Shakespeare's lives
By: [by] S. Schoenbaum.
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1970
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 838
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Biography.; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- In literature.; Dramatists, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography -- History and criticism.; Biography as a literary form.
Description: "This unique experiment in multiple biography is the first substantial attempt ... to bring into clear light what actually is known about the man William Shakespeare. The thousands of letters, diaries, and personal papers consulted by Professor Schoenbaum in widely scattered collections; the documents, newspapers, and articles - and the forgeries - yield fresh, sometimes dramatic information about a host of controversial characters and incidents. Mr. Schoenbaum begins with the Shakespeare of documentary record - poet of the London stage and property owner of Stratford. He proceeds to the Shakespeare of legend - deer poacher, ale-toper, and valiant lover. Other Shakespeares follow: the playwright as protagonist of a host of biographies, popular and scholarly, which often reveal more of the biographer than of his subject's life. There is the Shakespeare for whom an imaginary history was invented, with forged documents, by William Henry Ireland in the eighteenth century; and later, by the cleverer and more seasoned J. Payne Collier. There is also the Shakespeare who appears in numerous plays or novels by, for instance, Sir Walter Scott and Anthony Burgess. Lastly, there is the Shakespeare who never was: anti-hero of a vast and eccentric literature crediting his other works to other writers - Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, or Christopher Marlowe"--Front flap.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.