Will in the World Audiobook By Stephen Greenblatt cover art

Will in the World

How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

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Will in the World

By: Stephen Greenblatt
Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
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Award-winning author Stephen Greenblatt is one of the most influential literary thinkers in the world. An acclaimed interpreter of Shakespeare's works, his ideas have changed the way countless people approach the classics. Now Greenblatt's uniquely brilliant voice delivers a magnificent biography of the Bard himself.

It is impossible to have any understanding of literature and not be familiar with William Shakepeare. He has influenced Western culture more than any other author. But how were Shakespeare's remarkable accomplishments even possible? How could a man without wealth, connections, or a university education move to London and quickly become the greatest playwright of all time? In this emerging narrative, Elizabethan England is reawakened, and we at last understand how Shakespeare became a legendary figure.

Don't miss Stephen Greenblatt talking about his book at the 2005 New York Times TimesTalk event, The Enigma of Shakespeare.©2004 Stephen Greenblatt (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC Cultural & Regional Education Entertainment & Performing Arts Literary History & Criticism Theater England Middle Ages Shakespeare

Critic reviews

"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." (Publishers Weekly)
Fascinating Historical Context • Compelling Biographical Speculation • Outstanding Narration • Insightful Analysis
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As a conectural biography this is really pretty good. The author summarizes what is known about Shakespeare and then uses lines from the plays to speculate about what he may have been like socially, religously and politcally. The author also gives a detailed snapshot of the Elizabethian era. This book makes me want to explore Elizabethian and Jacobean drama and biography in more depth.

One of the Best Biographies of the Bard

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Excellent and thought-provoking, would recommend to literary scholars and anyone who appreciates a good storyteller

So insightful!

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If you enjoy history. you will like this. Listebibg to parts of Shajespeare's plays made the histiry come alice.

worth listening to

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I've heard this three time now. The last time was after Anonymous came out because I couldn't see how anyone could think that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare. I still can't.

This may be may favorite book on Shakespeare. This book covers how young Shakespeare became the Barb. The detail is amazing and the narration is outstanding.

Just as good the third time

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A deep but absorbing analysis of the influences conditioning Shakespeare’s work, together with reflection upon and analysis of the works and life based on those influences. Cogent and convincing, written in an engaging, clear and lively that steers clear of the shoals of boring pedantry. An illuminating book.

Research, fluency and insight

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Greenblatt makes Shakespeare’s world come alive. He uses events and quotes from the plays to illustrate that world and in the process highlights the plays themselves. I plan to listen again - it was that enjoyable.

Absolutely wonderful!

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As other reviewers have said, this work is full of “ could have… might have… may have “. The author does weave together many fascinating possibilities and observations about Shakespeare’s life from the threads of his plays and the relatively sparse primary sources.

Interesting conjectures

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Greenblatt is one of the prime movers behind the Norton Shakespeare, my favorite edition of the plays, and I really wanted to like this book. As a discussion of Shakespeare in general, it's well-written, imaginative, and insightful. (It's also very well narrated by Peter Jay Fernandez.) But as a biography, it's deeply flawed.

Greenblatt gives gobs of space to poorly-documented and (sometimes totally) speculative aspects of Shakespeare's life. For example, many pages are given over to an imaginary late-night "bull session" between the young Shakespeare and a Catholic priest in Lancashire. The speculation is entertaining, but it's based on little more than a similarity in names: there was a William Shakeshaft in Lancashire at the time. Could Shakeshaft have been the young Shakespeare? Maybe, but he's more likely to be a relative of one of the many Shakeshafts who were also living in Lancashire.

Similarly, we're treated to many pages describing Shakespeare's supposedly awful marriage (pure speculation) and his close personal (and possibly sexual) relationship with the Earl of Southampton (even more speculative, this time without even a second-best bed as justification).

The problem is that these fantasias come at the expense of some aspects of Shakespeare's life for which there is substantially more documentation. As the most glaring example, consider Shakespeare's involvement with the Mountjoy family in the early 1600s: there are pages and pages of depositions, one of them from Shakespeare himself, others from people quoting Shakespeare's conversation. Charles Nicholl wrote a whole book on the subject ("The Lodger," available elsewhere on Audible). Greenblatt never even mentions it.

There's a lack of balance here. You want to speculate? Fine. But don't do it at the expense of well-grounded, contextualized, basic facts about your subject's daily life.

Flawed biography

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This book is outstanding from all key perspectives: it is well-narrated, it is well-written & organized, & it is a compelling piece of historical writing. I am confused by an earlier reviewer's idea that this is a degraded "politically correct" piece of work. I don't see that anywhere in the work. Clearly the author has sought to reconstruct Shakespeare's life & thought through the plays themselves & through historical works about the times in which he lived (historical works where he does not appear), & that is necessary since the track he left to us, 100s of years later, is 99.9% from his plays. But any reader of current literary biography knows that most of what appears in a great writer's work is semi-autobiographical, so there is no crime in speculating from the work-to-the-life. The author makes frequent use of caveats, so there is no attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. And their use enriches the work, it does not detract from it. One of the best books I've gotten from Audible.

Outstanding book-on-tape

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In this book, one learns about how Shakespeare became the writer that he was. He was not “into” his marriage or the concept of marriage at all. He got a young girl pregnant and was forced into marriage. He grew from there. The time of change from Catholic to Protestant affected his family deeply. A strong read with many historical twists!

Really?

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