Full Product Details
Author: Park Honan (Emeritus Professor, School of English, Emeritus Professor, School of English, University of Leeds)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Clarendon Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.80cm
, Height: 3.20cm
, Length: 22.50cm
Weight: 0.755kg
ISBN: 9780198117926
ISBN 10: 0198117922
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 29 October 1998
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Reviews
`It does bring us closer to the world that Shakespeare lived in ... This is a timely, well-written and accessible biography of Shakespeare, which is exceptional for its lucid descriptions of the landscapes and locales that Shakespeare knew and maybe wrote about.' EMLS, 6.2, Sept 2000 `a meticulously researched ... authoritative biography ... it is lucid, enjoyable and reliable in excluding (exuding?) colourful, imaginative reconstructions and elaborate psychological theories which strain credulity and are less exciting than newly found factual truth.' Patrick Richards, Day by Day, 14/12/00. `This engrossing life, using a wealth of new evidence to illustrate personal experiences and artistic development of the greatest English writer, is incomparably vivid and credible ... I know no biography of Shakespeare to rival this one.' Patrick Richards, Day by Day, 14/12/00. `Honan has gone through town and church registers with a keen eye and a happy wit ... an always interesting book.' Peter Ackroyd, The Times, 22/10/98 `It is fascinating stuff, a wealth of minutiae' Max Davidson, Travel section, The Daily Telegraph, 22/05/99. `Park Honan's very readable 'Shakespeare's Life' has the latest facts on the Bard's life.' Plays and Players Applause, Dec 98-Jan 99 `his biography of Shakespeare is clearly the product of a lifelong engagement with his works and of a thorough study of the documentary evidence and the life of the time ... others have told the story of Shakespeare's life, but none of them with the fullness of detail, the scholarship, the literary skill and the sheer readability that Honan brings to his task ... this is now the best available life of Shakespeare.' Stanley Wells, The Observer, 18/10/98 `The opening chapters... bring the Stratford of those old days to vivid and pertinent life... Honan's close quarrying of theatrical records yields many suggestive nuggets.' Eric Griffiths, TLS 01/09/2000 `impressive new biography ... Honan's particular flair is for the vivid dramatic reconstruction of small incidents recorded only fleetingly by contemporary documents ... a highly readable book which is more reliable about more aspects of Shakespeare's life and career than any other currently on the market ...' Michael Dobson, London Review of Books, 07/01/99 `Park Honan's Shakespeare: a Life is a sober, searching, coolly-judged narrative, with a strong spirit of place in its evocations of Stratford and London, guarded about the relationship between Stratford's life and works, yet also alert to the mystery at the core of the man. The book eschews sensationalism, even to the point of austerity, but can flare into sudden, oddly moving impassioned passages. It is built to last.' English Studies, Vol.81 No.1 `this fascinating and scholarly book' The Lakes Leader, 21/04/99. `serious and worthy. Its strength is that it is rooted in the social history of the times ...' Ralph Berry, Contemporary Review, May 1999. `In this complete, accurate, and up-to-date narrative of Shakespeare's life, Park Honan uses a wealth of fresh information to cast new light on Shakespeare's development as an artist, dramatically changing our perceptions of the actor, poet and playwright.' Publishing News
A meticulously researched, lucidly presented, but oddly undramatic life of English literature's elusive icon. Bardolaters hoping for more speculation about the Dark Lady's identity or adventurous hypotheses of the missing years before London will get a refreshing cold shower from this up-to-date, strictly factual life. Veteran British biographer Honan (professor emeritus of English at the University of Leeds; dane Austen, 1988, etc.) pitches in with Shakespearean studies' slow work to overturn the romantic tide of mythologizing, garbled oral tradition, and basic errors surrounding the poet ever since Aubrey's gossipy anecdotography in his Restoration-era Brief Lives. With the current accumulation of unearthed Elizabethan documents, Honan's work has a solid footing in the era. Mapping out Shakespeare's post-Reformation Stratford, the author analyzes both his father's business and civic affairs, his family's ties to recusant Midlands Catholics, and his mother's and wife's personalities - at least as far as can be inferred from official documents such as wills. Honan also goes into detail about a grammar school education (and how it would have formed the basis of Shakespeare's tutelage) before he suggests that Will left to become something like a teacher-cum-actor in Lancashire (if William Shakeshafte, in the employ of Alexander de Hoghton, is indeed the Bard). Picking up his trail in London, Honan's treatment of Shakespeare's career in the tumultuous Elizabethan theater is grounded in documentary evidence wherever possible, with suppositions about Shakespeare's attitudes to his fellow actors and contemporary tastes (such as for child actors) always carefully qualified. By the end, although Honan is impartial about the dogmatic conflicts of Shakespeare's times, he does not approach the final question of Shakespeare's personal religious convictions - as Aubrey noted, he was accused of having died a papist. Still, this life objectively scrutinizes the public individual rather than the inner man. Synthesizing current scholarship, Honan is as likely to quote from official documents, from church records and business papers, or from law court testimonies, as from Shakespeare's works for his portrait. (Kirkus Reviews)
Honan's excellent 1987 biography of the second-greatest English writer, Jane Austen, is followed by a biography of the very greatest. He eschews all silly speculation, and in that respect his book is very like Schoenbaum's fine Shakespeare: A Documentary Life, a book which unusually relied entirely on documentary evidence. But Honan has a 20-year advantage, and there are new discoveries here (if, by their nature, minor ones); he also has a narrative style which is more substantial than Schoenbaum's. It is indisputably the best biography of Shakespeare available - readable, accurate in its references, sensible in its attitudes, and full of charming detail (such as how young William cleaned his teeth). A triumph. (Kirkus UK)
this is now the best available life of Shakespeare. Stanley Wells, The Observer 18/10/98
Author Information
Park Honan is Emeritus Professor at the School of English, University of Leeds.
