Shakespeare's Lives

Shakespeare's Lives
Author: Samuel Schoenbaum
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 658
Release: 1991
Genre: Biography (as a literary form)
ISBN: 0198186185

This volume presents a study of the changing images and differing ways that the life of English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has been interpreted throughout history. The author takes readers on a tour of the countless myths and legends which have arisen to explain the great dramatist's life and work, bringing the story right up to 1989. He reconstructs as much of the elusive author's life as possible, considering his family history, his economic standing, and his reputation with his peers; the Shakespeare who emerges may not always be the familiar one.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare
Author: Richard Dutton
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1349141437

William Shakespeare is the best-known writer in the English-speaking world. Contrary to popular myth, we actually know more about him and his career than we do about most dramatists of his era - the fruits of three hundred years of fascinated research. Whilst we know less than we would like about Shakespeare's private life, we do have a far clearer picture of his professional career, and of the theatres and social structures with which he was involved. And yet the significance of what we know is fiercely contested and we are challenged by a host of contradictions. Elizabethan actors were often classed as vagabonds yet some were also servants to royalty who performed at court. All the roles in Shakespeare's plays were acted by men, yet he wrote strong roles for women from Lady Macbeth to Rosalind. So was Shakespeare a feminist before his time? Richard Dutton tackles these and other issues which keep Shakespeare, the most influential literary life in literary history, at the centre of our cultural life today.

Shakespeare

Shakespeare
Author: Leslie Dunton-Downer
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0744055962

A comprehensive collection of the life and works of a literary great — William Shakespeare! The beautifully illustrated guide unravels the life and works of Shakespeare and his plays, from language, history, and themes to plays, poems, and sonnets. Explore the art of this famous playwright and his enduring legacy through the stunning gift format. Celebrate one of the theaters most influential contributors through his legendary works of comedy, tragedy, romance, and poetry. Inside this playbook, you’ll find: • A clear and accessible format. • Plot summaries of all 39 plays with lists of characters. • Guidance on how to read and interpret his great sonnets and narrative poems. • Plays ordered by time and genre, helping readers trace the development of Shakespeare’s topics, themes, and artistry. • Sidebars that clarify the mythological, geographical and historical context of each play and decode its language, dramatic action, and themes. • Illuminated guidance on how to approach reading the play and seeing it perform. Shakespeare fans will revel in the marvelous depiction of the Stratford-upon-Avon born Bard himself! His drama book allows you to dive into famous works like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and explore Shakespeare’s sources and inspirations for each! Themes, plots, characters, and language are brought to life with act-by-act plot summaries, resumes of main characters, and in-depth analysis of Shakespeare’s use of the English language. Shakespeare: His Life and Works is a wonderful exploration of plays, poems, and sonnets in the context of his life and the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, further enriching your on the page (or stage, or screen!) experience.

The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare

The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare
Author: Anna Beer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2021-04-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 111960527X

Discover an invigorating new perspective on the life and work of William Shakespeare The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare delivers a fresh and exciting new take on the life of William Shakespeare, offering readers a biography that brings to the foreground his working life as a poet, playwright, and actor. It also explores the nature of his relationships with his friends, colleagues, and family, and asks important questions about the stories we tell about Shakespeare based on the evidence we actually have about the man himself. The book is written using scholarly citations and references, but with an approachable style suitable for readers with little or no background knowledge of Shakespeare or the era in which he lived. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare asks provocative questions about the playwright-poet’s preoccupation with gender roles and sexuality, and explores why it is so challenging to ascertain his political and religious allegiances. Conservative or radical? Misogynist or proto-feminist? A lover of men or women or both? Patriot or xenophobe? This introduction to Shakespeare’s life and works offers no simple answers, but recognizes a man intensely responsive to the world around him, a playwright willing and able to collaborate with others and able to collaborate with others, and, of course, his exceptional, perhaps unique, contribution to literature in English. The book covers the entirety of William Shakespeare’s life (1564-1616), taking him from his childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon to his success in the theatre world of London and then back to his home town and comfortable retirement. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare sets his achievement as a writer within the dangerous, vibrant cultural world that was Elizabethan and Jacobean England, revealing a writer’s life of frequent collaboration, occasional crisis, but always of profound creativity. Perfect for undergraduate students in Literature, Drama, Theatre Studies, History, and Cultural Studies courses, The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare will also earn a place in the libraries of students interested in Gender Studies and Creative Writing.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare
Author: Ari Berk
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 17
Release: 2010
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0763647942

Describes Shakespeare's experiences in London and his retirement to the country in a fictional account that includes excerpts from his works.

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.

Literature in our Lives

Literature in our Lives
Author: Richard Jacobs
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0429581327

This book recreates in written form seventeen of the most popular, frankly personal and engaging lectures on literature given by the award-winning teacher Richard Jacobs, who has been working with students for over forty years. This is a book written for students, whether starting their studies or more experienced, and also for all lovers of literature. At its heart is the conviction that reading, thinking about, and writing or talking about literature involves us all personally: texts talk to us intimately and urgently, inviting us to talk back, intervening in and changing our lives. These lectures discuss, in an open but richly informed way, a wide range of texts that are regularly studied and enjoyed. They model what it means to be excited about reading and studying literature, and how the study of literature can be life-changing - perhaps even with the effect of changing the lives of readers of this eloquent and remarkable book.

A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain

A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain
Author: Elliot Engel
Publisher: Gallery Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2002-10-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780743448970

• GEOFFREY CHAUCER • WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE • JANE AUSTEN • ROBERT BROWNING & ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING • EDGAR ALLAN POE • CHARLES DICKENS • CHARLOTTE & EMILY BRONTË • EMILY DICKINSON • MARK TWAIN • GEORGE ELIOT • THOMAS HARDY • OSCAR WILDE • SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE • D. H. LAWRENCE • F. SCOTT FITZGERALD • ERNEST HEMINGWAY • ROBERT FROST They are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most readers, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown...until now! In this utterly captivating book, Dr. Elliot Engel, a foremost authority on the lives of great authors, illuminates the fascinating and flawed men and women of literature's elite. In lieu of stuffy biographical sketches A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain reveals dozens of fascinating anecdotes: • Why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle blamed his wife's death on Sherlock Holmes • How Charles Dickens' pet launched Edgar Allan Poe on his way to literary immortality • The strange connection between Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway • How Louisa May Alcott's attempt to get Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn banned backfired...and more! You'll never look at these literary giants the same way again.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 618
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0061840904

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize’s 25th Anniversary Winner of Winners award What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, "succeed[ing] where others have fallen short." (Boston Globe) 1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

Shakespeare's Literary Lives

Shakespeare's Literary Lives
Author: Paul Franssen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-01-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107125618

In this book, Franssen investigates the use of Shakespeare as a fictional character in different literary genres, periods and cultures.