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This much-awaited new biography of the elusive Bard is brilliant in
conception, often superb in execution, but sometimes-perhaps
inevitably-disappointing in its degree of speculativeness. Bardolators may
take this last for granted, but curious lay readers seeking a fully
cohesive and convincing life may at times feel the accumulation of "may
haves," "might haves" and "could haves" make it difficult to suspend
disbelief.
Greenblatt's espousing, for instance, of the theory
that Shakespeare's "lost" years before arriving in London were spent in
Lancashire leads to suppositions that he might have met the Catholic
subversive Edmund Campion, and how that might have affected him-and it all
rests on one factoid: the bequeathing by a nobleman of some player's items
to a William Shakeshafte, who may, plausibly, have been the young
Shakespeare. Nevertheless, Norton Shakespeare general editor and New
Historicist Greenblatt succeed impressively in locating the man in both
his greatest works and the turbulent world in which he lived.
With
a blend of biography, literary interpretation and history, Greenblatt
persuasively analyzes William's father's rise and fall as a public figure
in Stratford, which pulled him in both Protestant and Catholic directions
and made his eldest son "a master of double consciousness." In a virtuoso
display of historical and literary criticism, Greenblatt contrasts
Christopher Marlowe's Jew of Malta, Elizabeth's unfortunate Sephardic
physician-who was executed for conspiracy-and Shakespeare's ambiguous
villain Shylock. 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. 16
pages color illus. not seen by PW.
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