Shakespeare: A Life

I enjoyed this biography of Shakespeare very much. My wife and I were in London at the just opened Borders on Oxford St. when I saw a signed copy of this book for sale and decided to purchase it. It was a great read and quite convincing in its approach to the playwright and poet. There is not enough direct evidence of the man's life to flesh everything out, but Park Honan uses the plays forensically. What does a close reading of the plays tell us about the man who wrote them? And then look into how that matches with what we know directly of him. It matches quite well and becomes a wonderfully fleshed out portrait. That being said, there is much more direct evidence about Shakespeare and his plays than many of the conspiracy theorists would have you believe. We follow him from his youth in Stratford along his journey to London and what work in the theater of those days was like. We learn about the sheer volume of lines an actor of those times would have had ready for use in their mind at any given time; it was thousands and thousands of lines. It is drawing upon that resource, just as a Handel or a Teleman or a Bach called upon the hundreds of works they had in their minds, that allowed him to compose with such rapidity. It was his genius to improve upon his sources just as Bach and Handel always made more of their borrowings. Genius never requires a noble source. In fact, it is usually sprung from seemingly poor soil. Yet it comes. The author is very specific about what we know directly from the record versus what is a normative behavior for the time and a possibility for Shakespeare. Honan never allows speculation and possibility to become fact. Nor does he follow other modern anachronisms of wondering about the psychology of Shakespeare or whether he was "Gay" since even the term homosexual would be out of place in Elizabethan times, though homoerotic attachments were not. I believe the author makes such a powerful case the William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays that the Oxfordians will simply attack the book because of their faith, however unfounded in anything beyond desire and assertion. I recommend this book highly.

Honan's biography of Shakespeare is superb. The writing style is good, the research reliable, and the play reviews are appropriate. The reader ends up with a detailed knowledge of the life of the bard. That is the purpose of a biography. Highly recommended.

A great deal of Shakespeare's life appears never to have made it into the official record, and Park Honan, for all his skill as a writer, cannot change that.What Mr. Honan does do, however, is construct in detail the setting for what facts we do know about Shakespeare's life. Even if we lack many of the basic facts of Shakespeare's boyhood, for instance, we know what Stratford was like, and we know what kind of lives boys in Stratford led. Mr. Honan lays out this setting, gives us the known facts about young Will, contents himself with making the occasional relatively safe guess, and leaves it at that.Despite the fact that Mr. Honan's book is mostly setting, with a fairly scarce plot, it's a good read, flowing well and entertaining. Your study of Shakespeare should start here.

Perhaps scholars on the subject of William Shakespeare have some legitimate criticisms to make of certain details and comments in Honan's book. Frankly, I couldn't care less. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, learned a great deal from it, and now plan to read or re-read other books on the same (general) subject. Given the popularity of two recent films, Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love, I must assume that there are many other readers who would also appreciate having an especially well-informed, charming, and energetic companion during a journey back in time to Elizabethan England. Yes, this is a biography of Shakespeare...but more, much more.Following a List of Illustrations (which are excellent), an Introduction, and A Note on Conventions Used in the Text, Honan divides his book into for parts:I. A Stratford YouthII. Actor and Poet of the London StageIII. The Maturity of GeniusIV. The Last PhaseAt this point in my brief commentary, I want to stress that Honan's writing style is semi-formal but reader-friendly. His prose shares many of the same strengths evident in the works of other authors such as Alistair Cooke, E.B. White, and Charles Kuralt.The world in which Shakespeare lived and worked was one of the most interesting throughout human history. Honan includes a wealth of social, political, and cultural information about that age in combination with anecdotes, gossip, speculations and conjectures, correlation's between Shakespeare's works and the details in his life, etc. What were Shakespeare's probable circumstances during his childhood and youth in Stratford? What was it like to live in London, especially when that walled city was ravaged by plague? Who attended live performances? When? Where? How were those performances financed? Who was Shakespeare's competitors for recognition and reward? Why did Shakespeare eventually retire to Stratford? What are the probable circumstances of the years there prior to his death in 1616? (Cervantes died on the same day in the same year.) Honan suggests answers to these and hundreds of other questions you may also have about Shakespeare and his age.Is this the best biography of Shakespeare written thus far? I am unqualified to respond. Is this one of the most entertaining and most informative books I have read about a major figure in the history of western civilization? You bet. It does not "read like a novel" nor was it intended to. If you desire an "easy" read on this subject, try another source (eg Shakespeare for Dummies, Chicken Soup for Elizabethans). But if you want to make that "journey" back in time and would appreciate having an erudite, charming companion while you explore the many worlds in which William Shakespeare lived and worked, Park Honan would be an excellent choice. What about his fee? The cost of this wonderful book.

After the standard non-bio (we know so little about him, etc) offered during my school years, this detailed and solid account of Shakespeare comes as an entertaining surprise. Obviously there's been a lot unearthed about Shakespeare's life just since the short time I last visited Stratford. Honan's book is especially interesting for the myths it dispels about the Bard. He seems to have been a surprisingly down to earth man, good natured, aware of his talent but by no means filled with an overweaning sense of greatness the way later artists would be. Superb overall.