Shakespeare: The World As A Stage: Bill Bryson

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We thrill at these plays now. But what must it have been like when they were brand new, when all their references were timely and sharply apt … Imagine what it must have been like to watch Macbeth without knowing the outcome, to be part of a hushed audience hearing Hamlet’s soliloquy for the first time, to witness Shakespeare speaking his own lines. There cannot have been, anywhere in history, many more favored places than this. The riches this man brought to our language are staggering, not just in terms of his plays, but the number of words he brought into the language and the seemingly endless quotable quotes that are now virtually cliches. In May 2007, he became the president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. [36] [37] His first focus in this role was the establishment of an anti-littering campaign across England. He discussed the future of the countryside with Richard Mabey, Sue Clifford, Nicholas Crane, and Richard Girling at CPRE's Volunteer Conference in November 2007. [21] In 2011, Bryson won the Golden Eagle Award from the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild. [38]

Bryson imagines Shakespeare in the hard times of the 16th century. The usages and customs and the historical context are fascinating to discover. It was another world that made me think of science fiction. The diseases were multiple: the plague, syphilis, & c. In the 16th century, England experienced the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582 while she was pregnant. A whole period remained obscure (between 1585 and 1592); it is the lost years where the biographers lost in conjectures to identify its course. Some say he traveled to Italy. Others say he was a traveling comedian.

Bryson was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Bill Bryson Sr., a sports journalist who worked for 50 years at the Des Moines Register, and Agnes Mary (née McGuire), the home furnishings editor at the same newspaper. [8] [9] His mother was of Irish descent. [10] He had an older brother, Michael (1942–2012), and a sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth. In 2006, Bryson published The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a humorous account of his childhood years in Des Moines. [9] In 2006 Frank Cownie, the mayor of Des Moines awarded Bryson the key to the city and announced that 21 October 2006 would be "Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid, Day." [11] Just as we know to some degree how Shakespeare knew what he knew, we also know the same to some degree about Mr. Bryson, for he provides a Selected Bibliography listing “principal books referred to in the text.” There are some three dozen of these, the earliest dating from 1910, the most recent from 2006. But just as significant as these sources are the people Bryson visits (among them an expert in portraiture, an archivist at the National Archives in West London and an assortment of scholars) and the places he goes. As you may know, in addition to being the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), Mr. Bryson is a very well loved travel writer, and what he’s done here is not so great a departure from that genre. The Library of Congress in Washington contains about seven thousand works on Shakespeare - twenty years' worth of reading if read at the rate of one a day....and the number keeps growing. Shakespeare Quarterly the most exhaustive of bibliographers, logs about four thousand serious new works - books, monographs, other studies - every year. This book is supposed to be "antibiographical" because one knows practically nothing about Shakespeare. This work was the case with most of the identified authors of the 16th century in England, who left no trace of them either. Apart from his plays, there are only signatures at the bottom of acts of baptism, marriage, birth, and minutes during a neighborhood suit brought by his father. He made three portraits of him. But all that is very little. This book tells us to great lengths that there is nothing to affirm about the man Shakespeare was, on his emotional side, about his sexuality. Many biographers have, however, speculated, and things are very different.

