Will in the World

Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. New York: Norton. 2004. Print.

First Sentences:

As a young man from a small provincial town -- a man without independent wealth, without powerful family connections, and without a university education -- moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. His works appeal to the learned and the unlettered, to urban sophisticates and provincial first-time theatergoers. He makes his audiences laugh and cry; he turns politics into poetry; he recklessly mingles vulgar clowning and philosophical subtlety....How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?


Description:

I picked up Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare knowing nothing about the author or his book. I was just another reader interested in the mysterious background of William Shakespeare and how he possibly could have lived and created his exquisite body of historic, romantic, and thrilling works of literature after coming from a relatively small town with little education or travel. At least, those were the assumptions and subsequent questions offered by many historians

Author Greenblatt, however, is different. He delves deeply into historical documents and social norms of the sixteenth century to postulate about the forces behind Shakespeare's life and the elements that affected his growth and decisions.

For example, Greenblatt reveals primary documents about Shakespeare's father, John, showing him to be an important municipal office-holder in Stratford, a man who tries to enforce order between the Catholic residents who suddenly had to face the incoming Protestants in a world now enforced by the new Protestent Queen Elizabeth. Later John was documented to be a failed glovemaker whom William worked for, although obviously John's life failed to excite his son to pursue the same career choice.

Also, I didn't know Stratford was a fairly important city that drew traveling performers. William probably was exposed to the theater and likely even helped with general chores for any short-handed company. There are records that he offered his services to the traveling King's Company which found themselves short an actor after their leading player was killed in a drunken fight. Performance reviews from that period testified that William distinguished himself on the stage and possibly escaped Stratford with that company when it moved on toward London.

Other revelations included:

• Shakespeare likely attended King's New School in Stratford, reserved for children of means, receiving instruction from 7am - 6pm six days a week twelve months a year, mostly focusing on Latin "which clearly aroused and fed Will's inexhaustible craving for language";
  

• At school "virtually all schoolmasters agreed that one of the best ways to instill good Latin in their students was to have them read and perform ancient plays";

• Anne Hathaway, his bride, was eight years older than the 18-year-old Will when they were hurriedly married, without the accepted delay of publicizing banns. Church records showed their daughter Susanna was baptized six months later. The couple soon had two other children, one of whom, Hamnet, died young. Anne was not mentioned in Shakespeare's will except that she would receive their "second-best bed," the majority of Shakespeare's wealth and property going to his daughter Susanna;

• Shakespeare in his early twenties left Stratford, wife Anne, and his three children for unexplained reasons. Greenblatt shows evidence that William might have been in trouble with the law for poaching deer on a wealthy estate near Stratford and had been forced to flee;

• Later, during one of the frequent bubonic plague epidemics, all London theaters were closed. To earn income, Shakespeare accepted a commission to write many of his 154 sonnets. It is still unclear who financed him or to whom the poems referred to, whether his patron, a young man, or an unknown dark lady;

• When the ground lease for the theater where they performed was not renewed by the owner (who controlled the land but not the structures), Shakespeare, his company, and their crew snuck onto the theater grounds one night in December, 1598, dismantled the entire theater, carted it across the frozen Thames river, and re-constructed it in the new location. This became The Globe. The new theater, financed by Shakespeare himself, was an octagonal building with a huge stage, and could seat over 3,000 people;

In London, William probably attended many theatrical performances of contemporary playwrights, including those of his chief rival Christopher Marlowe. He observed works that playwrights presented which did and did not please audiences. Shakespeare moved away from the current broad morality plays, giving his own characters an intensified complexity and humanness rather than one-dimensional aspects. 

Shakespeare had to engage with the deepest desires and fears of his audience, and his unusual success in his own time in his own time suggests that he succeeded brilliantly. Virtually all his rival playwrights found themselves on the straight road to starvation; Shakespeare, by contrast, made enough money to buy one of the best houses in the hometown to which he returned in his early fifties, a self-made man.

I loved reading the original source records that Greenblatt dug up, which support or disprove theories about Shakespeare.  Each item is carefully examined, put into historical context, and then applied to Shakespeare's life to provide logical conclusions about the playwright and his influences.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in sixteenth century life, playwriting, and, of course, The Bard himself. 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare.   

The absolute best and highly-readable deep dive into every Shakespeare play, with historical, literary, and cultural explanations to key words, phrases, and plots. So great I read it from cover to cover, and re-read it before watching any Shakespeare play to catch all the references and subtleties. Wonderful. HIghest recommendation. (Previously reviewed here)

  

Happy reading.

Fred

 

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