competition; his manifest brilliance often makes him the object of envy and malice, rather than adulation. Much of his life and writing is seen as the result of accident and circumstance, rather than the product of artistic vision or a grand career plan. From his shotgun wedding at the age of 18 to the burning down of the Globe Theatre over 30 years later, he is beset by bad luck. His most brilliant works are seen as creative responses to external constraints, such as the plague outbreaks that frequently closed the public theatres during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Katherine Duncan-Jones also takes a fresh look at the tradition of Shakespeare's love for a 'Dark Lady' and concludes rather that he devoted his most personal and passionate writing to the service of young men.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #124748 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

A worthwhile read for any fan of Shakespeare.
Whilst it is not true that we have no records of Shakespeare's life, it is generally the case that what survives is not what we would now find most interesting; there are no surviving personal letters or drafts of plays, for example. In this book Katherine Duncan-Jones attempts to deduce something of Shakespeare's life and character form the records that do survive (mostly legal and financial documents). Katherine Duncan-Jones is a compelling writer and argues her case persuasively, bringing to bear a formidable knowledge of the literary and cultural life of the period. She paints a vivid picture of the wide range of people, from aristocrats and scholars to drunkards, with whom Shakespeare seems to have associated. The figure that emerges is rather different from the romantic character that many have wished to see: an avaricious social climber and a misogynist, who mixed with brothel keepers and may have died of syphilis. I recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing interest in Shakespeare, though, in the end (as the author herself admits) studying Shakespeare's life is far less important than reading his works.

Very interesting
The subjects she covers are interesting (ie. the fact that Shakespeare sounds mean and miserly!)and anyone who is interested in, or loves Shakespeare will enjoy it but it's quite a literary read - not exactly easy bed time reading.

This side idolatry
This review is rather late in the day (the book was first published in 2001) and unfortunately the paperback is currently and inexcusably out of print, making it a less attractive proposition, perhaps. The hardback is, however, well worth considering.

Duncan-Jones is a controversial but very persuasive Shakespearean. We sense that she doesn't have much time for those bardolaters who present the man as anything other than the evidence strongly suggests he might have been: materialistic, miserly, homosexually inclined, misogynistic and, of course, a jack-of-all-trade genius who could please whatever audience he wanted. The thrust of Duncan-Jones' study is that Shakespeare was probably all of the above. So, like Jonson's Folio judgement on Shakespeare, Duncan-Jones is very much 'this side idolatry'.

If you know either of Duncan-Jones' editions in the Arden series (Shakespeare's Sonnets and, co-authored with HJ Woodhuysen, Poems) you might expect there to be insights and ingenuity aplenty. You would not be disappointed. Among other things, KD-J considers that the dialogue between Touchstone and William in AYL dramatises Shakespeare self-communing: the two characters represent the court entertainer Shakespeare had become and his younger self, helping to make AYL the author's 'most explicitly personal play'. Shakespeare's stance on religion (that provoker of much heated debate): 'indolence'. His non-attendance at church may well be explained, she argues, by his dislike of being bored by a tedious sermon while having to avoid creditors and pot-holes on the mile-long and muddy trudge from Henley Street/New Place to Holy Trinity.

Most shocking (and compelling) of all is the suggestion that Shakespeare, before or during his lodging in the licentious Turnbull Street, either contracted syphilis or believed he had. The dark palette of his later plays and Sonnets complements his shabby and sordid abode, while his partnership with the unsavoury George Wilkins during this period puts Shakespeare's 'misogynistic' works (like Sonnets and Troilus) in firmer context. While the former kicked the bodies of prostitutes, the latter blackened the image of women in print.

This series of autobiographical sketches presents very much the other side of the coin to that we have become used to seeing. The swan of Avon may well have been very far removed from the 'gentle master Shakespeare' of our national mythologizing.