Customer Reviews

Young Shakespeare: Volume 1 (Vol 1)

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The AudioFile review of the audio cassette version of this book is spot on: this is not a book for "casual readers" interested in Shakespeare's early life. The book's attention to details, historical figures, poetry and much more is better suited for a relatively serious student of the Bard. I also agree that you'll find little "actual anecdotes" of Shakespeare's life, which is not surprising since it's well-known that his early life and personal life in general are a mystery. Instead, we are presented more of the cultural and social milieu that he must have moved through. The narrator has an academic and dry tone throughout the book - which I found initially offputting - but, like the review says, that may be because "there's nothing involving in the text." I have to admit that I preferred Greenblatt's "Will in the World" but I am a more casual reader.

"Young Shakespeare" tells the story of the life and work of the Bard up to the age of thirty. It draws upon the facts known about his life and, more heavily, on his work up to that age. It also compares Shakespeare's works with those of contemporaries and some who could be considered to be his mentors.

This book is a "betwixt and between" in that it does not cover his life with the detail of some other works, and deals with his works fairly superficially. It does bring out some things which are interesting, such as that his poems were written when the theatres were closed due to the Plague. Unlike some works, this one does not take a thread of fact or suspicion and weave it into a whole theory. Some books will try to draw facts of Shakespeare's life from his works. These attempts I usually view with skepticism. This book does not fall into that trap. Overall this is an interesting work, although there are probably better for both the life of Shakespeare and the placement of his work into history.