Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up
By
John
Gross
Anyone setting out to write a
biography of Shakespeare has to weigh two considerations against each other. On
the one hand, we do not know all that much about him. On the other hand, we know
a great deal. There are no diaries, letters, memoirs, or interviews; most of the
surviving documentation is dry and impersonal; major aspects of his life remain
a blank. But we do have the plays and the poems—how can they fail to bring
us close to the man who wrote them?—and we can build on the knowledge,
bequeathed by generations of scholars, of the society in which he lived and
moved.
Given the available evidence, or
lack of it, any attempt at a full-length portrait of Shakespeare is bound to
involve an exceptional amount of speculation. Even the most cautious biography,
once it starts exploring his personality, can hardly help taking on some of the
characteristics of a novel. The only alternative—sticking to the
established facts and gaps—is, however, arguably more useful. No one did
more for the study of Shakespeare’s life in the 20th century than E.K.
Chambers in Britain and Samuel Schoenbaum in America. But neither of them wrote
a biography (although Schoenbaum had hoped to). Chambers confined himself to
William Shakespeare: A Study in Facts and
Problems (1930). Schoenbaum distilled his
learning into William Shakespeare: A
Documentary Life (1975) and various associated
volumes.
Meanwhile, there has been a
steady procession of popular biographies and general studies that mix narrative
and criticism. If anything, the rate at which they have been appearing has
increased in recent years. Park Honan’s 1998 biography is one outstanding
example, and now Stephen Greenblatt has entered the lists with a study offering
an account (much of it hypothetical) of Shakespeare’s outward career, but
focusing principally on his inner life.
Full article at commentarymagazine.com >>>
Posted: Mon - March 7, 2005 at 01:25 PM