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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... knew him at first hand doesn't matter. Whoever his master in the art of making plays, his plays unfold sequentially. “These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,” says Antony, “Or lose myself in dotage” (1.2). Not breaking his fetters ...
... knew him at first hand doesn't matter. Whoever his master in the art of making plays, his plays unfold sequentially. “These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,” says Antony, “Or lose myself in dotage” (1.2). Not breaking his fetters ...
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... knew it as the Psychomachia or spirit war. It is the principal subject of Shakespearean drama. The antagonists in this struggle have their illustrious or notorious seconds: reason, on the side of good, throwing a light on the course we ...
... knew it as the Psychomachia or spirit war. It is the principal subject of Shakespearean drama. The antagonists in this struggle have their illustrious or notorious seconds: reason, on the side of good, throwing a light on the course we ...
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... knew about history, nobles fighting kings. Except to those who died, much of the fighting meant little. At the end of Henry IV, Part One, Shakespeare's best history play, the soldiers troop off together, resolved to go at it another day ...
... knew about history, nobles fighting kings. Except to those who died, much of the fighting meant little. At the end of Henry IV, Part One, Shakespeare's best history play, the soldiers troop off together, resolved to go at it another day ...
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... knew how to achieve it. When he died in the winter of 1561, he left goods worth almost £39, more than the neighborhood vicar. Warham, Henry VIII's Archbishop of Canterbury, died with only £30 in hand. He said it was enough for his ...
... knew how to achieve it. When he died in the winter of 1561, he left goods worth almost £39, more than the neighborhood vicar. Warham, Henry VIII's Archbishop of Canterbury, died with only £30 in hand. He said it was enough for his ...
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... knew survives in parish registers. They tell how in the 1580s his cousins, Lettice and James, children of Henry Shakespeare, were baptized in St. Peter's, the boy dying four years after his birth. Henry was Richard Shakespeare's younger ...
... knew survives in parish registers. They tell how in the 1580s his cousins, Lettice and James, children of Henry Shakespeare, were baptized in St. Peter's, the boy dying four years after his birth. Henry was Richard Shakespeare's younger ...
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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