Shakespeare: The World As A Stage: Bill Bryson

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Shakespeare's biography is sketchy, and ever thus it shall remain. This little book represents Bill Bryson's attempt to collect what scant information exists, and to debunk a few spurious claims. I can't say I know much more about Sweet Will now than I did before reading the book, but Bryson is not to blame. People didn't reliably keep records 400 years ago. There were no standardized spellings for English words, so a lot of what was written down is indecipherable. Furthermore, no one anticipated Shakespeare's enduring popularity, so they weren't clamoring to write his biography while he was still alive. In fact, "playwriting was not an esteemed profession, and its practice, however accomplished, gained one little critical respect." We don’t know if he ever left England. We don’t know who his principal companions were or how he amused himself. His sexuality is an irreconcilable mystery. On only a handful of days in his life can we say with absolute certainty where he was.” The Library of Congress in Washington contains about seven thousand works on Shakespeare - twenty years' worth of reading if read at the rate of one a day....and the number keeps growing. Shakespeare Quarterly the most exhaustive of bibliographers, logs about four thousand serious new works - books, monographs, other studies - every year.

What a great entertaining listen! I listened to it on my way to work and doing the dishes this week. It's not a surprise that this is short. First off, it belongs as part of a series of concise biographies. Secondly, there isn't much known about Shakespeare, so biographies of him should be short. Why go on and on about something if there's nothing to go on about?! It is often said that what sets Shakespeare apart is his ability to illuminate the workings of the soul and so on, and he does that superbly, goodness knows, but what really characterizes his work - every bit of it, in poems and plays and even dedications, throughout every portion of his career - is a positive and palpable appreciation of the transfixing power of language. A Midsummer Night's Dream remains an enchanting work after four hundred years, but few could argue that it cuts to the very heart of human behaviour. What it does is take, and give, a positive satisfaction in the joyous possibilities of verbal expression.” The series in question is Eminent Lives, which describes itself as “brief biographies by distinguished authors on canonical figures.” (The general editor, James Atlas, is the matchmaker.) Thus, Mr. Bryson sets off on a mission: “[To] see how much of Shakespeare we can know, really know, from the record.”Although able to apply for British citizenship, Bryson said in 2010 that he had declined a citizenship test, declaring himself "too cowardly" to take it. [19] However, in 2014, he said that he was preparing to take it [20] and in the prologue to his 2015 book The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From a Small Island he describes doing so, in Eastleigh. His citizenship ceremony took place in Winchester and he now holds dual citizenship. [15] Writings [ edit ] a b Crace, John (15 November 2005). "Bill Bryson: The accidental chancellor". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 10 February 2008 . Retrieved 26 April 2010. Bill Bryson’s biography of William Shakespeare unravels the superstitions, academic discoveries and myths surrounding the life of our greatest poet and playwright. Ever since he took the theatre of Elizabethan London by storm over 400 years ago, Shakespeare has remained centre stage. His fame stems not only from his plays – performed everywhere from school halls to the world's most illustrious theatres – but also from his enigmatic persona. His face is familiar to all, yet in reality very little is known about the man behind the masterpieces.

University of Winchester honours prominent figures at Graduation 2016". Archived from the original on 4 January 2017 . Retrieved 3 January 2017. In November 2006, Bryson interviewed then British prime minister Tony Blair on the state of science and education. [25] For a better assimilation of the capsule, Bryson needs to correct our modern expectations, and remind us that to know so little about a sixteenth century craftsman is nothing out of the ordinary. Most of the material from the sixteenth century has been lost. What is most miraculous about surviving in Shakespeare is that, given the frightful odds, he withstood childhood and got to be an adult. Bryson insists on the very exceptional situation that so much of his works have survived, and this is thanks to the initiative of two of WS’s friends and colleagues, Henry Condell and John Heminges, who decided to publish the First Folio posthumously.How was his marriage to Anne Hathaway? We have no idea – we don't even know that "Anne" was her name; her father's will refers to her as Agnes. I never knew that. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was at the time American consul in Liverpool, provided a preface, then almost instantly wished he hadn’t, for the book was universally regarded by reviewers as preposterous hokum. Hawthorne under questioning admitted that he hadn’t actually read it. “This shall be the last of my benevolent follies, and I will never be kind to anybody again as long as [I] live,” he vowed in a letter to a friend.” PM in conversation with Bill Bryson", number10.gov.uk, UK Prime Minister's Office (published 30 November 2006), 29 November 2006, archived from the original on 27 October 2007 , retrieved 10 April 2009 Bill Bryson stepping down as Chancellor". Durham University. 20 September 2010 . Retrieved 4 July 2011.

So I listened to this one and was pleasantly entertained and learned a lot of very interesting things presented in an amusing way. One of the things I learned is that Bill Bryson has a very British accent after having lived in England for many years, despite the fact that he was born and raised in Iowa. One theory is that Shakespeare's plays weren't particularly original,and that he may have taken the main ideas of his plays from other sources. Bill Bryson receives Honorary Doctorate". University Business. 26 July 2015 . Retrieved 16 July 2018. The Main Library is being renamed 'The Bill Bryson Library'!". Durham University. 25 September 2012 . Retrieved 27 November 2012. Mr. Bryson goes off at times on amusing tangents, makes pointed parenthetical remarks and is otherwise completely charming and conversational, like a good host. The pleasure of his company cannot, to borrow a phase from him, “be emphasized too strenuously.”In 2012, he received the Kenneth B. Myer Award, from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience, in Melbourne, Australia. [ citation needed] Spectators could, for an additional fee, sit on the stage—something not permitted at the Globe. With stage seating, audience members could show off their finery to maximum effect, and the practice was lucrative; but it contained an obvious risk of distraction. Stephen Greenblatt relates an occasion in which a nobleman who had secured a perch on the stage spied a friend entering across the way and strode through the performance to greet him. When rebuked by an actor for his thoughtlessness, the nobleman slapped the impertinent fellow and the audience rioted.” Bryson was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2013, [43] becoming the first non-Briton to receive this honour. [44] [45] His biography at the Society reads: General admission for groundlings - those who stood in the open around the stage - was a penny. Those who wished to sit paid a penny more, and those who desired a cushion paid another penny on top of that - all this at a time when a day's wage was one shilling (12 pence) or less. The money was dropped in a box, which was taken to a special room for safekeeping - the box office.