Customer Reviews

Shakespeare

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Most of Michael Wood's books are companions to television documentary series which I have never had the fortune to see. His books, though, are stand alone and fulfilling on their own and I have to wonder how he squeezed so much of their complex detail into the picture and sound media. There are two clues, however, that SHAKESPEARE originated as a documentary: the narrative voice of the text is fluent and bright as one that must be heard to be understood and the text is not littered with footnotes. Instead, a detailed reading list and acknowledgment section appears at the end, and Wood often credits sources directly in the narrative. This format has irritated some of his academic critics but for the general reader, it suits just fine.

Wood chooses to follow Shakespeare through the local and global influences that shaped his life, his artistic methods and themes, and the work that poured from them. Though Shakepeare's adult religiosity is not particularly known, he was raised in rural England by Catholics who were watching their world being torn violently away by the Reformation. He was also the product of a public education grounded in the classics and trained in rote. As a child he saw the mystery plays and as an adolescent may have been in a theater company for a while. Put this together with a mind like a sponge and an unparalleled artistic vision, and he was ready for London and the rapidly changing world that brought new cultures and possibilities to mix with the old. Wood offers a strong reading of many of the poems and plays, matching them up with Shakespeare's personal experiences. He goes as far to propose an identity for the Dark Lady of the sonnets and the young gentleman who also figures in them. The picture of Elizabeth's administration with its intrigues, censorship and violence is not pretty, which makes Shakespeare's ability to thrive in the midst of it all that more remarkable.

Wood's books always gleam with his apparent interest for his subjects, but SHAKESPEARE shows him at his most passionate. He truly brings the man alive.

Wood's biography of Shakespeare has a number of strong points. The images are very good, the writing is lively, and the author spins a very engaging narrative. However, there are also some serious flaws. Wood conjures interesting possibilities and conjectures (the secret Catholicism of Shakespeare's father, the identities of the Dark Lady and the young male subject of the sonnets), which he then proceeds to write about as confirmed facts. I don't fault him for the interesting ideas, but I find his treatment lacking in serious scholarship, a lack compounded by the absence of detailed notes on the sources of his provocative ideas. Good researchers should cite their research sources.

Wood's book is interesting, but misleading. I wouldn't warn anyone away from it, but I would recommend reading a better biography first. Stanley Wells's "Shakespeare: For All Time" or Park Honan's "Shakespeare: A Life" are both fine books. (The former takes a more expansive view, including both biography and theatre history since Shakespeare's time, which is a real plus for anyone interested in how his works have been interpreted in different countries and eras.) Both also treat the "authorship controversy," which is mostly a fringe conspiracy theory quite well. I'd say read one of those first to gain an idea of what responsible scholarship looks like, then read Wood's book with a critical eye.

This is an excellent companion book to the Documentary from PBS. I watched the documentary as a requirement for a lit class I was taking and loved it so much I bought the book. There are great details in here that were not included in the television program. If you are interested in learning more about Shakespeare and the world he lived in this is an excellent read!

This wonderfully illustrated book is not for those seeking in-depth literary theories about Shakespeare's work, but if you're interested in Shakespeare's life I think this book is a must. Yes, the book is filled with speculation - none of it outlandish - about the possible events in Shakespeare's life, but Mr. Wood always presents evidence for his theories. Just as important, Mr. Wood, unlike many critics and biographers, tries to connect events in Shakespeare's life to his work, e.g. how his son's death made him a greater writer.

I suspect many will condemn Mr. Wood for his speculation, but when it comes to much of Shakespeare's life, what else can we do but speculate?

Also, Mr. Wood paints a vivid, compelling picture of life in London during the Elizabethan Era.

Finally, this book has an excellent theory about why and for whom the sonnets were written.

Reading this book made me feel as if I almost knew Shakespeare.

After seeing Michael Wood's documentary, I decided to read the book. It was nice to read something that proclaimed Shakespeare to be the author of works by Shakespeare. It was an enjoyable read, informative, and while (unbeknownst to me) some of the claims made are decades old (why didn't my profs tell me any of this?), it was very interesting to learn "new" things about Shakespeare. Wood paints a very sympathic and clear portrait of the man and the difficulties of his world.

However, Wood failed to cite his sources. Yes, there's a "further reading" section in the back, but I want to "check his work." Where did you get this information, is it a reputable source? Something your butcher told you?

Still, I like the book, and I would recommend it for the general reader or as an interesting starting point to the study of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare by author, filmmaker, and television producer Michael Wood is a biography of the man who is justifiable considered to be the greatest playwright in the literary history of the English language. Wood delves into the archival evidence to reconstitute as accurate as possible a picture of the Elizabethan England in which William Shakespeare lived, and bringing together insights into the live and work of this gifted man, including his family, his sources of inspiration, his personal attitude on social issues, and more. Enhanced throughout with illustrations, Shakespeare is a superbly written, definitively researched, and thoroughly involving, and enthusiastically recommended biographical study.

This book retreads other (better) scholars' work and the "new" revelations are anywhere from 20 to 60 years old. Most of Wood's interesting material derives from E.A.J. Honigmann's classic "Shakespeare: The Lost Years" (1985, 2nd ed. 1999). Wood's fanciful conjectures about Robert Southwell & Shakespeare come from chapter 18 of Christopher Devlin's 1956 biography of Southwell. I don't have space for his other debts: Save your time and skip reading this one. If you like the pictures (which are good) wait for it to get remaindered (which won't be long). [If you need a good, well-written "popular" biography of Shakespeare get Anthony Burgess--and the Honigmann for supplementary material.] Unfortunately despite Michael Wood's enthusiasm for his subject there is no excuse for slovenly scholarship.

Michael Wood presents the information in a calm, rational way, and shows how a real scholar approaches a subject - as opposed to the breathless crackpots who push any number of wacky Shakespeare authorship conspiracies. On the web site for his TV series, Wood notes that there have been more programs on Shakespeare conspiracies than on Shakespeare himself. Sadly true!

Wood leads us into the woods, leaving fact and reality behind. His book, like his 'documentary', leverages all of the latest and greatest speculation into a miraculous and utterly fictional portrait. He would do well to read Schoenbaum, not to mention Price. As entertainment, a 'C'. As biography, an 'F'.

This is just another entry in the argument over who wrote Shakespeare, that tries to pretend like there is no argument. Finally, on page 49 the argument rears its head in the discussion of Shakespeare's schooling. "In due course young William moved on to the grammar school: for seven years from 1571 he attended Big School . . .in Church Lane, between the almshouses and the guild chapel. Given the controversy that still surrounds the authorship of the plays, and the persistence of they myth that Shakespeare must have been an uneducated provincial, that last sentence may seem over-confident." Wood then backtracks a little and calls the school attendance "near certain." He then says that the plays themselves "betray the fact that the author was steeped in the Tudor grammar school curriculum." And yet Wood does not want us to believe that whoever wrote the plays was well educated in a variety of topics, including those covered in Tudor grammar schools. He wants us to believe that Shakespeare was so educated.

Wood is inherently untrustworthy because he wants so badly for the reader to believe so much more than the evidence supports, and to ignore problems with Shakespeare's authorship.

It is nonetheless a good read for people who are fascinated by the question of who wrote Shakespeare. Before reading this I recommend "Who Wrote Shakespeare" by John Michell (1996). Then read this book.