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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... play develops, and the moon looks down with a watery eye. That tragedy is averted is a piece of good luck, but that isn't why we are happy. The play makes us happy because it finds serious matter in a forgettable occasion and turns it ...
... play develops, and the moon looks down with a watery eye. That tragedy is averted is a piece of good luck, but that isn't why we are happy. The play makes us happy because it finds serious matter in a forgettable occasion and turns it ...
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... play will turn out, do we not, and not because we have read or seen it before. The end it moves toward inexorably is ... play's formal reticule to bursting. Macbeth tells of two spent swimmers who cling to each other and “choke their art ...
... play will turn out, do we not, and not because we have read or seen it before. The end it moves toward inexorably is ... play's formal reticule to bursting. Macbeth tells of two spent swimmers who cling to each other and “choke their art ...
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... play's climactic scene, Hotspur, “a very valiant rebel,” rises into an atmosphere purer than ours, purer even than Hal's. “Oh gentlemen, the time of life is short,” he says. “To spend that shortness basely were too long,/ If life did ...
... play's climactic scene, Hotspur, “a very valiant rebel,” rises into an atmosphere purer than ours, purer even than Hal's. “Oh gentlemen, the time of life is short,” he says. “To spend that shortness basely were too long,/ If life did ...
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... play's matter of moment. Banquo in Macbeth suggests what this is when he resolves to keep his “bosom franchised ... play, vindicating our erected flesh, makes us happy. But whatever the ending or the emotion it arouses, the scheme of the ...
... play's matter of moment. Banquo in Macbeth suggests what this is when he resolves to keep his “bosom franchised ... play, vindicating our erected flesh, makes us happy. But whatever the ending or the emotion it arouses, the scheme of the ...
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... play begets laughter, not tears. “The will of man is by his reason swayed,” says an inconstant lover in A Midsummer Night's Dream (2.2). But Lysander in the teeth of reason deserts his true love for “a worthier maid,” his fancy or ...
... play begets laughter, not tears. “The will of man is by his reason swayed,” says an inconstant lover in A Midsummer Night's Dream (2.2). But Lysander in the teeth of reason deserts his true love for “a worthier maid,” his fancy or ...
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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