Will In The World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare - Softcover

Greenblatt, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847924522 ISBN 13: 9781847924520

Publisher: Bodley Head, 2016

Synopsis

Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World is widely recognised to be the fullest and most brilliant account ever written of Shakespeare's life, his work and his age.

Shakespeare was a man of his time, constantly engaging with his audience's deepest desires and fears, and by reconnecting with this historic reality we are able to experience the true character of the playwright himself. Greenblatt traces Shakespeare's unfolding imaginative generosity - his ability to inhabit others, to confer upon them his own strength of spirit, to make them truly live as independent beings as no other artist has ever done.

Digging deep into the vital links between the playwright and his world, Will in the World provides the fullest account ever written of the living, breathing man behind the masterpieces.

About this title

Review:

Why should we read Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World? There have been innumerable biographies of William Shakespeare, but the greatest of all writers remains the great unknowable. We know about the petty business dealings, the death of his son, his career as a man of the theatre, and (of course) the seemingly contemptuous bequeath to Anne Hathaway of his ‘second best bed’. But any biographer is left scratching for much more than that--apart, of course, from adducing what can be read of the man's characters from his work (an enterprise fraught with danger). Shakespeare is not Hamlet, Lear or Benedict--though, of course, he is also, in a real sense, all three.

What makes Greenblatt's account the most valuable in many years (literally so, since famously massive advances were paid for it) is the synthesis of incisive scholarship, immense enthusiasm for the subject and an unparalleled ability to conjure up the Elizabethan world with colour and veracity. If the author's conclusion's about the genius at the centre of his narrative are open to question, Will in the World is none the worse for that--Greenblatt enjoys provoking the reader, and the result is an energetic conjuring of a brilliant man and those around him (Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson are evoked with enviable skill, as are such figures as the prototype for Falstaff, Robert Green).

With something of the vigour of the Bard’s writing, Greenblatt takes us through the bawdy, teeming Bankside district (centuries before it became a tourist destination), and the Machiavellian, dangerous world of the court--in fact, all the splendour and misery of the Elizabethan age--and at the centre of it all, its greatest artist. The Will we meet here may owe much to Greenblatt’s very personal interpretation, but the portrait is fascinating.--Barry Forshaw

Review:

"A vast shelf of biographies of the Bard exists, but this is the book I would take with me to a desert island" (Jay Parini Guardian)

"A work of wonderful erudition that can be read as an accessible introduction to the social and political milieu from which Shakespeare emerged, and as an elegant guide to the astonishing poems and plays themselves" (New Statesman)

"Both insightful literary criticism and a gripping piece of psychological detective work ... Stephen Greenblatt has few equals as a Shakespeare scholar" (Metro)

"A delight, full of new insights and infused with a rich understanding of precisely why Shakespeare’s writing gives us such lasting pleasure ... quite superb" (John Simpson Sunday Times 'Books of the Year')

"Thought-provoking ... full of unexpected touches ... beautifully written" (Andrew Marr Daily Telegraph)

"Riveting" (Independent)

"Really gives a sense of being in touch with the man. Greenblatt’s knowledge of the plays and the times in which they were written is so encyclopaedic that he can assemble a convincing portrait of Shakespeare without resorting to smoke and mirrors" (Sunday Times)

"The most complexly intelligent and sophisticated, and yet the most keenly enthusiastic, study of the life and work taken together that I have ever read" (Adam Gopnik New Yorker)

"One of the finest recent Shakespeare biographies" (Robert McCrum Guardian)

"Greenblatt’s fantastically readable biography of our greatest writer paints a riveting portrait of Elizabethan England" (Daily Telegraph)

About this edition

• Publisher: Bodley Head
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1847924522
• ISBN 13: 9781847924520
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464