From Publishers Weekly
While the age of Shakespeare overlapped with the both the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, Kermode's compact, erudite appreciation of the Bard is less about Shakespeare's private life and turbulent times than his theatrical milieu and the worlds he created for the stage. Quick summaries of the pressing political issues of the Protestant Reformation and the successor Queen Elizabeth are followed by up-to-date surveys of the debates over Shakespeare's possible crypto-Catholicism and his "missing" years. But Kermode hits his stride with the plays. His breakdown of Shakespeare's artistic development and mature achievement by the various acting companies and theaters he was associated with-from the Lord Chamberlain's Company to the renamed King's Men, from the Theatre and the Rose to the Globe and Blackfriars-proves a satisfying structure to match the swift pace. Inevitably, the brevity of the Chronicles format can't provide equal time to all of Shakespeare's million-plus words of dramatic poetry, and Kermode prefers the tragedies and romances over the histories and comedies (to say nothing of the sonnets). Occasionally shifting to lectern manner, he also revisits some of his favorite tropes, which he explored in Shakespeare's Language, such as rhetorical doubling and pairing in Hamlet and the theme of equivocation in Macbeth. While Ben Jonson declared, "[Shakespeare] was not for an age, but for all time!" Kermode pleasurably shows how he and his works were of their age and also transcended it.-- was not for an age, but for all time!" Kermode pleasurably shows how he and his works were of their age and also transcended it.
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-A learned, if brief, journey through the world of William Shakespeare. Written in elegant, concise prose accessible to laypersons, the book moves quickly through the latest critical debates about the Bard's origins, and deftly summarizes the historical background of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods in which he lived and worked. The great political and religious issues of the times are explicated clearly and linked to the development of live theater as a mainstay of English popular culture. Most outstanding are the entertaining discussions of Shakespeare's literary successes in relation to his professional associations with a succession of professional acting companies and theaters. The analyses of the magnificent language in the context of contemporary cultural assumptions, evolving styles of acting, and the physical demands of the playhouses bring readers both a broader understanding and a deeper appreciation of the playwright's artistic triumphs. Along with Kermode's equally fine Shakespeare's Language (Farrar, 2001), this is an excellent choice for students curious (or struggling) to understand what all the fuss is about the Bard of Avon.-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
