Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (College Edition)

from benbulben

Writing a biography of Shakespeare is like trying to establish the existence of dark matter within the universe - a mysterious dark matter that binds stars and galaxies together. It's not what shines in the light but what hides in the dark that holds the true secrets of our being. 

 Dark matter ...

from LynnB

Few -- very few -- historical documents exist that would allow biographers to bring us the life of William Shakespeare. Reading this book by Stephen Greenblatt, I was struck with the thought of how much history we may have already lost by not telling and writing down the stories of our ancestors,...

from kellan

Greenblatt is fascinating, brilliant, eurdite and yet accessible writer. His ability to bring the Elizabethan daily life alive is like watching a magic trick unfold, you dare not look away. However in the end that obsessive knowledge cripples him. Because Greenblatt is not just a scholar, he is t...

from baswood

OH WHAT A LOVELY BARD. [Will in the World] - Stephen Greenblatt [The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare] - Emma Smith [Shakespeare's Language, Frank Kermode] - Frank Kermode. Three books that might serve as an introduction to Shakespeare. All of them written with the general reader in mind, bu...

from Clif

The author brings together little-known historical facts and elements of Shakespeare's plays and connects them to his life and the prevailing 16th Century environment in which he lived. This book provides the best description of life for the common people in 16th Century England that I've ever be...