Shakespeare: The World As A Stage: Bill Bryson

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In this book he time-travels. An American expat born in Des Moines, Iowa, a Briton by choice, Bill Bryson is an intentional and perpetual tourist, and it’s a great pleasure to accompany him on his foray into the 16th century. On 22 November 2012, Durham University officially renamed the Main Library the Bill Bryson Library for his contributions as the university's 11th chancellor (2005–2011). [40] [41] The library also has a cafe named after Bryson's book Notes from a Small Island. [42]

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. At this point, perhaps half way through or maybe a little less, I started to feel about this book as I did about the play you’re not supposed to name - i.e. it was failing to pique my interest sufficiently to motivate me carry on ploughing through it. I gave up. It’s not that it’s a bad book or that I feel that it won’t suit others – I really think it will for those that have a real interest in the man or his work - it’s just that it wasn’t working for me. I am not a big fan of either audio books or Shakespeare, but I needed a short something to listen to recently. So on a trip to the library I chose this one because: In other words, there’s really no way of finding anything in the book. How many chapters are there? What was that one called? And where the hell was it? Well, mount an expedition.

Reading 'Shakespeare The World As Stage', however, one gets the sense that this eclectic Iowan is exactly the type of person the Bard himself would have selected for the task.

The riches this man brought to our language are staggering, not just in terms of his plays, but the number of words he brought into the language and the seemingly endless quotable quotes that are now virtually cliches. We also talk about his great rival, C. Marlowe. In 1598: Shakespeare joined the troop of the Chamberlain, whom he would never leave. They were actors of the king later. It specified that Shakespeare sought his ideas elsewhere for most of his plays while sublimating the text. But all the authors did that at that time. Dream of a Summer Night, Love's Labour's Lost, and The Tempest are three pieces only of his own. I was fascinated to learn that Shakespeare created new words for his time as "excellent, vast, lonely, frugal, ..." Bryson has written several books, including the prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything . The book under review is provided as a volume in the “Eminent Lives” series of concise biographies by various authors and, as such, conforms to an imposed restriction on length. With candid honesty that permeates his offering, Bryson notes that the world didn’t really need another Shakespeare biography but that the “Eminent Lives” series did. Bryson is straightforward in admitting that no groundbreaking research is presented, but rather the biography gathers the known facts, the supposed facts, and much pithy innuendo into a single engaging and accessible overview. Bryson’s strength, then, lies not so much in his Shakespearean expertise but rather in his obvious ability to turn a phrase. He seems to have been a handsome man, mind keen, sweet. He had a busy schedule as an actor and actor in London. One can imagine without being mistaken that he was a very active man. It believes that he retired to his native village to write his plays. When his stage plays were successful, he led a comfortable life.a b "Bill Bryson breaks retirement to record Christmas audiobook". The Guardian. 27 September 2022 . Retrieved 13 December 2022. 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.”

Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare of Stratfrod was unquestionably that man -- whoever he was.” Közben meg persze igazából arról van szó, hogy Brysont nem az érdekli, mit tudunk Shakespeare-ről (arról már úgyis kismilliom-egy oldalt összeírtak), hanem hogy miért csak ennyit. Amire az egyik válasz természetesen az, hogy mert a csávó retek régen élt. A másik meg az, hogy amikor élt, nem gondolt arra, hogy 500 év múlva irodalomtörténészek fognak ölre menni a "Ki volt Shakespeare?" kérdésen. Hat fennmaradt aláírása van (közülük három - a végrendeletét díszítő - nem is biztosan az övé), és ezeken kétszer nem tudta ugyanúgy leírni a saját nevét - komolyan, mintha trollkodni akart volna a kutatókkal. Közben meg nyilván csak lazán fogta fel a helyesírást, mint akkoriban mindenki - inkább ajánlásnak, mint szabályrendszernek tekintette, pont ahogy a kortárs facebook-kommenterek egy része. Un personaje tan famoso e ilustre como desconocido. De Shakespeare no se sabe prácticamente nada. Por no saber, ni se sabe en qué orden escribió su extensa obra. Nada sobre sus pensamientos ni reflexiones personales. Nada sobre sus apetencias sexuales. Nada sobre su relación personal con su familia. NADA. Y, sin embargo, a lo largo de la historia, ingente cantidad de personalidades han dedicado su vida a desentrañar al (posiblemente) mejor dramaturgo de todos los tiempos. Y no hablemos de diseccionar su obra línea por línea. In the work he cites scholars such as Stephen Greenblatt, Frank Kermode, Edmond Malone, Samuel Schoenbaum, Caroline Spurgeon and Charles William Wallace.

The short answer to this is not much. We don’t know, for instance, exactly when he was born or how to spell his name or whether he ever left England or who his best friends were. “His sexuality,” Mr. Bryson deduces, “is an irreconcilable mystery.” The book is also available as an unabridged audiobook, published by Harper Audio and read by the author. For example, he begins with the visual image of Shakespeare as we know it. He efficiently dissects the three images most closely associated with him, the three on which all others are based: the Chandos portrait (which may not be Shakespeare); the engraving which appeared as the frontispiece of the First Folio (which is bloody awful); and the bust that is part of his memorial (many of the details of which have been obliterated). Did he look like any or all of these? Maybe. What, exactly, did he look like? We don't really know.