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
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... fellow,” as they say of Falstaff, but visibly there. His age, like our own, was more or less myopic, and its vision of things— “purblind” or “sandblind,” words he uses—was what he had to work with. Cultural historians, alert to this ...
... fellow,” as they say of Falstaff, but visibly there. His age, like our own, was more or less myopic, and its vision of things— “purblind” or “sandblind,” words he uses—was what he had to work with. Cultural historians, alert to this ...
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... fellow actors. Taken together, they offer a likeness of this “sweet swan of Avon,” Jonson's phrase in his poem prefaced to the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare's plays not being true confessions, the likeness is skewed, as with those ...
... fellow actors. Taken together, they offer a likeness of this “sweet swan of Avon,” Jonson's phrase in his poem prefaced to the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare's plays not being true confessions, the likeness is skewed, as with those ...
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... fellow,” says King Lear, “handles his bow like a crowkeeper.” Like jolly folk in a Breughel painting, assimilated to the plough, the villagers had their feast days, a respite from toil. They stuffed themselves on feast days, astonishing ...
... fellow,” says King Lear, “handles his bow like a crowkeeper.” Like jolly folk in a Breughel painting, assimilated to the plough, the villagers had their feast days, a respite from toil. They stuffed themselves on feast days, astonishing ...
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... fellow,” no tainted wether of the flock, “but he durst have cracked a jest with him at any time.” “But,” being inconsequent, makes the anecdote ring true. Ambitious in worldly ways, John Shakespeare angled for office in the village ...
... fellow,” no tainted wether of the flock, “but he durst have cracked a jest with him at any time.” “But,” being inconsequent, makes the anecdote ring true. Ambitious in worldly ways, John Shakespeare angled for office in the village ...
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... fellows. The Stratford Borough Shakespeare knew was bounded on the north by the highway called Gild Pits, Guild Street today, on the west by Grove Road and Arden Street. To the south lay the Old Town. Hall's Croft fronts on the street ...
... fellows. The Stratford Borough Shakespeare knew was bounded on the north by the highway called Gild Pits, Guild Street today, on the west by Grove Road and Arden Street. To the south lay the Old Town. Hall's Croft fronts on the street ...
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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