Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives) | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Eminent Lives
Category: Book
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Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 2181
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0060740221
Dewey Decimal Number: 822.33
EAN: 9780060740221
ASIN: 0060740221
Publication Date: November 1, 2007
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Product Description
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. Bryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, from today's most respected academics to eccentrics like Delia Bacon, an American who developed a firm but unsubstantiated conviction that her namesake, Francis Bacon, was the true author of Shakespeare's plays. Emulating the style of his famous travelogues, Bryson records episodes in his research, including a visit to a bunkerlike room in Washington, D.C., where the world's largest collection of First Folios is housed. Bryson celebrates Shakespeare as a writer of unimaginable talent and enormous inventiveness, a coiner of phrases ("vanish into thin air," "foregone conclusion," "one fell swoop") that even today have common currency. His Shakespeare is like no one else's—the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and a gift for storytelling unrivaled in our time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...
 Starts off good July 3, 2008
Let me start by saying I LOVE Bryson's work.
I was very drawn into this book because I knew very little about the story of Shakespeare. I learned a LOT about the man and his family and friends and about that time period. I couldn't put it down.
However, about 2/3 of the way through the book it started to get really dry and boring. That surprised me a little. I am very glad to have read the book and when I think back to the beginning parts it was a really good book. It just ended pretty dry for me.
Shakespeare: Creating History from nothing June 29, 2008
Bill Bryson
Shakespeare
Fact and main theme:
There is very little that we know about Shakespeare.
This is an exceptional book for one with little knowledge of the history of the period and the man himself.
It covers not only the person, but some information of the history surrounding Shakespeare in a very entertaining simple way.
What does Shakespeare look like?
There are 3 possible likenesses:
1) 1839: Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandon Grenville purchased the "Chandros portrait," hought to be Shakespeare during the period 1590 -1610. Interesting to note that black was various prosperous due to the cost of dye for black.
2) "Martin Droeshout engraving" - Copperplate engraving appeared as the frontpiece of the collected works of Shakespeare in 1623 - the famous First Folio.
3) Painted life-size state at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare is buried (and was born): Created by Gheerart Janssen in1623.
Side note on researchers: Charles and Hudda Wallace, in the early 1900's Went to England to search for Shakespeare. Went through public records. Went back to Texas and became a millionaire in oil.
It is not surprising that little is known as it is noted that other playwrights were even more famous than Shakespeare at the time, but even less is known of them: Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson.
First Folio, put together by Henry Condell and John Heminges, is the basis for much of our knowledge of Shakespeare's 884,647 words
Early Years, 1564-1585
Exact date of birth not known but accepted as April 23, St George's Day, also the day he died.
Date of Baptism April 26.
But born under the old Julian calendar, not the Gregorian (pope Gregory XIII) which was not created until 1582 and rejected in Britan until 1751: Thus, confusing the matter even more. Thus, April 23, is really May 3.
Religion of the day was keyed to ruler at the time: Protestant under Edward V to Catholic under Mary Tudor and back to Protestantism under Elizabeth.
Parents: John Shakespeare was Stratsford mayor 1568. Died in1601 at age 70.
Mary Arden, mother of 8 (4 girls).
Family:
Shespesare married November 1582: The bride according to the ledger, was not Anne Hathaway but Anne Whaeley of nearby Temple Grafton. The marriage Bond correctly notes Anne Hathaway, but "Shagspere," one of many spellings to be noted.
3 children: Susana in May 1583, twins Judith and Hamnet in February 1585.
Shakespeare's career as a playwright began in about 1590.
The comedy of errors, the two gentlemen of Verona, the taming of the shrew, Titus Andronicus, King John or the three parts of Henry VI are thought to be his first works.
Purchased a coat of arms, allowing farther and son and all their heirs in perpetuity to style themselves gentlemen.
March 1616 Shakespeare changes his will, left in Britain's National Archives at Kew in London with 3 of 6 Shakespeare's signatures.
February 1616 daughter Judith (31) married to Thomas Quiney,
April 23, 1616, Shakespeare dies.
Wealth: 200 to 700 pounds per year
Comparable: Sir Francis Drake - 600,000 pounds in 1580.
15 pounds comparable to 15,000 pounds in today's money.
Lost years, 1585-1592
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Spanish Armadas spread over 7 miles in the sea.123,000 cannonballs with 3,000 "bronze" cannons, which required to be cooled after every 2-3 rounds..
English had "cast-iron" cannons. 3 weeks Spanish Armada was decimated.
Plays were held by the company not the playwritght.
Christopher Marlowe, killed 1593 at Eleanor Bull in Deptford in south-east London by Ingram Frizer.
By 1594 2 main troupes: Admiral's men under Edward Alleyn and a new group, the Lord Chamberlain's Men led by Richard Burbage, (died 1597: AT 67) associated with Shakespeare.
