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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
For those who enjoy such things, James Shapiro has a new book, wittily titled Contested Will where he looks at the sordid history of the whole "authorship question". Here is the publisher's blurb:
Quote:
For more than two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death, no one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then, however, dozens of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English language. In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers and thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, and Helen Keller. It is a fascinating story, replete with forgeries, deception, false claimants, ciphers and codes, conspiracy theories—and a stunning failure to grasp the power of the imagination. Think I'll be checking this one out. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
George Ledo Magic Café Columnist SF Bay Area 3042 Posts |
I'll be checking it out too. Thanks.
A fun read that came out a couple of years ago was "Interred With Their Bones," a novel by Jennifer Lee Carrell. Think "The DaVinci Code."
That's our departed buddy Burt, aka The Great Burtini, doing his famous Cups and Mice routine
www.georgefledo.net Latest column: "Sorry about the photos in my posts here" |
Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Looks really interesting. I have never found any of the anti-Shakespeare arguments very convincing.
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Nosher Loyal user 261 Posts |
Thanks for that. Looks well worth a look.
Escapemaster-in-chief from all sorts of houdingplaces - Finnegans Wake
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
Just finished the book. It's a very interesting read. Shapiro's main thesis is that most of the "authorship doubts" are a consequence of an 18th-21st century notion of "author-as-autobiographer" that would be absolutely alien to any Elizabethan or Jacobian writer. I do heartily recommend it.
John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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