Shakespeare & Biography

Shakespeare and Biography is not a new biography of Shakespeare. Instead it is a study of what biographers have said about Shakespeare from the first formal biography in the early 18th century by Nicholas Rowe to Stephen Greenblatt James Shapiro Jonathan Bate Germaine Greer Katherine Duncan-Jones Park Honan Rene Weis and others who have written recent biographical accounts of England''s greatest writer. The emphasis is on what sorts of issues these biographers have found especially interesting in relation to sex and gender politics religion pessimism misanthropy jealousy aging family relationships the end of a career the end of life. How has Shakespeare''s contemplation of these issues changed and grown and in what ways do those changes reflect new cultural developments in our world as it continues to reinterpret Shakespeare?