Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
Becoming Shakespeare - The Unlikely Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard - cover

We are sorry! The publisher (or author) gave us the instruction to take down this book from our catalog. But please don't worry, you still have more than 500,000 other books you can enjoy!

Becoming Shakespeare - The Unlikely Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard

Jack Lynch

Publisher: Walker Books

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

Becoming Shakespeare begins where most Shakespeare stories end-with his death in 1616-and relates the fascinating story of his unlikely transformation from provincial playwright to universal Bard. Unlike later literary giants, Shakespeare created no stir when he died. Though he'd once had a string of hit plays, he had been retired in the country for six years, and only his family, friends, and business partners seemed to care that he was gone. Within a few years he was nearly forgotten. And when London's theaters were shut down in 1642, he seemed destined for oblivion. 
 
With the Restoration in 1660, though, the theaters were open once again, and Shakespeare began his long ascent: No longer merely one playwright among many, he became the transcendent genius at the heart of English culture. Fifty years after the Restoration scholars began taking him seriously. Fifty years after that he was considered England's greatest genius. And by 1800 he was practically divine. 
 
Jack Lynch vividly chronicles Shakespeare's afterlife-from the revival of his plays to the decades when his work was co-opted and "improved" by politicians and other playwrights, and culminating with the "Bardolatry" of the Stratford celebration of Shakespeare's three-hundredth birthday in 1864. Becoming Shakespeare is not only essential reading for anyone intrigued by Shakespeare, but it also offers a consideration of the vagaries of fame.
Available since: 05/26/2010.

Other books that might interest you

  • The Cross and the Switchblade - cover

    The Cross and the Switchblade

    David Wilkerson, John Sherill

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    The astonishing true story of Wilkerson's outreach to New York teens trapped by drugs and gangs. Gang-fighters! Drug addicts. Teenage runaways and prostitutes! The toughest and most hopeless kids that New York's ghettos had to offer. Then a young preacher from the Pennsylvania hills arrived on their turf and began preaching a message of renewal, miracles, and God's love. This is one of the century's great true stories. Over 14 million copies in print!
    Show book
  • Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - cover

    Personal Recollections of Joan...

    Mark Twain

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Mark Twain's work on Joan of Arc is titled in full "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte." De Conte is identified as Joan's page and secretary. For those who've always wanted to "get behind" the Joan of Arc story and to better understand just what happened, Twain's narrative makes the story personal and very accessible. 
The work is fictionally presented as a translation from the manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, "Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France.
    Show book
  • Beyond the Yellow Star to America - cover

    Beyond the Yellow Star to America

    Inge Auerbacher

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    In 1942, when she is seven, Inge Auerbacher and her family are torn from their comfortable home in Germany and sent to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. In 1945, they are freed from the camp and emigrate to America.  
Their survival seems like a miracle. But once they settle in New York, Inge, who is now 11, is imprisoned again. This time, instead of Nazi storm troopers, the enemy is within her own body. She is confined to a hospital ward for children with tuberculosis - a disease that was rampant in the camps.  
Beyond the Yellow Star to America is a story of rare courage, determination, and love. Told in her own words, it follows Inge's journey as she fights to survive a debilitating disease, earns a degree from Queens College, and dedicates her life to scientific research and writing.  
Inge Auerbacher has been featured in documentaries on the Holocaust and spends much of her time lecturing in schools as a witness to the dark period of history that branded her childhood.
    Show book
  • Felix and Fanny - cover

    Felix and Fanny

    Myla Lichtman-Fields

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Felix Mendelsohn and his sister, Fanny were equally gifted with music composition. This story tells of her devotion to her brother and the sublimation of her gifts throughout her life. 
Starring: Michael York as Felix Mendelsohn, Samantha Eggar as Fanny Mendelsohn, and CART's Announcer John Harlan.Produced, directed, and adapted by Peggy Webber.
    Show book
  • Cop Under Cover - My life in the shadows with drug lords robbers and smugglers - cover

    Cop Under Cover - My life in the...

    Johann van Loggerenberg

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    In the 1990s deep-cover police agent RS536 took on the Durban underworld as part of a new organised crime intelligence unit. He rubbed shoulders with drug lords, smugglers and corrupt cops, and was instrumental in busting an international drug ring and foiling a bank heist, among many other dangerous engagements.
But then, as the country's new democracy birthed a struggle between the old and the new guard in the South African Police Service, his identity and his life came under threat. In this action-packed account, Johann van Loggerenberg describes how, as a young policeman, he worked closely with the investigative team of the Goldstone Commission to uncover the 'third force' – apartheid security forces that supplied weapons to the Inkatha Freedom Party to destabilise the country.
He also delves into how and why, at the height of state capture at the South African Revenue Service in 2014, he was falsely accused of being an apartheid spy, a lie that persists up to today. Here, finally, is the truth behind the deep-cover police agent RS536.
    Show book
  • The Gilded Age of Sport 1945–1960 - cover

    The Gilded Age of Sport 1945–1960

    Herbert Warren Wind

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    From gridiron to diamond, lawn to green, a legendary sportswriter captures the wins, losses, and draws of an exciting period in American sports history Throughout his long and distinguished career, Herbert Warren Wind covered many of the most dramatic contests and iconic athletes of the twentieth century. Inspired by Paul Gallico’s classic dispatches from the golden age of the 1920s and ’30s, The Gilded Age of Sport collects Wind’s finest pieces on the people and places of the postwar era.   With graceful prose and an authoritative eye for the telling detail, he profiles sports heroes including Yogi Berra, Ben Hogan, Maurice Richard, Bob Cousy, Sam Snead, Ted Williams, Herb Elliott, and Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman. Wind reveals Rocky Marciano’s training regimen, journeys as far afield as Japan and Australia to report on the international sports scene, and delights in the startling discrepancy between the woeful record of Harvard’s football team and the glory of its marching band.   An elegant and comprehensive survey of fifteen thrilling years in sports history, The Gilded Age of Sport is a testament to the versatility, wit, and wisdom of a master craftsman.  
    Show book