Shakespeare: A Life in ArtShakespeare: A Life in Art brings together in a single volume Fraser's previously published two-volume biography (Young Shakespeare, 1988, and Shakespeare: The Later Years, 1992). This volume includes a new introduction, which looks back on the author's lifelong commitment to Shakespeare's work and seeks to find the pattern in his carpet.Fraser's approach places Shakespeare's work first but shows how the life and art interpenetrate, like the yolk and white of one shell. What Shakespeare was doing in Stratford and London underlies what he was writing, or more exactly, the two flow together. Most of the book is devoted to Shakespeare the man and artist, but it simultaneously throws light on his literary and personal relations with contemporaries such as Jonson, Marlowe, and others known as the University Wits. His experience as an actor and man of theater is absorbingly recounted here, as well as his relations to well-born patrons like the Earl of Southampton and Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon (England's Lord Chamberlain). In 1603 when James I ascended the throne, the Chamberlain's Men became the King's Men, passing under the sovereign's protection. How Shakespeare responded to his ambiguous role--he was both servant to the great and their remorseless critic--is another of Fraser's subjects. In short, Fraser's principal purpose is to advance our understanding of Shakespeare, at the same time throwing light on the work of the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul. John Dryden, Shakespeare's first great critic, said that, and Fraser tries to estimate what he meant. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 70
Page
... English-Early modern, 1500-1700-- Biography. I. Fraser, Russell A. Young Shakespeare. II. Fraser, Russell A. Shakespeare, the later years. III. Title. PR2894.F65 2007 822.3'3--dc22 [B] 2006053015 ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-0605-3 (pbk) For Ted ...
... English-Early modern, 1500-1700-- Biography. I. Fraser, Russell A. Young Shakespeare. II. Fraser, Russell A. Shakespeare, the later years. III. Title. PR2894.F65 2007 822.3'3--dc22 [B] 2006053015 ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-0605-3 (pbk) For Ted ...
Page
... English. In donnish J. Q. Adams (1923), moving backward from the present, enthusiasm leaks away. His Shakespeare is a prosaic man of theater, not a poet in his wildest dreams. Gain goes with loss, though, and he spares us the divine ...
... English. In donnish J. Q. Adams (1923), moving backward from the present, enthusiasm leaks away. His Shakespeare is a prosaic man of theater, not a poet in his wildest dreams. Gain goes with loss, though, and he spares us the divine ...
Page
... English at Nebraska, she a Midwestern farm girl who married him and spent her life inhaling the dust of rare Book rooms, achieved the single greatest coup in the annals of Shakespeare biography. In 1909, mining the dark galleries of the ...
... English at Nebraska, she a Midwestern farm girl who married him and spent her life inhaling the dust of rare Book rooms, achieved the single greatest coup in the annals of Shakespeare biography. In 1909, mining the dark galleries of the ...
Page
... English Renaissance. More is known about Shakespeare than any of them, possibly excepting Ben Jonson. He had his proper start in life, “born anew of water and the Holy Ghost.” The record identifies the priest who baptized him, and the ...
... English Renaissance. More is known about Shakespeare than any of them, possibly excepting Ben Jonson. He had his proper start in life, “born anew of water and the Holy Ghost.” The record identifies the priest who baptized him, and the ...
Page
... English people supported these churches, bigger than they had to be, is an index of the difference between Shakespeare's time and ours. England before the Reformation, a God-bitten country, made a third place between heaven and hell ...
... English people supported these churches, bigger than they had to be, is an index of the difference between Shakespeare's time and ours. England before the Reformation, a God-bitten country, made a third place between heaven and hell ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
actors Antony Blackfriars blood Burbage Caesar called Chamberlain’s church comedy comic Coriolanus Court Cymbeline dark daughter death died doesn’t Duke Earl Elizabeth England English Essex Falstaff famous father fellow Garden Globe God’s Hamlet hand Henry VIII hero’s heroine history plays honor isn’t John Shakespeare Jonson King Lear King’s knew later lived London looks Lord Love’s Macbeth man’s Marlowe Marlowe’s master means Measure for Measure Midsummer Night’s Dream moral nature Othello Paul’s perhaps play’s players playhouse playwright plot poem poet Puritans Queen readers remembered Richard Richard II Romeo says scene Shakespeare’s characters Shakespeare’s hero Shakespeare’s play Snitterfield sonnets Southampton stage story Stratford Street tale tells theater things thinks Thomas thought Titus Andronicus took tragedy Troilus and Cressida truth turned Twelfth Night villain wanted William words wrote young Shakespeare