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Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
by Authors:
Stephen Greenblatt
Hardcover Description:
There's no shortage of good Shakespearean biographies. But Stephen Greenblatt, brilliant scholar and author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, reminds us that the "surviving traces" are "abundant but thin" as to known facts. He acknowledges the paradox of the many biographies spun out of conjecture but then produces a book so persuasive and breathtakingly enjoyable that one wonders what he could have done if the usual stuff of biographical inquiry--memoirs, interviews, manuscripts, and drafts--had been at his disposal. Greenblatt uses the "verbal traces" in Shakespeare's work to take us "back into the life he lived and into the world to which he was so open." Whenever possible, he also ushers us from the extraordinary life into the luminous work. The result is a marvelous blend of scholarship, insight, observation, and, yes, conjecture--but conjecture always based on the most convincing and inspired reasoning and evidence. Particularly compelling are Greenblatt's discussions of the playwright's relationship with the university wit Robert Greene (discussed as a chief source for the character of Falstaff) and of Hamlet in relation to the death of Shakespeare's son Hamnet, his aging father, and the "world of damaged rituals" that England's Catholics were forced to endure. Will in the World is not just the life story of the world's most revered writer. It is the story, too, of 16th- and 17th-century England writ large, the story of religious upheaval and political intrigue, of country festivals and brutal public executions, of the court and the theater, of Stratford and London, of martyrdom and recusancy, of witchcraft and magic, of love and death: in short, of the private but engaged William Shakespeare in his remarkable world. Throughout the book, Greenblatt's style is breezy and familiar. He often refers to the poet simply as Will. Yet for all his alacrity of style and the book's accessibility, Will in the World is profoundly erudite, an enormous contribution to the world of Shakespearean letters. --Silvana Tropea
Interview with Stephen Greenblatt Stephen Greenblatt shares his thoughts about what make Shakespeare Shakespeare and why the Bard continues to fascinate us endlessly.
Stephen Grennblatt's Will in the World is an incredible piece of work, full of Shakespearean expertise and historical informational supports that illuminate the Will's World in brilliant ways.
For example, Henry VIII and his creation of the Church of England, his according banishment of Catholicism and the population's furious shift directly affected Shakespeare, his early career, his parents.
The connections between Shakespeare's father John, his life as a respected citizen of Stratford, his success as a glover, his desire to be a nobleman, his Catholicism, Shakespeare's son Hamnet's short life, the legend of Hamleth and Saxo Grammaticas' story, and the giant that is Hamlet are all united in fascinating and moving depth.
Greenblatt is a terrific writer, and the triumverate of Shakespearean scholarship, Renaissance England scholarship and empathetic speculative psychological surmise make this a very engrossing read.
Another interesting section involves the creation of the Sonnets; the theatre's closure and England's terror as the Plague erupts, Shakespeare's saving relationship with his patron, the homosexual overtones of the Sonnets, his absence from his wife Anne and his family, the publishing popularity of the poetry and textual nuiances. Another relates MacBeth and King James I, a justifiably paranoid king (James), an earlier inspiration for the Three Witches, Shakespeare's risk at showing a Scottish king's abhorrent ambition, and expression of the legendary line to which James descended and the genius of the Porter's presence in the play....
On and on...
Shakespeare scholarship and Bardolotry is a popular world. One I know minor things about. But this book is excellent, impressive and left me thankful. Thankful for history, the written word, the mystery and the tenaciousness of passionate people like Stephen Greenblatt.
It's definitely worth it
A lot of this book is speculation, necessarily since the actual facts can't be documented. Most of that is very interesting. However, Greenblatt's explanation of what Hamlet is about, and how WS got to that place of genius, is practically breathtaking. It starts in the chapter "Speaking with the Dead" and continues in the following chapter. I've never before read an explanation of exactly why Hamlet, which if brought to a contemporary writing class or group could be shown to be full of plot holes (just how old is Horatio?), is so incredibly great--nor have I been able to articulate it for myself. Greenblatt does so, and if you love this play as much as I do (but can give no reason other than "because it's great, that's why"), the explanation can make your hair stand on end. It's a gutsy portrait of Shakespeare's genius.
All the World's a Critic
I have read all the recent biographies that take two pages of known facts about a certain William Shakespeare of Stratford and, with the corollary knowledge of the times and sundry unearthed legal documents, make his life into a three-hundred page living story. This is because I, and myriad other Shakespeare lovers, want desperately to read about a spectacular writer who lived in an age when biography wasn't important. Add to that the fact that maintaining Shakespearian records or remembrances was pointless, since it didn't occur to anyone contemporary with Shakespeare that he was, and would be, immensely important. Nonetheless, Greenblatt's book is the best; it is the most plausible and readable of the bunch. As I read the other reviews, it seems that I hear echoes of the University Wits--those of us with educations who can't comfortably tolerate the idea that a rustic man, seemingly a country bumpkin, could actually write the world's most immortal literature. And for those who claim that Greenblatt does not address the other authorship theories, I believe he does indeed do so by simply dispelling them--building too strong a case for Shakespeare being anyone but Shakespeare. Enjoy it for what is--a great book.
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DVD's
Stephen Greenblatt shares his thoughts about what make Shakespeare Shakespeare and why the Bard continues to fascinate us endlessly. 
Excellent Shakespearean Investiagtive/Biographical/Historical Illuminating Read 
