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The Shakespeare Circle: An Alternative Biography
This original and enlightening book casts fresh light on Shakespeare by examining the lives of his relatives, friends, fellow-actors, collaborators and patrons both in their own right and in relation to his life. Well-known figures such as Richard Burbage, Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton are freshly considered; little-known but relevant lives are brought to the fore, and revisionist views are expressed on such matters as Shakespeare's wealth, his family and personal relationships, and his social status. Written by a distinguished team, including some of the foremost biographers, writers and Shakespeare scholars of today, this enthralling volume forms an original contribution to Shakespearian biography and Elizabethan and Jacobean social history. It will interest anyone looking to learn something new about the dramatist and the times in which he lived. A supplementary website offers imagined first-person audio accounts from the featured subjects.
368 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 2015
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About the author
Paul Edmondson
39 books5 followersLibrarian note:
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Paul Edmondson - Historical Fiction, Fiction, History
Rev. Dr. Paul Edmondson is Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of many books and articles about Shakespeare, including Shakespeare: Ideas in Profile (an overview of Shakespeare for the general reader), Twelfth Night: a guide to the text and its Theatrical Life, The Shakespeare Circle: An Alternative Biography and Shakespeare Beyond Doubt: Evidence, Argument, Controversy (both with Stanley Wells for Cambridge University Press), Shakespeare’s Creative Legacies (with Peter Holbrook for The Arden Shakespeare); and Finding Shakespeare’s New Place: an archaeological biography (with archaeologists Kevin Colls and William Mitchell for Manchester University Press). New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity (co-edited with Ewan Fernie is forthcoming with The Arden Shakespeare). His collection of Shakespeare-related poetry, Destination Shakespeare has recently appeared (www.misfitpress.co : the publishers donate a pair of prescription spectacles to a child in India for each copy sold). In the summer of 2014 he made a special tour of the States and North America in search of Shakespeare across 10,000 miles and 14 Shakespeare Festivals in partnership with University of Warwick. He is Chair of the Hosking Houses Trust for women writers, a Trustee of the British Shakespeare Association, and a priest in the Church of England. He has lived and worked in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1995.
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
For other authors of this name, see:
Paul Edmondson - Historical Fiction, Fiction, History
Rev. Dr. Paul Edmondson is Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of many books and articles about Shakespeare, including Shakespeare: Ideas in Profile (an overview of Shakespeare for the general reader), Twelfth Night: a guide to the text and its Theatrical Life, The Shakespeare Circle: An Alternative Biography and Shakespeare Beyond Doubt: Evidence, Argument, Controversy (both with Stanley Wells for Cambridge University Press), Shakespeare’s Creative Legacies (with Peter Holbrook for The Arden Shakespeare); and Finding Shakespeare’s New Place: an archaeological biography (with archaeologists Kevin Colls and William Mitchell for Manchester University Press). New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity (co-edited with Ewan Fernie is forthcoming with The Arden Shakespeare). His collection of Shakespeare-related poetry, Destination Shakespeare has recently appeared (www.misfitpress.co : the publishers donate a pair of prescription spectacles to a child in India for each copy sold). In the summer of 2014 he made a special tour of the States and North America in search of Shakespeare across 10,000 miles and 14 Shakespeare Festivals in partnership with University of Warwick. He is Chair of the Hosking Houses Trust for women writers, a Trustee of the British Shakespeare Association, and a priest in the Church of England. He has lived and worked in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1995.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 18, 2015
This is an excellent book. It takes a new angle on exploring Shakespeare by having individual chapters that are focused on family, friends, associates and colleagues of Shakespeare and through finding out more about them, we find out more about the man they all knew.
August 6, 2017
In Stratford he had a wife and three kids.
In London with friends he did what he did.
In London with friends he did what he did.
November 4, 2017
“The Shakespeare Circle”, a new anthology of biographical essays about important people from Shakespeare’s life, aims to fill in as much of the space surrounding Shakespeare as possible, so that a clearer outline of his shape can emerge--essentially treating his life as “negative space”. With everything and everyone (or at least as much as possible) that surrounded Shakespeare defined, what is left are very strong hints at the content of the remaining space. Unfortunately they are only hints so the project doesn’t work as a biography but does as a sometimes fascinating set of essays on Shakespeare’s family, friends and collaborators. The book assumes the reader is versed in Shakespeare’s major works and high points of his life and has read at least one other biography of him.
The most essential essay in the volume is by Andy Kesson, an essay on Shakespeare’s early collaborators that provides a new understanding of the infamous 1592 pamphlet Greene’s "Groatsworth of Wit". It is attributed to playwright Robert Greene but likely ghost-written (Greene was on his deathbed when it was published). It ripped Shakespeare as a “peasant” and “an upstart crow beautified with our feathers” who possesses a “tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide,” a reference to Shakespeare’s own Henry VI, Part III, which describes Queen Margaret in nearly identical terms. In the typical reading of "Groatsworth", the author is complaining that Shakespeare, then early in his career, is a hick from the sticks, doesn’t have the right education, and has the audacity to beautify his plays with the feathers of courtly style while being, in truth, as base and vicious as a tiger.
