Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

by Stephen Greenblatt Narrated by Peter Jay Fernandez

Overview

Will in the World interweaves a searching account of Elizabethan England with a vivid narrative of the playwright's life. We see Shakespeare learning his craft, starting a family, and forging a career for himself in the wildly competitive London theater world, while at the same time grappling with dangerous religious and political forces that took less-agile figures to the scaffold. The basic biographical facts of Shakespeare's life have been known for over a century, but now Stephen Greenblatt shows how this particular life history gave rise to the world's greatest writer.

Editorial Reviews

Michiko Kakutani

There are no obscure invocations of the French philosopher Michel Foucault in these pages, no pseudo-Marxist readings of Shakespeare's plays. Instead, in the opening sections of this book, Mr. Greenblatt succinctly and vividly conjures up the Elizabethan world in which young Will came of age, showing how the religious and political upheavals of the day, as well as contemporaneous aesthetic conventions, shaped his sensibility and his work.
— The New York Times

Arthur Kirsch

… Greenblatt has unusual talents. He is learned, he marshals an enormous amount of detail in the book, and he depicts the fabric of Elizabethan life, both its paranoia and festivities, compellingly. He is a masterful storyteller; his prose is elegant and subtle, if sometimes slippery; and his imagination is rich and interesting. When he focuses more exclusively on Shakespeare's texts, as he does in his chapter on the sonnets, he is a brilliant critic. One can see why Will in the World is a nominee for the National Book Award.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

This much-awaited new biography of the elusive Bard is brilliant in conception, often superb in execution, but sometimes-perhaps inevitably-disappointing in its degree of speculativeness. Bardolators may take this last for granted, but curious lay readers seeking a fully cohesive and convincing life may at times feel the accumulation of "may haves," "might haves" and "could haves" make it difficult to suspend disbelief. Greenblatt's espousing, for instance, of the theory that Shakespeare's "lost" years before arriving in London were spent in Lancashire leads to suppositions that he might have met the Catholic subversive Edmund Campion, and how that might have affected him-and it all rests on one factoid: the bequeathing by a nobleman of some player's items to a William Shakeshafte, who may, plausibly, have been the young Shakespeare. Nevertheless, Norton Shakespeare general editor and New Historicist Greenblatt succeed impressively in locating the man in both his greatest works and the turbulent world in which he lived. With a blend of biography, literary interpretation and history, Greenblatt persuasively analyzes William's father's rise and fall as a public figure in Stratford, which pulled him in both Protestant and Catholic directions and made his eldest son "a master of double consciousness." In a virtuoso display of historical and literary criticism, Greenblatt contrasts Christopher Marlowe's Jew of Malta, Elizabeth's unfortunate Sephardic physician-who was executed for conspiracy-and Shakespeare's ambiguous villain Shylock. This wonderful study, built on a lifetime's scholarship and a profound ability to perceive the life within the texts, creates as vivid and full portrait of Shakespeare as we are likely ever to have. 16 pages color illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Jill Kneerim. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Greenblatt (humanities, Harvard; Hamlet in Purgatory) here provides a vivid and plausible version of the undocumented areas of Shakespeare's life. Drawing heavily on literary studies and his impressive knowledge of cultural history to amplify the few known facts about Shakespeare, Greenblatt re-creates a life for Shakespeare that is possible; however, he provides little definitive data to support his conclusions. Short bibliographic essays for each chapter listing Greenblatt's sources are provided at the book's end. Students and scholars will be better served by Michael Wood's Shakespeare, which covers the same ground but provides better documentation of sources and more clearly indicates where the author provides his own deductions about Shakespeare's life. Still, people wanting a general biography of Shakespeare will find this intriguing. Recommended for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/04.] Shana C. Fair, Ohio Univ. Lib., Zanesville Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Newsday - Dan Cryer

"So engrossing, clearheaded, and lucid that its arrival is not just welcome but cause for celebration."

Wall Street Journal - Denis Donoghue

"A magnificent achievement."

Esquire - Adam Morgan

"Greenblatt’s masterful biography is like traveling back in time to see firsthand how a small-town Englishman became the greatest writer of all time."

Time - Richard Lacayo

"Dazzling and subtle."

Boston Sunday Globe - William E. Cain

"Vividly written, richly detailed, and insightful from first chapter to last…certain to secure a place among the essential studies of the greatest of all writers."

Laura Miller - Salon

Greenblatt takes the bits we do know, nourishes them with a thorough understanding of the Elizabethan world Shakespeare inhabited, and then coaxes each bud of information to flower within our understanding of the plays.... Only a churl would be unpersuaded by it.

Robert Hurwitt - San Francisco Chronicle

An exceptionally well-told tale, an engrossing page-turner, in fact.

Adam Gopnik - The New Yorker

The most complexly intelligent and sophisticated, and yet the most keenly enthusiastic, study of the life and work taken together that I have ever read.

Maureen Corrigan - "Fresh Air"

Greenblatt's revelatory book pays tribute to the glorious democracy of Shakespeare's art by the openness and elegance of his own writing style.

Charles Mee

At last, the book Shakespeare has deserved: a brilliant book written by a virtual eyewitness who understands how a playwright takes the stuff of his life and his world and makes it into theater.
”

FEB/MAR 05 - AudioFile

Greenblatt offers many facts about Shakespeare’s times, many wild conjectures about Shakespeare’s life, and many specious analyses about Shakespeare’s art. Written divertingly, if not convincingly, the book is yet another critical exegesis on the Bard of Avon’s life and times. What sets it apart is the engaging performance of narrator Peter Jay Fernandez, whose obvious relish for this material--especially the excerpts from the plays--is evident throughout. He is not the most insightful or graceful interpreter of the poet’s writings, but he is by no means the worst either. He enjoys quoting the Elizabethan sources, and his relish is infectious. Those who may miss a British accent should be reminded that Shakespeare and his fellow players did not have what we today recognize as a British accent. Y.R. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170997817
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/10/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

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