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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... tells of two spent swimmers who cling to each other and “choke their art,” that is, defeat its intents, so lessen their chance for survival. Plays or poems of the second rank evade this danger by sticking to exclusive categories whose ...
... tells of two spent swimmers who cling to each other and “choke their art,” that is, defeat its intents, so lessen their chance for survival. Plays or poems of the second rank evade this danger by sticking to exclusive categories whose ...
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... tells us: it tells us we are free. Shakespeare's villains endorse the second proposition, for example, Iago: “Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus” (Othello, 1.3); and Edmund in Lear: “This is the excellent foppery of the world ...
... tells us: it tells us we are free. Shakespeare's villains endorse the second proposition, for example, Iago: “Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus” (Othello, 1.3); and Edmund in Lear: “This is the excellent foppery of the world ...
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... tells Miranda, “We cannot miss (i.e., do without) him” (1.2). We are an amalgam, mind and matter, reason and will, and the monster is part of us, indelibly that. Also he is useful, like the brawn to the brain that commands it. The comic ...
... tells Miranda, “We cannot miss (i.e., do without) him” (1.2). We are an amalgam, mind and matter, reason and will, and the monster is part of us, indelibly that. Also he is useful, like the brawn to the brain that commands it. The comic ...
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... tells us that nature has at its disposal both meal and bran, good and worthless materials, and our sire determines which will go into our making. “Cowards father cowards and base things base” (4.2). It sounds a little like bloodlines in ...
... tells us that nature has at its disposal both meal and bran, good and worthless materials, and our sire determines which will go into our making. “Cowards father cowards and base things base” (4.2). It sounds a little like bloodlines in ...
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... tells us what happened. The tip of the iceberg, i.e. a play and impersonal, it rests on the personal life submerged below. THE LIFE needs its wider context, Tudor England, a world turned upside down. Shakespeare's forcing house, it left ...
... tells us what happened. The tip of the iceberg, i.e. a play and impersonal, it rests on the personal life submerged below. THE LIFE needs its wider context, Tudor England, a world turned upside down. Shakespeare's forcing house, it left ...
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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