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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... wrote for, comments on the glamorous side, the making of the plays and poems. Sometimes it does this in negative ways. He is as we would wish him, “pregnant to good pity” like his Edgar in King Lear (4.1), but he is also a hard-eyed ...
... wrote for, comments on the glamorous side, the making of the plays and poems. Sometimes it does this in negative ways. He is as we would wish him, “pregnant to good pity” like his Edgar in King Lear (4.1), but he is also a hard-eyed ...
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... wrote, in tragedy, no doubt, but in the histories and comedies too, his agon is primarily moral. I don't say moralizing, never that. Whether the hero wins or loses or even lives or dies isn't the play's matter of moment. Banquo in ...
... wrote, in tragedy, no doubt, but in the histories and comedies too, his agon is primarily moral. I don't say moralizing, never that. Whether the hero wins or loses or even lives or dies isn't the play's matter of moment. Banquo in ...
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... the right instinct. He wrote from hatred, aggravated by self-hatred, so made a doubtful reporter. The “divers of worship” who corrected him, knowing this, meant to set the facts straight. Shakespeare's first scholars, they The Country.
... the right instinct. He wrote from hatred, aggravated by self-hatred, so made a doubtful reporter. The “divers of worship” who corrected him, knowing this, meant to set the facts straight. Shakespeare's first scholars, they The Country.
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... wrote for the theater in the English Renaissance. More is known about Shakespeare than any of them, possibly excepting Ben Jonson. He had his proper start in life, “born anew of water and the Holy Ghost.” The record identifies the ...
... wrote for the theater in the English Renaissance. More is known about Shakespeare than any of them, possibly excepting Ben Jonson. He had his proper start in life, “born anew of water and the Holy Ghost.” The record identifies the ...
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... wrote their names in his “table book,” one Peto among them. This Peto, dredged from memory, returns as a crony of Falstaff's. Bardolph, a rogue and toper, is Falstaff's crony too, and Fluellen, a pedantic soldier, has his part in the ...
... wrote their names in his “table book,” one Peto among them. This Peto, dredged from memory, returns as a crony of Falstaff's. Bardolph, a rogue and toper, is Falstaff's crony too, and Fluellen, a pedantic soldier, has his part in the ...
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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