The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Early Years, 1564-1594 (Hardcover)

by Dr. Eric Sams (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Sams, who edited Shakespeare's Lost Play: Edmund Ironside (St. Martin's, 1986), which he identified as a Shakespearean play, tosses a grenade into the polite world of Shakespearean scholarship in this polemical book. His premise is that modern biographers and textual scholars have misled everyone regarding the facts about Shakespeare's life and works. Basing his claims on documentary data about Shakespeare dating from 1509 to 1594, Sams argues that early biographical information is more reliable than the theories of modern scholars. He also argues that Shakespeare was successful in the London theater years earlier than conventional scholarship asserts, and that he regularly revised his work. Sams claims that "memorial construction" (the orthodox view that the Bad Quartos are corrupt texts reconstructed by rogue actors) is bizarre fantasy for which there is no evidence, instead insisting that the Bad Quartos are early versions of Shakespeare's plays that he later revised. If Sams is right, the dating of the entire canon will have to be revised. This book is sure to provoke heated debate in academic circles; the general reader will be fascinated, too.
Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
This lively and original book challenges all previous accounts of Shakespeare`s early life and works. Eric Sams presents a vivid biographical picture of Shakespeare`s first thirty years, traces the impact of his upbringing in the language and imagery of his early plays, and argues compellingly that during these early "lost" years, Shakespeare was in fact writing first versions of his later great works.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (January 25, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300061293
• ISBN-13: 978-0300061291
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,421,977 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gooch, Bryan N.S., April 11, 1997

By A Customer

1.Eric Sams' The Real Shakespeare constitutes a determined attempt to reconstruct the early part of the playwright's life. It shows Shakespeare not as a late developer but as an early starter who assiduously revised his work and who, in fact, was responsible for early dramas, including apparent source texts, not usually accepted as part of the conventional canon. Clearly the result of much work and contemplation of extant records and other details, The Real Shakespeare looks initially at biographical issues: a Roman Catholic Shakespeare leaves school, probably at the age of thirteen, to help with family farm chores, becomes involved (as a clerk) with the legal profession (hence the character of his hand-writing), marries Anne Hathaway (already pregnant), and departs soon after for London to escape the consequences (whipping, at the least) of poaching deer owned by the influential, anti-catholic Sir Thomas Lacy. In London, Sams asserts, Shakespeare makes his connection with the Shoreditch Theatre, working his way up the proverbial ladder as ostler, call-boy, prompter and soon becomes a Queen's Man far earlier than Schoenbaum et al. are inclined to allow (58). 2.Biographical issues, however, cannot be detached from literary matters (which particularly dominate the second part of the book), and Sams, in looking at the Bard's young life, also takes into account the work and comments of contemporaries (e.g., Marlowe, Greene, Nashe, Spenser, et al.), the Parnassus plays, and Willobie his Avisa (1594) before turning to the Sonnets, the association with the 3rd Earl of Southampton, and the problem of the dedication in the first edition. He then moves to a consideration of the "early style" and ascription of both the 1589 and 1603 (Q1) Hamlet to Shakespeare, as well as A Shrew (c.1588), The Troublesome Reign of King John (c.1588), the first part of the Contention...(1594), and The True Tragedies of Richard... (1595); also offered as possible candidates for canonical authority are Faire Em and Locrine (of which there is, indeed, pace Sams, p.166, a modern edition). Attention is also given to bad quartos and the matter of memorial reconstruction, source-plays, derivative plays, dating, "collaboration," so-called "stylometry," and handwriting (a script, Sams suggests, of a law clerk suggesting links to the hand of Edmund Ironside [c.1588]). Curiously, for this strongly argued book, which contends in a detailed way with the conclusions of much twentieth-century scholarship (references to contrary opinion are carefully included), there is no concluding chapter, and the reader is left to pull the threads together. However, by way of addendum, Sams provides a section headed "The Documents 1500-1594," 205 biographical details and citations in chronological order, which under-pin especially the reconstruction of the early (Schoenbaum's "lost") years; and a bibliography (with + and * marks denoting items which support or counter Sam's arguments). An index concludes the volume. 3.It is always important to review evidence for conventional knowledge, to challenge the validity of accepted views, and to suggest plausible solutions to bothersome problems. Yet, at times, the greater wisdom, unfortunately, lies in uncertainty, in being sure of what one can and cannot know, and in Shakespearean scholarship, the fields of speculation are rather broad. Given the available documentation, many readers will find some of Sams' arguments, while intriguing, still unconvincing and will prefer to rest with the more cautious approach of Schoenbaun, Vickers, Wells, and others. The academic community has not blindly or wilfully rejected solid evidence, and should not be reproached for what might appear, to some critics, to be tradition-bound precepts or unduly conservative empiricism. 4.Could Shakespeare have known about ostlers and law-clerks without being an ostler or a law-clerk? Probably? Did he write Locrine? Almost certainly not -- given the style, and if he did, why did he not revise it? If Shakespeare was the dedicated reviser Sams claims that he was, why did he not rework the questionable scenes in Titus and Pericles? Were all the source plays (e.g., King Lear and Famous Victories) really by Shakespeare? Doubt could enter here. Does revision necessarily or "normally" mean that the resulting work will manifest two separate styles? No, it does not; though the reference to the Brahms' piano trio (Op.8) on p.187 is interesting, it does not, I think sufficiently support the general point. And what is the difference between an "ordinary" reader of Shakespeare and other kinds of readers (105)? Is one to infer that academic readers and textual editors lose some sensitivity? 5.Certainly, Sams' The Real Shakespeare will shake the scholarly stage a little, which is not a bad thing. But I should guess that, when the tremors have subsided, many -- perhaps most -- of the props will be more or less where they were before and others, which would be nice to have -- some certainty about the early years, for instance -- will still be absent.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful, wonderful book, October 27, 2005

By	Roy Speed (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you want to know what this book is about, read the other reviews, which do a decent job of summarizing the contents. I'll focus on what those other reviews don't tell you.

First, Eric Sams is a remarkable writer, a remarkable mind. His background is in music, and he has two breathtaking abilities: one is the ability to hold in his head large quantities of information, and the other, to sift through that information and spot patterns. In Shakespeare's writing he identifies recurring thoughts, metaphors, associations; he identifies word usages, turns of phrase, images, all of which, taken together, truly seem to be characteristic of Shakespeare and as unique as a fingerprint.

Second, he gives you perspective. If you browse in the works of Shakespeare professionals for long enough, you encounter all sorts of speculations about the conflicting texts, who wrote what, possible collaborators, and how this scene must have been written by somebody else, and this quarto must be "memorial reconstruction" -- the term they use to say that a couple of actors who once played those parts reconstructed the play from their own recollections and then filled in the blanks. These same academics dismiss plays like Edward III and Edmund Ironside as inferior to the works of "the canon" (works they all agree were written by Shakespeare): they couldn't possibly be Shakespeare, the academics say; they're all by "other writers." While academics make frequent references to these other, unknown playwrights, collaborators, and actor-writers, Eric Sams puts all such speculation into perspective. He clarifies two things: first, that there is no real evidence that these playwrights, collaborators, or actor-writers ever existed; they're convenient figments of the academic imagination. Second, these men who lived in and around London and were contemporaries of Shakespeare and writing plays -- these men numbered perhaps two dozen at most. And we already know the names of more than half of them. So if a play like Edward III contains those usages and images and comparisons and types of word play that seem unique to Shakespeare, well, you've got only a handful of possible unknowns to whom you can attribute such a play -- and all those peculiar images, usages, etc. It's not scientific certainty, but for circumstantial evidence, it's pretty telling and the best we're likely to get.

Most of the biographical works I've read are long on speculation and short on facts. Not so with this book. Facets of Shakespeare's life that are touched on and dismissed in other works are thoroughly explored here -- like Shakespeare's Catholic background, his legal experience, poaching, etc. And instead of speculative sentences that begin, "Young Will may have longed for..." or "... may have attended..." or "may have learned about..." -- Eric Sams delivers what facts we have. In one chapter he simply lists ALL of the significant documents from Shakespeare's lifetime (and just before and just after) and summarizes their contents for you. Boom. That's it. That's all there is.

What I never would have guessed from reading other works is that, in fact, it's quite a LOT. Sams speeds through a wealth of information, little clues here, little clues there that, when combined with patterns he uncovers in the plays themselves, form a remarkably coherent picture of Shakespeare.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stimulating and intriguing book, March 23, 2000

By	Sam - See all my reviews

This book is in large part an attack on the orthodox "Stratfordian" academic 'establishment'; not however from the point of view of someone claiming that a person other than William Shakespeare of Stratford Upon Avon wrote the works of Shakespeare (an impression which the cover picture and title might give at first glance). Rather, Eric Sams accepts that Shakespeare was Shakespeare, so to speak, but claims that the account of the writer's early life and literary development promulgated by 'orthodox" 20th Century British Shakespeare scholars is basically eroneous, and distorted by fashionable, unproved theories. His main claim is that Shakespeare started acting on, and writing for, the stage, much earlier than most modern academics allow, that he wrote plays (and perhaps pamphlets) other than the 'canonical' plays (i.e. those plays included in the First Folio of 1623, plus "Pericles"), and that he frequently revised or rewrote his own plays. In the first few chapters of the book Sams speculates on Shakespeare's early background and upbringing in Stratford. Sams sometimes brings in quotes from the plays to support his view of Shakespeare's early life, and this is perhaps a bit problematic, but on the whole his contentions are pretty convincing, and he persuasively argues that the oral traditions about Shakespeare should be taken seriously, and not simply dismissed as gossip or folk-tales. Sams' main bugbear is probably the 'memorial reconstruction' theory, which holds that the so-called "bad quartos" are the botched piratings of Shakespeare's plays by unscrupulous actors. Sams contends that there is absolutely no evidence for this theory, and instead favours the simpler and more convincing proposition that these "bad quartos" are in fact early versions of these plays by Shakespeare himself, which he later revised. There is much more in this book than I have mentioned above, and it is definitely well worth reading.