Shakespeare

Rating:
Summary: shows how a real scholar does it
Review: Michael Wood presents the information in a calm, rational way, and shows how a real scholar approaches a subject - as opposed to the breathless crackpots who push any number of wacky Shakespeare authorship conspiracies. On the web site for his TV series, Wood notes that there have been more programs on Shakespeare conspiracies than on Shakespeare himself. Sadly true!

Rating:
Summary: Definitively researched and thoroughly involving
Review: Shakespeare by author, filmmaker, and television producer Michael Wood is a biography of the man who is justifiable considered to be the greatest playwright in the literary history of the English language. Wood delves into the archival evidence to reconstitute as accurate as possible a picture of the Elizabethan England in which William Shakespeare lived, and bringing together insights into the live and work of this gifted man, including his family, his sources of inspiration, his personal attitude on social issues, and more. Enhanced throughout with illustrations, Shakespeare is a superbly written, definitively researched, and thoroughly involving, and enthusiastically recommended biographical study.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: This book retreads other (better) scholars' work and the "new" revelations are anywhere from 20 to 60 years old. Most of Wood's interesting material derives from E.A.J. Honigmann's classic "Shakespeare: The Lost Years" (1985, 2nd ed. 1999). Wood's fanciful conjectures about Robert Southwell & Shakespeare come from chapter 18 of Christopher Devlin's 1956 biography of Southwell. I don't have space for his other debts: Save your time and skip reading this one. If you like the pictures (which are good) wait for it to get remaindered (which won't be long). [If you need a good, well-written "popular" biography of Shakespeare get Anthony Burgess--and the Honigmann for supplementary material.] Unfortunately despite Michael Wood's enthusiasm for his subject there is no excuse for slovenly scholarship.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: This book retreads other (better) scholars' work and the "new" revelations are anywhere from 20 to 60 years old. Most of Wood's interesting material derives from E.A.J. Honigmann's classic "Shakespeare: The Lost Years" (1985, 2nd ed. 1999). Wood's fanciful conjectures about Robert Southwell & Shakespeare come from chapter 18 of Christopher Devlin's 1956 biography of Southwell. I don't have space for his other debts: Save your time and skip reading this one. If you like the pictures (which are good) wait for it to get remaindered (which won't be long). [If you need a good, well-written "popular" biography of Shakespeare get Anthony Burgess--and the Honigmann for supplementary material.] Unfortunately despite Michael Wood's enthusiasm for his subject there is no excuse for slovenly scholarship.

Rating:
Summary: Trust him . . . his unidentified sources are probably right!
Review: This is just another entry in the argument over who wrote Shakespeare, that tries to pretend like there is no argument. Finally, on page 49 the argument rears its head in the discussion of Shakespeare's schooling. "In due course young William moved on to the grammar school: for seven years from 1571 he attended Big School . . .in Church Lane, between the almshouses and the guild chapel. Given the controversy that still surrounds the authorship of the plays, and the persistence of they myth that Shakespeare must have been an uneducated provincial, that last sentence may seem over-confident." Wood then backtracks a little and calls the school attendance "near certain." He then says that the plays themselves "betray the fact that the author was steeped in the Tudor grammar school curriculum." And yet Wood does not want us to believe that whoever wrote the plays was well educated in a variety of topics, including those covered in Tudor grammar schools. He wants us to believe that Shakespeare was so educated.

Wood is inherently untrustworthy because he wants so badly for the reader to believe so much more than the evidence supports, and to ignore problems with Shakespeare's authorship.

It is nonetheless a good read for people who are fascinated by the question of who wrote Shakespeare. Before reading this I recommend "Who Wrote Shakespeare" by John Michell (1996). Then read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Trust him . . . his unidentified sources are probably right!
Review: Wood leads us into the woods, leaving fact and reality behind. His book, like his 'documentary', leverages all of the latest and greatest speculation into a miraculous and utterly fictional portrait. He would do well to read Schoenbaum, not to mention Price. As entertainment, a 'C'. As biography, an 'F'.

Rating:
Summary: In the woods
Review: Wood leads us into the woods, leaving fact and reality behind. His book, like his 'documentary', leverages all of the latest and greatest speculation into a miraculous and utterly fictional portrait. He would do well to read Schoenbaum, not to mention Price. As entertainment, a 'C'. As biography, an 'F'.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but flawed.
Review: Wood's biography of Shakespeare has a number of strong points. The images are very good, the writing is lively, and the author spins a very engaging narrative. However, there are also some serious flaws. Wood conjures interesting possibilities and conjectures (the secret Catholicism of Shakespeare's father, the identities of the Dark Lady and the young male subject of the sonnets), which he then proceeds to write about as confirmed facts. I don't fault him for the interesting ideas, but I find his treatment lacking in serious scholarship, a lack compounded by the absence of detailed notes on the sources of his provocative ideas. Good researchers should cite their research sources.

Wood's book is interesting, but misleading. I wouldn't warn anyone away from it, but I would recommend reading a better biography first. Stanley Wells's "Shakespeare: For All Time" or Park Honan's "Shakespeare: A Life" are both fine books. (The former takes a more expansive view, including both biography and theatre history since Shakespeare's time, which is a real plus for anyone interested in how his works have been interpreted in different countries and eras.) Both also treat the "authorship controversy," which is mostly a fringe conspiracy theory quite well. I'd say read one of those first to gain an idea of what responsible scholarship looks like, then read Wood's book with a critical eye.