Kesson’s take instead firmly places both "Groatsworth" and Shakespeare in the context of their time, a time in which the word playwright did not yet exist and the first real theaters had just been built. Shakespeare, according to Kesson, represented a changing of the guard away from “a generation of theatre practitioners … for whom the playhouses were completely new,” to “another … who had grown up as the playhouses opened.” To them, Shakespeare “was an oddity.” He shows us "Groatsworth" as its contemporaries would have, as a response to a still-unproven actor-turned-writer who was largely employed in rewriting the plays of the very writers he was about to supersede and whose only original work thus far was the Henry VI trilogy.
One article discusses the absence of the clown Will Kemp, Bottom in “Midsummer Night’s Dream, in the later plays and the use of a new comedian Robert Armin whose literate style is shown as Touchstone in “As You Like It” and the Fool in “King Lear”. Instead of the the current idea of Kemp being frozen out of the King’s Men, it may have been that he simply found it more lucrative to tour the continent for several years.
Other essays cover the sometimes contentious, sometimes friendly relationship between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson (Shakespeare was one of the actors in the opening performance of "Every Man in his Humor"), his collaborations with Middleton, Fletcher and even George Wilkins, a part-time pimp and brothel keeper who contributed most of the first two acts of “Pericles”. All collections like this are uneven in quality--”The Shakespeare Circle” veers from sublime to risible with exciting views of Shakespeare and his times sprinkled in with deadly dull ones. All in all well worth reading
The most essential essay in the volume is by Andy Kesson, an essay on Shakespeare’s early collaborators that provides a new understanding of the infamous 1592 pamphlet Greene’s "Groatsworth of Wit". It is attributed to playwright Robert Greene but likely ghost-written (Greene was on his deathbed when it was published). It ripped Shakespeare as a “peasant” and “an upstart crow beautified with our feathers” who possesses a “tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide,” a reference to Shakespeare’s own Henry VI, Part III, which describes Queen Margaret in nearly identical terms. In the typical reading of "Groatsworth", the author is complaining that Shakespeare, then early in his career, is a hick from the sticks, doesn’t have the right education, and has the audacity to beautify his plays with the feathers of courtly style while being, in truth, as base and vicious as a tiger.
Kesson’s take instead firmly places both "Groatsworth" and Shakespeare in the context of their time, a time in which the word playwright did not yet exist and the first real theaters had just been built. Shakespeare, according to Kesson, represented a changing of the guard away from “a generation of theatre practitioners … for whom the playhouses were completely new,” to “another … who had grown up as the playhouses opened.” To them, Shakespeare “was an oddity.” He shows us "Groatsworth" as its contemporaries would have, as a response to a still-unproven actor-turned-writer who was largely employed in rewriting the plays of the very writers he was about to supersede and whose only original work thus far was the Henry VI trilogy.
One article discusses the absence of the clown Will Kemp, Bottom in “Midsummer Night’s Dream, in the later plays and the use of a new comedian Robert Armin whose literate style is shown as Touchstone in “As You Like It” and the Fool in “King Lear”. Instead of the the current idea of Kemp being frozen out of the King’s Men, it may have been that he simply found it more lucrative to tour the continent for several years.
Other essays cover the sometimes contentious, sometimes friendly relationship between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson (Shakespeare was one of the actors in the opening performance of "Every Man in his Humor"), his collaborations with Middleton, Fletcher and even George Wilkins, a part-time pimp and brothel keeper who contributed most of the first two acts of “Pericles”. All collections like this are uneven in quality--”The Shakespeare Circle” veers from sublime to risible with exciting views of Shakespeare and his times sprinkled in with deadly dull ones. All in all well worth reading
February 21, 2022
This is a fascinating book and I recommend it to anyone who is even remotely interested in Shakespeare. It is an anthology of biographical essays, written and organized by some among the most important contemporary Shakespeare scholars - such as Paul Edmondson, Stanley Wells, Germaine Greer, to name just a few. The approach is not completely new, there are other books that deal with Shakespeare's neighbors and friends, but what I really like here is the web that is created and that includes family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, financial partners, writing collaborators and so on. The final picture is very complete and Shakespeare comes to life as a very astute businessman, a discerning writing partner, a faithful friend, among other things. For me, the most interesting chapters were the ones about Wilkins, Middleton and Fletcher, who co-wrote some plays with him. Shakespeare wasn't always the solitary genius that we might think, he chose promising writers to work with and this is a field that is still being explored. New discoveries are happening all the time thanks to computer technology. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and strongly recommend it.
July 19, 2021
Valuable!
Valuable addition to filling out the landscape of Shakespeare’s life. We can indeed tell a man by the company he keeps.
Valuable addition to filling out the landscape of Shakespeare’s life. We can indeed tell a man by the company he keeps.
