Shakespeare

I came into a fine hardcover copy of this book at the Toronto Public Library book sale. It beats me why it was being discarded. I would think for lack of interest from the library-goers of Toronto? The card at the back says it was last taken out on February 10, 1975 by a Grade 9 student! This Shakespeare biography, from Anthony Burgess no less, offers an excellent view on the life of the Bard. My family received as a gift The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (leatherbound, gilt-edged, illustrated, Chatham River Press). Burgess's biography complements the Complete Works only too perfectly. This first edition is filled with excellent illustrations, paintings, woodcuts, engravings and drawings. Certainly a treasure to keep for decades more.

Anthony Burgess, perhaps best known as author of "A Clockwork Orange", wrote this engaging biography of Shakespeare in 1970. As more than one critic has noted, all the Shakespeare biographies that have come out over the centuries are bound by one common thread: they all must work from the same finite set of information. Much is known about Shakespeare, but much is not known. And what is known grows no larger. We know a bit about his Stratford origins, his move to London, his life and business, and his brief retirement back home. And of course, we have Shakespeare's writings. Or as Burgess puts it, "Infuriatingly, whenever Shakespeare does something other than buy a lease or write a play, history shuts her jaws with a snap."The challenge to a biographer is to present the material in such a way as to be informative to those who've never read a biography, interesting to those who have, and true to the set of known facts. Burgess meets the challenge and then some -- Burgess was, of course, a fine writer, and he was also an erudite scholar and a fan, though a sharp-eyed one, of his subject. Careful to qualify his guesswork, he jumps to many credible and a few incredible though amusing conclusions --for example about Shakespeare's family and home life-- that set a fertile context for the known facts. Burgess has done his homework on the royals and nobles in Britain, describing the climate change after Elizabeth's death, Southampton's eclipse and Essex's treason. He has read the contemporaries, Marlow and Jonson and Philip Sidney (who wrote of writer's block: "Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite; 'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'look in the heart, and write.'")The analysis of the plays is strong (particularly the flesh vs. gold themes in "Merchant", not new yet well put). And the final lines are wonderful, the Shakespeare-as-us theme written so as to leave us with a smile. Burgess was a true writer, and his biography of Shakespeare has the virtue of being fresh and witty and insightful, it stands out from the others.

I have to admit that I was not such a big fan of Shakespeare, before reading Mr. Burgess book. I had only the information I got in school, where most of the things we learn are dry and not interesting at all. Well, this biography has nothing to do with it. Its full of history, literary analysis, facts about Shakespare's private life, England at that time, all written with a lot of common sense, a great and intelligent sense of humour. If you dont like Shakespeare or if you think he is not such a big deal, read this book, and I promise you, you will want to read again all his works and see them in a different light.

Mr. Burgess knows his Shakespeare and shares his wealth of knowledge in a very fascinating way. Almost every aspect of the Bard's life is analyzed and it creates a very entertaining story.Not much is known about William Shakespeare himself. This often forces Burgess to make educated conjectures as to what the truth may have been. When Burgess puts forth his opinion he supports it with so much fact that you almost feel that if it wasn't the way Burgess said it was, it should have been.All-in-all, if you are a Shakespeare man and want to know what inspired and influenced him, this book is for you. Burgess knows Shakespeare like no other person.

The late, great Anthony Burgess shares one of the loves of his life--the works of Shakespeare--with the reader, not by providing close analysis of the literature itself (many fine books that do so are already available, as the author points out in his opening paragraphs), but by giving the reader a solid background on the Elizabethan era: on the major political figures, the intrigues, English preoccupations both domestic and abroad, a history of the theater, Shakespeare's contemporaries including Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, and speculation about the life of Shakespeare himself. The information is surprising and fascinating. In the best chapter in the book, Burgess brilliantly imagines the first stage production of _Hamlet_. Likely named for Shakespeare's tragically short-lived son Hamnet, the play features Shakespeare's friend Richard Burbage in the title role. When Polonius tells Hamlet how he was once a player in his youth, and was "killed in the Capitol", acting as Julius Caesar, Hamlet remarks how one could kill "so capital a calf". Burgess reveals the joke shared by the actors and their Elizabethan audience: that in previous weeks, the actor who plays Polonius in the current production probably played the title role in Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_. Mr. Burgess also shows the parallels between the Histories and the current political concerns of the time: Henry V is also a commentary on the rise to power of the Earl of Essex, almost overtly stated by the Chorus in the beginning. Shakespeare's fellow playwrights and actors also figure in his lines. Buried in a play are the words, "It strikes a man more dead/Than a great reckoning in a little room," clearly a reference to the death of Marlowe. By tracing the artistic development and clarifying the backdrop of Elizabethan politics and history, Burgess's brilliant book will illuminate the plays and poems, generousl providing with much loving detail and attention to the reader a far greater understanding and appreciation--and inspiring a greater love--of Shakespeare.