0 items in basket. Total: £0.00 Becoming Shakespeare
Jack Lynch
The Untold Story of How a Provincial Playwright Became the World's Foremost Literary Icon
Becoming Shakespeare begins where most Shakespeare stories end, with his death in 1616. Jack Lynch has written the definitive biography of Shakespeare’s afterlife: the fascinating tale of his unlikely transformation from provincial playwright to universal Bard. Unlike later literary giants, Shakespeare created no stir when he died. Within a few years he was nearly forgotten. And when London’s theatres were shut down in 1642, he seemed destined for oblivion.With the Restoration in 1660, however, the theatres 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, what Jane Austen called ‘part of an Englishman’s constitution’.
Jack Lynch brilliantly 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 the myth of Shakespeare, but it also offers a consideration of the vagaries of fame.
Sales points
Shakespeare remains a fascinating topic,Lynch is an expert on Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson,Becoming Shakespeare can be read as a meditation on fame as condition apart from our contemporary notion of celebrity,Addresses the common misperception that Shakespeare was always deemed to be 'great'.,Wide review coverage expected for this fascinating topic.
Praise for Becoming Shakespeare
'Becoming Shakespeare can be read as a meditation on fame as a condition apart from our contemporary notion of celebrity . . . fascinating.' Los Angeles Times Book Review
Constable
Hardback
Demy, 288 pp
Published 24th Apr 2008
ISBN: 9781845298234
Markets: UK & Commonwealth
RRP £14.99
Hardback
Demy, 288 pp
Published 24th Apr 2008
ISBN: 9781845298234
Markets: UK & Commonwealth
RRP £14.99
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Reviews
"A witty and appealing story of how a superstar was born"
Kirkus Reviews
"‘The best thing about Jack Lynch’s fascinating book is that it helps us to understand that process by which so many of us have come to share Johnson"s opinion. That transformation was every bit as contingent and turbulent as one of William Shakespeare"s great dramas.’"
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Los Angeles Times Book Review
"A witty and appealing story of how a superstar was born"
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
"Highly readable ... Mr Lynch’s account of it is worthy of inclusion on anyone’s reading list."
Dallas Morning News
Dallas Morning News
"A book for Shakespeareans of all stripes to relish with gusto."
Booklist
Booklist
"A feisty mixture of scholarship, wit and mischief"
The Herald, The Big Read
The Herald, The Big Read
"An absorbing book"
The Field
The Field
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