The Facts About Shakespeare

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

22281

Title

The Facts About Shakespeare

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

This scholarly volume explores the life and works of William Shakespeare within the vibrant context of Elizabethan England. Covering the nation's religious shifts, commercial prosperity, and theatrical evolution, the text offers a comprehensive analysis of Shakespeare's biography, reading habits, and the complex textual history of his plays, from early Quartos to the definitive First Folio.

Summary up to 500 words

William Allan Neilson and Ashley Horace Thorndike's *The Facts About Shakespeare* offers a comprehensive examination of the Bard's life, works, and the complex textual history surrounding them. The authors situate Shakespeare within the turbulent era of Elizabethan England, a period defined by profound shifts in religion, politics, and commerce. They detail the nation's transition from Catholicism to Protestantism and the rise of a dynamic commercial class that fostered individual ambition and fame. The narrative traces Shakespeare's journey from his origins in the restrictive, guild-regulated village of Stratford-on-Avon to his successful career in London, analyzing his reading sources and the evolution of Elizabethan drama against a backdrop of national unity and international expansion. A significant portion of the work is dedicated to the rigorous task of textual criticism. Neilson and Thorndike investigate the origins of the First Folio, published in 1623 by Shakespeare's fellow actors John Heminge and Henry Condell. They explore the role of the Stationers' Company and the challenges of establishing an authentic text, which were often corrupted by actor memory, scribe errors, and the improvisational nature of playhouse performances. The authors discuss how early quartos were frequently printed from imperfect playhouse copies, leading to omissions, garbled prose, and unauthorized stage directions. They highlight the contributions of editors like Nicholas Rowe and Alexander Pope, who attempted to remedy these corruptions, though their own interventions sometimes introduced new errors or modernized the text beyond Shakespeare's original syntax. The book concludes by assessing Shakespeare's enduring legacy, noting that while the text of the First Folio is the sole authority for twenty of his plays, the remaining works require a careful eclecticism between folio and quarto sources to reconstruct the author's true intention. Supported by extensive indexes and bibliographic resources, the work provides a definitive guide to understanding the man, his times, and the intricate history of his texts.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

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Categories

• Drama
• Biography
• Literary Criticism