When S. Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives first appeared over twenty years ago, critics enthusiastically hailed it as a triumph of wit and scholarship. Stanley Wells, the editor of Shakespeare's complete works, called it "an extraordinary achievement....fluent, vivid, and intelligent." Writing in the Saturday Review , Benjamin DeMott described Shakespeare's Lives as "a superbly informed, elegantly composed, intensely readable book," while Terry Eagleton remarked on its "shrewd intelligence." Schoenbaum's study of the ...
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When S. Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives first appeared over twenty years ago, critics enthusiastically hailed it as a triumph of wit and scholarship. Stanley Wells, the editor of Shakespeare's complete works, called it "an extraordinary achievement....fluent, vivid, and intelligent." Writing in the Saturday Review , Benjamin DeMott described Shakespeare's Lives as "a superbly informed, elegantly composed, intensely readable book," while Terry Eagleton remarked on its "shrewd intelligence." Schoenbaum's study of the changing images of Shakespeare throughout history broke important new ground; but in the years since this book first appeared many scholars have followed his lead, and Shakespeare studies has progressed by leaps and bounds. Now, Schoenbaum, one of "the heroes of Shakespeare scholarship," according to Wells, has revised and up-dated this classic study of Shakespeare and his biographers, taking account of the most recent scholarship, adding a chapter on "Recent Lives," and abridging certain sections. Schoenbaum takes us on a tour of the countless myths and legends which have arisen to explain the great dramatist's life and work, bringing the story right up to 1989 with the publication of A.L. Rowse's Discovering Shakespeare . In the new edition, the emphasis is on more recent "lives" of Shakespeare, with information culled from such diverse sources as E.A.J. Honigmann's Shakespeare: The "Lost Years" and Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde (Wilde's Portrait of Mr W.H. advanced his theory of the Sonnets in fictional form). Besides fanciful theories such as Wilde's, Schoenbaum covers those who have used blatant forgery to construct an imaginary Shakespeare, such as W.H. Ireland and J.P. Collier (the latter would occasionally add his own verse to the Shakespeare canon), and those who have attempted elaborate argumentation to establish the identity of Shakespearean characters (A.L. Rowse claimed to have identified the elusive "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets). From Ben Jonson, whose celebratory verse opens the First Folio of Shakespeare's complete works (published seven years after his death), to Malcolm X, who denied the existence of a historical Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Lives considers virtually the entire legacy of idolatry, heresy, and speculation. As before, Schoenbaum submits the documentary record of Shakespeare's life to careful consideration. Like a literary detective, he reconstructs as much of the elusive author's life as possible, considering his family history, his economic standing, and his reputation with his peers. The Shakespeare who emerges may not always be the familiar one (he was less vaunted by his contemporaries than we usually believe, for example), but all of Schoenbaum's claims are exquisitely documented. Even in this revised and abridged version, Schoenbaum's narrative leaves hardly a stone unturned--from Samuel Johnson, Samuel Coleridge, and Alexander Pope to twentieth-century writers like James Joyce, E.K. Chambers, and Anthony Burgess (whose popular life of Shakespeare appeared the same year as the first edition of Schoenbaum's book). Curiousity about Shakespeare has not subsided since the original version of this classic appeared. This new edition will make the latest lives of Shakespeare available to a whole new generation of the Bard's fanatical followers.
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***** Samuel Shoenbaum's 'Shakespeare's Lives' is probably the most amazing biography I've ever read. Fiction never gets as wild or as crazy as the real people, real events, and real ideas of which Shoenbaum tells in this book.
Mr. Shoenbaum starts by giving a lively account of the life of William Shakespeare. I learned what scholars actually know about the man, about his life, about his career as a poet and playwright, about his wife, his parents, his family, his friends, his rivals, his death, his burial, the myths and the legends told and retold about him -- the works.
All of that made a good read even if it is pretty mild stuff. But then -- when I was a hundred pages into this thing -- a heading announced 'The Rise of Bardolatry'. That's where the wild stuff started.
From that point forward I grew steadily more amazed by the thoughts, the words, the deeds perpetrated by a growing legion of scholars, writers, eccentrics, weirdos, run-of-the-mill nutbags and howling, screeching loons. When I met Delia Bacon, I was jolted by the realization that I'd been lured into a Bedlam full of hollow-eyed ghouls straight out of Edgar Allan Poe or Bram Stoker.
It was hard to get my mind around the number and the types of characters obsessed with Shakespeare and his corpse and his corpus. It was a shock to learn the names (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, et al.) of people who've encouraged the crazies. By the time I met Delia Bacon (Brrrr!) I saw there were about 200 pages left, but I really didn't mind the trip. It was sort of a walk in the park. You know -- the park out behind the asylum.
The gist of it is that you don't need to be sedated or to be a fan of Shakespeare to read and appreciate this book. In fact, an intimate knowledge of the plays and sonnets doesn't really help much here. I came away from 'Shakespeare's Lives' convinced that truth really IS stranger than fiction. You will, too, and you will savor the thought.
