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Shakespeare: The World as a Stage

Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: HarperPress
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

40 reviews
Sales Rank: 83529

Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 1

ISBN: 0007262183
EAN: 9780007262182
ASIN: 0007262183

Publication Date: September 3, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book dispatched from stock in the UK

Also Available In:

•	Hardcover - Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives)
•	Paperback - Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives)
•	Hardcover - Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
•	Paperback - Shakespeare: The World as Stage
•	Paperback - Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)

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Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

A natural choice for Bryson June 29, 2008
Although best known for his travel writing, Bryson's books on the English language are brilliant, so it's quite appropriate to find him writing about its most famous exponent.
A huge amount has been written about Shakespeare and his life, despite the fact that very little is really known about him. Bryson keeps the focus on what is definitely known, with little forays into some of the best theories about the rest. Where nothing is known at all, the 'lost years', he chooses to explore Elizabethan London and culture instead, putting the man in context.
Informative, wry, and well researched, this debunks plenty of Shakespeare myths in an accessible and enjoyable style, and Bryson turns out to be an excellent guide.

2 out of 5 stars

I know less now having read this book June 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

Bill Bryson is perhaps best known for his humorous travel essays and should have stuck to what he does best. If it were not for the lack of content this book would have been rated lower it was a relief that it was so brief. There is more fact in the Wikipedia page for Shakespeare than there was in all 150+ pages of this book. If you are searching for information on Elizabethan England this is the book for you not really for the Shakespeare aficionado.

5 out of 5 stars

Much more than just 'Bill going on about Bill' June 10, 2008
There's not much to go on in terms of solid evidence for anyone trying to write a biography of Shakespeare, but Bryson's done a good job with what little we do actually know about the man. And he gets stuck into the various 'alternative' (a.k.a crackpot) theories about the Bard to; his comments on the 'Marlowe' theory definitely hit the nail on the head.

4 out of 5 stars

Stalking the Bard May 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Iowa-raised and presumably corn-fed Bill Bryson is perhaps best known for his humorous travel essays about such places as England (NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND), Australia (IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY), the Appalachian Trail (A WALK IN THE WOODS), rural America (THE LOST CONTINENT), and, well, just about everywhere you can think of (A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING). His love of England, which I share, is what originally marked him as one of my favorite authors.

As one who obviously enjoys stringing words together and, moreover, has written books on the subject (THE MOTHER TONGUE and BRYSON'S DICTIONARY OF TROUBLESOME WORDS), it's not terribly surprising that Bill has combined his affections for England and its language in a volume about its greatest (play)writer, SHAKESPEARE: THE WORLD AS STAGE. And, of course they're both named William.

Bryson admits up front that there's very little in the way of hard facts about William Shakespeare. But, in Bill's hands, that plus what can be deduced or inferred expands to a very satisfying and entertaining volume even for the culturally destitute reader who may not be a aficionado of the Bard's stuff. Like myself.

Bill sets the stage, so to speak, with a cursory examination of the English period contemporary with his subject: the monarchy of Elizabeth I, certain London structures (London Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral), the Thames, religious turmoil, public pastimes, the state of the London theater scene, the business of being a playwright, the structure of contemporary plays, and the art of bookbinding. With those considerations functioning as a contextual backdrop, the products of Shakespeare's life that can be directly studied - his parentage, plays, poetry, written vocabulary, will, and other rare public records in which he's mentioned - serve to flesh out the man to the extent possible. There's even a final chapter on the historical and modern claimants to the authorship of Shakespeare's works, which claims some otherwise accomplished people take seriously. (Just as the current Royal Family had Princess Di murdered. You think?)

The author's paramount strength is the congeniality of his dialogue with his readers. He could, no doubt, make the description of fabricating wire hangers amusing, interesting, and instructive. SHAKESPEARE isn't Bill's best work, perhaps because the scope of the subject matter is so narrow, but it does deserve a place on the bookshelves of his fans.

1 out of 5 stars

Pretentious, pompous and full of pre-conceptions May 26, 2008
7 out of 12 found this review helpful

This really has to be one of the worst books that I have managed to read from beginning to end - although it was a major struggle. Thank goodness it is as short as it is, otherwise I would never have made it.

If you are looking for information or scholarship about Shakespeare - you will get more from a browse through Wikipedia. Instead, you have a Daily Mail gossip columnist type of article packed with man-of-the-world type sneers at academics and intellectuals. Repetitive in the extreme, the same facts are served up to you three or four times - sometimes in as few pages - to pack this book out and squeeze it over the 150 page mark.

This book has plenty of observations dished up in "witty" Bryson style but few if any are about Shakespeare - most of them reflect on Bryson and his Whiggish view of Elizabethan England. Throughout the book character assasinations are committed summarily with the most flimsy of reasoning behind them, but instead served with salacious details as quasi-justification. The comments about Edward de Vere are particularly poor, even by Bryson's low standards.

Perhaps the thing which I found most odious however were the obsequious references to Shakespeare as England's greatest ever poet and playwright, which pepper the text. I suppose these were designed to give the text some kind of authority - but frankly they come across as trite and insubstantial. Then again, the same criticism can be made of the whole book.