Shakespeare

Shakespeare
Author: British Museum. Department of Printed Books
Publisher:
Total Pages: 282
Release: 1964
Genre:
ISBN:

The Fictional Lives of Shakespeare

The Fictional Lives of Shakespeare
Author: Kevin Gilvary
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2017-12-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351186051

Modern biographies of William Shakespeare abound; however, close scrutiny of the surviving records clearly show that there is insufficient material for a cradle to grave account of his life, that most of what is written about him cannot be verified from primary sources, and that Shakespearean biography did not attain scholarly or academic respectability until long after Samuel Schoenbaum published William Shakespeare A Documentary Life in 1975. This study begins with a short survey of the history and practice of biography and then surveys the very limited biographical material for Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare gradually attained the status as a national hero during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there were no serious attempts to reconstruct his life. Any attempt at an account of his life or personality amounts, however, merely to "biografiction". Modern biographers differ sharply on Shakespeare’s apparent relationships with Southampton and with Jonson, which merely underlines the fact that the documentary record has to be greatly expanded through contextual description and speculation in order to appear like a Life of Shakespeare.

Spyglass Duets

Spyglass Duets
Author: Lochithea
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 562
Release: 2009-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1440192871

Always leave a story better than you found it, or as Spedding once said: "When a thing is asserted as a fact, always ask who first reported it, and what means he had of knowing the truth." Taking this quotation under advisement allowed us to create this work, leaving some space on how old Ministers used to look upon suspicion as good evidence or even considering Sir William Cecil's saying that "it was as necessary that treason should exist, as that the nation should be preserved". But why this was so evident in those times was because when men stepped into some position of Office, they retired from general society and confined themselves to a limited circle, no longer acknowledging the free observations of their acquaintances or looking at objects at first hand, but as through a secondary telescope. A 'personal collision with mankind' ceased for them as they turned implicitly to their secretaries and clerks. Hence raised a multitude of mistakes that was the frequent cause why men, who had been very good politicians out of Office, had made so sorry a figure in Office. And many are the persons who could do nothing whatever without a plot. They could hardly hang their hats upon a peg. They would even organize a plan for two years, which shall have no other importance but to dine with the squire of a neighbouring parish. It was such concepts of life that made all cunning persons superficial ones: there was never one exception, though there were short cuts taken, as for example when Henry VIII., had declared Elizabeth I., illegitimate and an Act passed the two Houses to that effect. When that Queen came to the throne, it was taken into consideration to repeal that Act, but "No!" said Sir Nicholas Bacon, 'the Crown takes away all defects. Such is the old law and we will act upon it. It is wise to close a festered wound." According to Bacon's maxim, whoever acquired a Crown, no matter by what means, had a right to it.