This biography of William Shakespeare is mostly about how much we don’t know about him. I found it interesting how people of the time didn’t care about spelling things consistently, including their own name. I’ve worked as an editor for years, and the notion of spelling words haphazardly is completely contrary to everything I’ve ever been taught. Bryson discusses a wide range of matters relating to Shakespeare, his time and work, for example the Chandos portrait [1] and the existence (or not) of Anne Whateley. Közben meg persze igazából arról van szó, hogy Brysont nem az érdekli, mit tudunk Shakespeare-ről (arról már úgyis kismilliom-egy oldalt összeírtak), hanem hogy miért csak ennyit. Amire az egyik válasz természetesen az, hogy mert a csávó retek régen élt. A másik meg az, hogy amikor élt, nem gondolt arra, hogy 500 év múlva irodalomtörténészek fognak ölre menni a "Ki volt Shakespeare?" kérdésen. Hat fennmaradt aláírása van (közülük három - a végrendeletét díszítő - nem is biztosan az övé), és ezeken kétszer nem tudta ugyanúgy leírni a saját nevét - komolyan, mintha trollkodni akart volna a kutatókkal. Közben meg nyilván csak lazán fogta fel a helyesírást, mint akkoriban mindenki - inkább ajánlásnak, mint szabályrendszernek tekintette, pont ahogy a kortárs facebook-kommenterek egy része.The Main Library is being renamed 'The Bill Bryson Library'!". Durham University. 25 September 2012 . Retrieved 27 November 2012. Bill Bryson library opens 200 new study spaces and 'Small Island' café – Palatinate". 21 February 2019. With The World as Stage, Bryson has succumbed to the lure of adding to the groaning shelves of Shakespeare biography, with the excuse (if he needs one) that herein will lie only what is known beyond doubt. Shakespeare biography is, he tells us, 90% conjecture, and about 5% fact; here he tries to gather together "just the facts" (I said that, he didn't), and talk about where they originated and about the conjecture they've sparked and the probabilities therein. Career [ edit ] Bryson in the regalia of Chancellor of Durham University in 2005 Bryson in 2013 Bryson in 2013 Even the few surviving portraits that are purportedly of Shakespeare cannot be verified. "The paradoxical consequence is that we all recognize a likeness of Shakespeare the instant we see one, and yet we don't really know what he looked like. It is like this with nearly every aspect of his life and character: He is at once the best known and least known of figures."

On 22 November 2012, Durham University officially renamed the Main Library the Bill Bryson Library for his contributions as the university's 11th chancellor (2005–2011). [40] [41] The library also has a cafe named after Bryson's book Notes from a Small Island. [42] The short answer to this is not much. We don’t know, for instance, exactly when he was born or how to spell his name or whether he ever left England or who his best friends were. “His sexuality,” Mr. Bryson deduces, “is an irreconcilable mystery.” What did Shakespeare look like? We don't know. There are three portraits that are "the best". But two of them were done after his death and the other (the only one done during his lifetime) may be of someone else entirely. We don't even know how to spell his name, though it appears that neither did he. "Shakespeare" was the standard spelling of the time, but in the six surviving signatures we have from his own hand, he didn't spell it the same way twice. So, was he Willm Shakp, William Shakspēr, Wm Shakspē, William Shakspere, Willm Shakspere, or William Shakspeare? Oddly, it's an defense I haven't seen used in what I've read about the Authorship Question. It just seems so obvious… Bryson was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2013, [43] becoming the first non-Briton to receive this honour. [44] [45] His biography at the Society reads:Honorary degrees 21st - 25th June". st-andrews.ac.uk. University of St Andrews. 20 June 2005. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016 . Retrieved 11 September 2016.

While we often know a good deal about performers in male roles from Shakespeare's day, we know almost nothing about the conduct of the female parts.... We don't even know much about them in general terms, including how old they were... a b "Bill Bryson visits his utopia". The Independent. 7 May 2002. Archived from the original on 9 September 2010. In other words, there’s really no way of finding anything in the book. How many chapters are there? What was that one called? And where the hell was it? Well, mount an expedition. In 1995, while in the United Kingdom, Bryson authored Notes from a Small Island, an exploration of Britain. In 2003, he authored A Short History of Nearly Everything. In October 2020, he announced that he had retired from writing books. In 2022, he recorded an audiobook for Audible, The Secret History of Christmas. [5] He has sold over 16 million books worldwide. [6] [7] Early life and education [ edit ]

Shakespeare's biography is sketchy, and ever thus it shall remain. This little book represents Bill Bryson's attempt to collect what scant information exists, and to debunk a few spurious claims. I can't say I know much more about Sweet Will now than I did before reading the book, but Bryson is not to blame. People didn't reliably keep records 400 years ago. There were no standardized spellings for English words, so a lot of what was written down is indecipherable. Furthermore, no one anticipated Shakespeare's enduring popularity, so they weren't clamoring to write his biography while he was still alive. In fact, "playwriting was not an esteemed profession, and its practice, however accomplished, gained one little critical respect." This sort of interesting stuff comprises the bulk of the book, and caused me to underline quite frequently. Bill Bryson receives Honorary Doctorate". University Business. 26 July 2015 . Retrieved 16 July 2018. I have no idea how Shakespeare was able to write, perform, run the business of, direct, and manage his plays all at once…and still sleep