April 2, 2025
An interesting read and new perspective on the lives of the people surrounding William Shakespeare
October 24, 2020
Una biografía bastante alejada de lo común. En lugar de centrarse en contar la vida de Shakespeare de forma lineal, esta se nos va presentando por medio de biografías de diferentes personas, colegas de trabajo, familiares y amigos, que le rodearon a lo largo de su existencia. Por medio de sus biografías, presentadas a lo largo de los diferentes ensayos que componen el libro, descubrimos como fue no solo la vida del Bardo de Stratford-upon-Avon, sino como era la sociedad isabelina y jacobina, la vida en Londres o en una ciudad de provincias de su época, y el mundo del teatro en el que se movió. La obra me ha parecido absorbente e interesante, y muy bien documentada. Pero ha habido veces en que se me ha hecho un poco pesada, en especial en los capítulos no relacionados con la familia de Shakespeare y sus amigos y colaboradores de la escena teatral, que eran las partes que más me interesaban.Lo más destacable del volumen, sin duda alguna, es el trabajo de documentación de los diferentes ensayos que componen el libro es de lo más minucioso, y presentan al lector diferentes cuestiones sobre su persona y su trabajo que me han llamado mucho la atención.
Lo que me ha quedado muy claro leyendo esta obra es que hay muchas cuestiones sobre Shakespeare que , o bien desconocemos o no conocemos en profundidad, o damos por hecho, lo que hacen que su figura pueda resultar más esquiva de lo que puede parecernos a primera vista podemos pensar, debido a la gran cantidad de trabajos y estudios que hay sobre su vida y obra. Quizás lo que más me ha sorprendido es que sus contemporáneos no sentían por su trabajo la misma veneración que ahora sentimos por él, y que se permitían criticarle , algo que ahora sería impensable en nuestra cultura moderna donde se le considera el mejor escritor que jamás haya existido. Otro tema que me ha llamado la atención, y que para mi le da otra perspectiva a sus trabajos, es que muchos de ellos no salían solo de su mente y pluma, eran realizados junto a otros escritores, algo típico del teatro isabelino, pero que tal y como se nos ha vendido por la historiografía la figura del dramaturgo y poeta, a muchos no se les ocurriría pensar que fuera así.
Sí, la obra me ha gustado mucho y me ha parecido muy interesante, he conocido aspectos de la vida de Shakespeare que no conocía de antes, y tal y como se señalan en los ensayos finales me he quedado con ganas de leer las obras de teatro que no conozco, releer muchas que ya he leído anteriormente, y conocer más sobre la vida del bardo y sobre las diferentes teorías en torno a su biografía y persona que hay. Pero también debo decir que gran pero que le veo este libro es que considero que es un tomo que solo puede disfrutarse plenamente si ya conoces de antes el terreno que pisas con él. Presentar la biografía de Shakespeare por medio de otras, me ha parecido una forma de encararla muy interesante, si, también ha hecho que muchas veces se pierda el hilo de lo realmente importante de la obra, que es la trayectoria vital del escritor entre las vidas de otras personas que pueden no interesar al lector o aportarle algo.
Lo que me ha quedado muy claro leyendo esta obra es que hay muchas cuestiones sobre Shakespeare que , o bien desconocemos o no conocemos en profundidad, o damos por hecho, lo que hacen que su figura pueda resultar más esquiva de lo que puede parecernos a primera vista podemos pensar, debido a la gran cantidad de trabajos y estudios que hay sobre su vida y obra. Quizás lo que más me ha sorprendido es que sus contemporáneos no sentían por su trabajo la misma veneración que ahora sentimos por él, y que se permitían criticarle , algo que ahora sería impensable en nuestra cultura moderna donde se le considera el mejor escritor que jamás haya existido. Otro tema que me ha llamado la atención, y que para mi le da otra perspectiva a sus trabajos, es que muchos de ellos no salían solo de su mente y pluma, eran realizados junto a otros escritores, algo típico del teatro isabelino, pero que tal y como se nos ha vendido por la historiografía la figura del dramaturgo y poeta, a muchos no se les ocurriría pensar que fuera así.
Sí, la obra me ha gustado mucho y me ha parecido muy interesante, he conocido aspectos de la vida de Shakespeare que no conocía de antes, y tal y como se señalan en los ensayos finales me he quedado con ganas de leer las obras de teatro que no conozco, releer muchas que ya he leído anteriormente, y conocer más sobre la vida del bardo y sobre las diferentes teorías en torno a su biografía y persona que hay. Pero también debo decir que gran pero que le veo este libro es que considero que es un tomo que solo puede disfrutarse plenamente si ya conoces de antes el terreno que pisas con él. Presentar la biografía de Shakespeare por medio de otras, me ha parecido una forma de encararla muy interesante, si, también ha hecho que muchas veces se pierda el hilo de lo realmente importante de la obra, que es la trayectoria vital del escritor entre las vidas de otras personas que pueden no interesar al lector o aportarle algo.
January 25, 2016
Everything you ever wanted to know about Shakespeare. Uh...no. What is well-known about Willie is that, even to this day, he is little-known to us. We view him here, (barely) in this interesting scholarship, refracted in the still dim light of some of his contemporaries' eyes.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews