William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Both his parents were illiterate..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anthony Holden doesn't pull any punches in his choice of biographical subjects. Having already taken on the Prince of Wales, Laurence Olivier, and Tchaikovsky, this time Holden has gone for no less than the Bard himself. Dismissing claims that there is nothing left to say about the poet and playwright, Holden's bold study argues that, on the contrary, the archives are rich with traces of Shakespeare as husband, father, actor, dramatist, poet, and Stratford lad made good. Holden also argues that "if each generation recreates Shakespeare in its own image," then we need a new version for the 21st century. He obliges with a racy, incident-packed account of the glovemaker's son who rose to subsequent immortality via the stage of Elizabethan London. In addition to poring over the established evidence, Holden makes some controversial but intriguing claims. Not only was Shakespeare a covert Catholic who spent his so-called lost years as a budding actor in Catholic households in Lancashire under the name of "Shakeshafte" but he also suffered from sexually transmitted diseases, experienced a nervous breakdown, fathered an illegitimate son via his middle-aged landlady, and sailed close to the political wind with what Holden sees as his residual Catholic and "republican instincts." It's all very entertaining--if at times far out on its own interpretative limb--and a lively and refreshing approach to the Bard as an Elizabethan man behaving badly. William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius may not be for all time, but it resonates richly with our times. --Jerry Brotton

From Publishers Weekly

First-time bardographer (and biographer of Olivier and Prince Charles), Holden colorfully if superficially fills in the blanks between Shakespeare's vast output of verse and the paltry official record, which leaves much about the man to speculation. Unlike Park Honan's recent, soberly deductive life, and more in tune with Harold Bloom's and Anthony Burgess's zealous conjectures, Holden's kitchen-sink approach packs in his own hypotheses based on circumstantial evidence, recent biographic theories and all the hoary old traditions. Regarding the early "lost years," Holden supports the Lancashire hypothesis, that the young Catholic William "Shakeshafte" was a tutor and amateur actor in the stately home of a recusant Lancastrian nobleman. Holden further speculates that the legend of the deer-poaching Will's escape to London after a run-in with an anti-Catholic Warwickshire knight had as much to do with religious persecution as theft. As Shakespeare's life progresses, Holden's guesswork becomes less convincing in explaining such mysteries as the identities of the sonnets' Dark Lady (just an amalgamation) and their dedicatee, "Mr. W.H." (his brother-in-law, William Hathaway). With the better established facts of the Globe's theatrical world, Holden's biography loses some of its energy. Sometimes reading dubiously between the lines of Shakespeare's plays, such as projecting Macbeth's insomnia on the Bard, Holden sums up the actor-playwright-poet's final change of roles into Stratford's first citizen. 8 pages color, 8 pages b&w illus. not seen by PW. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First U.S. edition (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316518492
• ISBN-13: 978-0316518499
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,135,365 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Popular Biography of Shakespeare, September 18, 2000

By	Michael Gunther (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In calling Holden's book a "popular" biography, I do not mean to denigrate his scholarship. Holden has done a lot of research, but he wears his learning lightly. His biography is "popular" in the best sense - gracefully written, mercifully short (300 pages), interesting, and entertaining. He neither gets bogged down in minutia, nor does he oversimplify. Some of his conclusions may be controversial (and what is not controversial, in Shakespeare studies?) but Holden gives his reasons, and generously references opposing views, so that readers can make up their own minds as to the plausibility of his deductions.

The book may be a little confusing to absolute beginners, and it might not contain enough detailed argument to satisfy academic scholars. But I would imagine that most everybody else would find in it a great deal of enjoyment, information, and interest.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One word more, October 23, 2000

By	Webster Lithgow (Halifax, MA United States) - See all my reviews

Some of the other reviews incite me to add yet a few more words. Holden does NOT blur fact and fiction. He consistently lables speculation and inference, identifies sources, outlines opposing views, gives reasons for his choices, and qualifies his conclusions. His reading of the plays, while brief, reaches deeply into the heart of Shakespeare's works. This is a responsible and valuable book.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Essential Biography, October 23, 2000

By	Webster Lithgow (Halifax, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This is the essential preface to any first reading of the collected works of Shakespeare. It's the perfect introduction for the student -- and a rich summing up for an experienced reader or theater person. Despite Holden's previous oeuvre of front-table bookstore products about Prince Charles, Princess Di, Olivier, the Oscars, etc., this is a serious (though very readible) biography, which makes full use of a vast resource of scholarship. Tossing -- or, rather, kicking -- aside any nonsense about the plays and poems being the work of some mystery author, Holden presents Shakespeare's chronology with clarity, rich color and carefully examined detail. He relates the plays to what is known or can be reasonable inferred about the succeeding periods of Shakespeare's life and the developing stages of his thought. He does not idealize or fantasize. And he places the works in the context of the theatrical history of the period. The reader comes away enriched with a profound feeling for the qualities that Shakespeare's admirers so value. The plays become more accessible in the process, as does Shakespeare scholarship. A very valuable book.