Reign OF King James, 1603-1616, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, after the death of Elizabeth (March 24 under the Julian calendar at 69. King James famous for the King James Version of the bible (1604-1611).
Sonnet is a 14 line poem from Francesco Petrarca, 14th century Italian poet. Word comes from "little song'"
Rules of plays: "law of re-entry, which stated that a character couldn't exit from one scene and reappear immediately in the next.
Anatomisms - getting one's geography wrong.
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations - roughly one-tenth of all most quotable utterances written or spoken in English since its inception - a clearly remarkable proportion.
Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, Henry Clay Folger (dies 1930), President of Standard oil and member of the Folger's coffee family. Collection of First Folios and other books: 350,000 in total.
 A WITTY, INFOMATIVE READ THAT IS FUN TO READ TO BOOT. June 28, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
I am one of those individuals who enjoy Bryson's work. When I read this author's books, I get the impression that he does not take himself all that serious, much in the same way I take myself. I can relate. This little volume on the individual who is probably and arguably the greatest of all our English writers is no exception. It, as others here have pointed out, is sort of a book about nothing. By that I mean, we know almost absolute nothing of the man, William Shakespeare. We don't even know for sure how he spelled his name due to the fact that he, himself, did not spell it the same all of the time. Bryson has taken nothing and turned out a work, 196 pages of work, of something. Now if you think that is easy, try it some time.
This is not a scholarly dissertation (thank goodness) which tries to pass itself off as the beginning and end of all that was ever written about the life of Shakespeare. It is a short study of just what we do not know about him, which we find, is quite a lot! I picked up absolutely dozens and dozens of facts as to what I did not know, and until I read this book, did not realize I did not know. In addition to this I picked up some wonderful trivia (and some information that was not trivial at all) concerning the era in which Shakespeare wrote, if indeed, he wrote during that era. I had no idea of the words and phrases, which happen to number in the hundreds, which were introduced to the English Language via Shakespeare. As one reviewer has pointed out, this is really not a biography, but rather a history lesson, a lesson of little facts that you would not normally be exposed to. Bryson has done his home work and we have all benefitted from his seemingly endless curiosity.
Now for those folks who are Shakespearian scholars. This probably will not be all that much help to you; of course picking up the book, noting that it has only 196 pages, should pretty well tip you off to that fact pretty quickly. If it doesn't, perhaps you might want to find some other line of work. This is a readable book, an interesting book, written for those of us who have not made the study of Shakespeare a profession or made it an obsession, which ever the case may be. It is not a book that you can use as a substitute for a sleeping pill, as so many hard core books on this subject are. It is for those of us who are curious, and who want to know bits of this and pieces of this and that. I will say though, that by reading this work, I have gained even further appreciation for the work of Shakespeare, which says a lot, as I had already admired him greatly.
I did enjoy the last chapter or so, as it addresses the many theories of the many rather odd individuals who have been obsessed over the years, trying to prove that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare, or that someone else wrote his writings. These nut jobs seemed to have started from the beginning. The neat thing about it is, as Bryson so well points out, we know even less of the basis of their theories than we know of Shakespeare. Some of them are pretty funny though and worth taking a look.
Bryson does have a low keyed sense of humor and this fact shines through on ever page of this work. His style is easy on the eye, and in this work, there are no pretentions. It is sort of what you read is what you get. I enjoyed this one front to back and feel much richer for having read it. I did give this one five stars as I truly enjoyed it and felt, for me, it was a very worthwile book. Others may disagree with this, but hey, they can write their own review.
Wasn't sure.....Glad I tried it!! June 17, 2008
Frankly, I have always admired the idea of Shakespeare but never had a great desire to actively listen to or read anything he wrote. I feel that I am a fairly well read person but listening to Shakespeare seemed as interesting as watching dental plaque build up on my kids braces. Having heard and read a number of Bryson's books I figured that I might as well give this one a shot. I was not dissapointed. In fact I have listened to several of Shakespeare's plays on audiobook since listening to this book and I now appreciate his complexity and depth thanks to the insight that I gained from listening to this book. In reading some of the negative reviews I can understand that some would prefer for this book to be rather more critical of the Bard's identity or they would have prefered for him to dautle on other ideas. I disagree. Those ideas are covered but I believe that Bryson's main point was to bring an appreciation of just how interesting Shakespeare and his works truly are and he accomplished that fully. Perhaps Bill will one day write a book that I find utterly uninteresting but this one is not that. It is yet another dose of his unique wit and insight.
A great read June 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a great fun read, busting all the myths out there. Any lover of Shakespeare will love it. As usual, Bill Bryson's thorough research sets out all the facts while thoroughly entertaining us.
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