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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... thought no higher praise could be ventured. Among twentieth-century biographers of Shakespeare, two share his fierce honesty, the kind that felt an error like a wound. E.K. Chambers comes first—while he lived he was primus inter pares ...
... thought no higher praise could be ventured. Among twentieth-century biographers of Shakespeare, two share his fierce honesty, the kind that felt an error like a wound. E.K. Chambers comes first—while he lived he was primus inter pares ...
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... Measure for Measure (4.4), we can't get rid of them. Perhaps, a disturbing thought, we aren't meant to. Perhaps evil exists in a symbiotic relation to good, as when we hear of a snuff that lives within the flame of love and will quench.
... Measure for Measure (4.4), we can't get rid of them. Perhaps, a disturbing thought, we aren't meant to. Perhaps evil exists in a symbiotic relation to good, as when we hear of a snuff that lives within the flame of love and will quench.
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... thought images like these made a skein of imperatives, the voice of moral Shakespeare. When, in Richard II, life peers “through the hollow eyes of death” (2.1), I saw a skull in which a sheaf of wheat was growing. The sign of new and ...
... thought images like these made a skein of imperatives, the voice of moral Shakespeare. When, in Richard II, life peers “through the hollow eyes of death” (2.1), I saw a skull in which a sheaf of wheat was growing. The sign of new and ...
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... Montfort, greatest of the barons, died fighting King Henry III. At Bosworth Field, north and east, Henry VII, another maker and shaker, ended the Wars of the Roses in 1485. Shakespeares fought in this battle, or the Heralds' College ...
... Montfort, greatest of the barons, died fighting King Henry III. At Bosworth Field, north and east, Henry VII, another maker and shaker, ended the Wars of the Roses in 1485. Shakespeares fought in this battle, or the Heralds' College ...
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... thought so, a reason for the bristling crest it awarded them later, a falcon shaking a spear. Coventry, fourth largest city in the kingdom, dominating the Midlands, made a bone of contention in the Wars of the Roses. Mastiffs, York and ...
... thought so, a reason for the bristling crest it awarded them later, a falcon shaking a spear. Coventry, fourth largest city in the kingdom, dominating the Midlands, made a bone of contention in the Wars of the Roses. Mastiffs, York and ...
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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