The Life of William Shakespeare

ISBN-13: 9781118281529 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 510 str.

Lois Potter

Opis

The Life of William Shakespeare is a fascinating and wide-ranging exploration of Shakespeare's life and works focusing on oftern neglected literary and historical contexts: what Shakespeare read, who he worked with as an author and an actor, and how these various collaborations may have affected his writing.

• Written by an eminent Shakespearean scholar and experienced theatre reviewer
• Pays particular attention to Shakespeare's theatrical contemporaries and the ways in which they influenced his writing
• Offers an intriguing account of the life and work of the great poet-dramatist structured around the idea of memory
• Explores often neglected literary and historical contexts that illuminate Shakespeare's life and works

Recenzje

Two of the Mighty dead have been brought back to life in exemplary fashion: Shakespeare in Lois Potter s The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography, which very cleverly uses expert theatre–knowledge as a way of making her enigmatic subject seem plausibly substantial; and Keats in Nicholas Roe s John Keats: A New Life, which puts the poet properly in his place.   (The Guardian, 24 November 2012)

This study will have wide appeal to readers who wish to expand their appreciation of the works of William Shakespeare.  Summing Up: Highly recommended.  Upper–division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.   (Choice, 1 November 2012)

A richly suggestive, undogmatic book in which Lois Potter ranges across the entire canon and the period that helped produce it.   (Around the Globe, 1 October 2012)

Lois Potter s Life of William Shakespeare, ranks with the most distinguished examples of its kind Her achievement lies in her catholicity, her simultaneous commitment to matters personal, historical, theatrical, literary, cultural.  She exhibits an absolute command of the available facts, a lifetime s acquaintance with the works gained in teaching and playgoing, an unparalleled familiarity with theatrical history from 1567 to the present, and a talent for connecting the fictional and the actual.   (Times Literary Supplement, 10 August 2012)

Spis treści

List of Illustrations vi

Preface and Acknowledgments vii

List of Abbreviations x

The Shakespeare Family Tree xii

1 Born into the World : 1564 1571 1

2 Nemo SibiNascitur : 1571 1578 21

3 Hic et Ubique : 1578 1588 40

4 This Man s Art and That Man s Scope : 1588 1592 64

5 Tigers Hearts : 1592 1593 86

6 The Dangerous Year : 1593 1594 106

7 Our Usual Manager of Mirth : 1594 1595 134

8 The Strong st and Surest Way to Get : Histories, 1595 1596 162

9 When Love Speaks : Tragedy and Comedy, 1595 1596 181

10 You Had a Father; Let Your Son Say So : 1596 1598 201

11 Unworthy Scaffold : 1598 1599 231

12 These Words Are Not Mine : 1599 1601 258

13 Looking Before and After : 1600 1603 277

14 This Most Balmy Time : 1603 1605 300

15 Past the Size of Dreaming : 1606 1609 330

16 Like an Old Tale : 1609 1611 360

17 The Second Burden : 1612 1616 384

18 In the Mouths of Men : 1616 and After 414

Bibliography 443

Index 475

O autorze

Lois Potter recently retired as Ned B. Allen Chair at the University of Delaware. She has also taught at the Universities of Aberdeen, Leicester, and Paris III–Sorbonne Nouvelle, and at Tsuda College, Tokyo. Her publications include Twelfth Night: Text and Performance (1986), the Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen (1997, 2001), and Shakespeare in Performance: Othello (2002). She is also the editor of two volumes in the Revels History of Drama in English series (1981 and 1984), and has been a frequent reviewer of plays for the Times Literary Supplement, Shakespeare Quarterly, and Shakespeare Bulletin.

Blurb

In this remarkable new biography, distinguished Shakespeare scholar and theater critic Lois Potter explores literary and historical contexts often neglected in other studies, drawing in particular on the idea of the literary personality and on new discoveries about collaboration. She looks at Shakespeare′s possible role models, both real and fictional, with particular attention to the people with whom he worked as both author and actor, and considers how these various kinds of collaboration may have affected him. The focus throughout is on Shakespeare′s words and on what he learned about writing for his audiences – which, Potter suggests, were more varied than has been thought. The result is a unique and wide–ranging study of the life and work of the great poet and dramatist.