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How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
W. W. Norton & Company
October 2004
On Sale: September 30, 2004
386 pages
ISBN: 0393050572
EAN: 9780393050578
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
A brilliant reading of Shakespeare's world yields a new understanding of the man and his genius. A young man from the provincesβa man without wealth, connections, or university educationβmoves to London. In a remarkably short time he becomes the greatest playwright not just of his age but of all time. His works appeal to urban sophisticates and first-time theatergoers; he turns politics into poetry; he recklessly mingles vulgar clowning and philosophical subtlety. How is such an achievement to be explained? 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. Above all, we never lose sight of the great worksβA Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and moreβthat continue after four hundred years to delight and haunt audiences everywhere. 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.
 Media BuzzColbert Report - October 2, 2008
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