Synopsis
In this much anticipated addition to the Eminent Lives series, Bill Bryson's biography of William Shakespeare unravels the superstitions, academic discoveries and myths surrounding the life of our greatest poet and playwright. Shakespeare's life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard -- from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died. Following his international bestsellers 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid', Bill Bryson has written a short biography of William Shakespeare for the Eminent Lives series -- which seeks to pair great subjects with writers known for their strong sensibilities and sharp, lively points of view.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Bill Bryson's smart style and skeptical wit lends Shakespeare, The World as Stage all the readability possible given the subject. With his usual storytelling charm, he recounts the facts of Shakespeare's life, what little we know, and debunks alternative authorship theories. Shakespeare, schmakespeare. Long live Bill Bryson! He can write about anything and make it a blast.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Bill Bryon's wise and witty work about the Bard of Avon is great, fun reading, but is curious. In spite of dumpster loads of scholarly works analyzing his plays and sonnets, we seem to know next to nothing about the man himself. Yet in spite of this dearth of first-hand or even credible information, Bryson manages to limn Shakespeare by describing the times in which he lived. He gives us the brutal world in which a whisper against a royal could mean your head displayed on London Bridge; in which one could be Catholic, but not flagrantly so; in which plague and a bevy of mysterious illnesses carried off large swaths of the population and closed theaters; in which a man who gave 10 pounds to the poor at his death was considered extravagant, but where courtiers could lavish 15,000 pounds on a single meal.
Bryson magnificently steers clear of suppositions and unsupported theories about Shakespeare's religion, sexuality and education. But the man who emerges from this unorthodox treatment is curiously knowable - flitting in the shadows of a darkened stage, haunting the unlit corner of a pub, and dazzling audiences for 400 years with unparalleled brilliance.
Bryson magnificently steers clear of suppositions and unsupported theories about Shakespeare's religion, sexuality and education. But the man who emerges from this unorthodox treatment is curiously knowable - flitting in the shadows of a darkened stage, haunting the unlit corner of a pub, and dazzling audiences for 400 years with unparalleled brilliance.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
As Bryson says, "this book was written not so much because the world needs another book on Shakespeare as because this series does." Indeed! How this "slender" book (as Bryson calls it) manages to be (as the cover advertises) a "best seller", is as much a mystery as Shakespeare "the man" that Bryson (as all those Stratfordian biographers before him) fails to bring to life.
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Introduction (From Wikipedia)
Shakespeare: The World as Stage is a biography of William Shakespeare by author Bill Bryson. The 199-page book is part of Harper Collins' series of biographies, "Eminent Lives". The focus of the book is to state what little is known conclusively about Shakespeare, and how this information is known, with some discussion of disproved theories, myths, and that which is believed by the public but not provable. The book is also available as an unabridged audiobook, published by Harper Audio and read by the author.
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Shakespeare: The World as Stage. Amazon is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: CC BY-SA. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.
Critical reception (From Wikipedia)
Nancy Dalva wrote in the New York Observer: "Right off, the author’s established his blithe and sunny tone: If a trio of witches were cooking up this book in a cauldron, there’d be a pinch of P.G. Wodehouse, a soupçon of Sir Osbert Lancaster and a cup of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One can be firm of purpose and blithe at the same time, it turns out; one can write a seriously entertaining book."
Attribution: The information appearing above in this tab is from Wikipedia:
Shakespeare: The World as Stage. Amazon is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: CC BY-SA. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.
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