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A carregar... William Shakespeare: A Life (1991)por Garry O'Connor
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Rather than taking on the Sisyphean task of sifting through the reams of documents generated by zealous scholars, British biographer O'Connor has chosen "to give Shakespeare a life, not only as a historical figure who can be brought to life, but the dimension of one who is still living."
(Applause Books). Garry O'Connor's biography creates a vivd impression of Shakespeare's family life, his marriage and sexuality, the intimate details of his background, and his relationships with the theatre, his audiences and the towering political figures of his time such as Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex. It captures the darkness and confusion of his religious feelings, and his painful search for identity as well as his continuous commitments to change and development. O'Connor imaginatively and persuasively reconstructs the playwright's life and career. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)822.33Literature English & Old English literatures English drama Elizabethan 1558-1625 Shakespeare, William 1564–1616Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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This. This is how that can be bad.
From the introduction: My aim has been to give Shakespeare a life, not only as a historical figure who can be brought to life, but the dimension of one who is still living. To do this I have dropped the usual tentative approach of scholars (the “might’s”, the “could have’s” and “may have’s”).
That's a nice idea, to a reader who loves Shakespeare. To a reader who loves Shakespeare and who has read biographies, looking for something new or fresh, it's horrendous. Because the problem with Shakespeare from that point of view is that perhaps every single aspect of his life, birth to death and everything in between, involves "'might’s', the 'could have’s' and 'may have’s'". That's why there's an authorship question in some people's minds: we just don't know much about the man at all.
The above quote worried me, a little. What worried me more was the author's statement that he would be using the plays and sonnets to extrapolate fact. I didn't make it far into the book, but even in the few pages I read there were at least a couple of statements – not presented as supposition, but absolute fact – which gave me actual pain:
- "Denied, or perhaps ultimately uninterested in, confession to a priest, he came over the years to turn his plays into secret and disguised confessionals, in which he could play both confessor and penitent."
- "Anne [Hathaway] was nurtured and protected by both Shakespeare and his mother as few women were in Elizabethan times." Which as far as I know is completely unsupported by anything known about the Shakespeare menage.
I am baffled about why this foundationless bubble of guesses and fantasy is presented as a biography. If it had a plot, this would be a novel; plotless, it's a tissue of lies.
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
ETA: The Goodreads quote of the day is entirely relevant to this book.
“There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot.”
― S.M. Stirling ( )