0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Plays & playwrights > 16th to 18th centuries > Shakespeare studies & criticism

Buy Now

Shakespeare's Wife (Paperback) Loot Price: R438
Discovery Miles 4 380
You Save: R46 (10%)
Shakespeare's Wife (Paperback): Germaine Greer

Shakespeare's Wife (Paperback)

Germaine Greer

 (2 ratings, sign in to rate)
List price R484 Loot Price R438 Discovery Miles 4 380 You Save R46 (10%)

Bookmark and Share

Expected to ship within 9 - 17 working days

Longtime feminist provocateur Greer (Whitefella Jump Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood, 2004, etc.) proffers a wildly far-fetched "biography" of the Bard's underdocumented spouse.The author blithely disregards the perils of extrapolating a historical record from Shakespeare's writing in this glue-and-scissors account. Greer is annoyed by the bad rap Ann Hathaway has earned from most Shakespearean scholars, who assume that because Ann was eight years older she lured the 18-year-old glover's boy into an early marriage and made him so miserable that he skirted off to London for most of their adult lives. Because there is very little on record except dates of birth, marriage and lawsuits, Greer works by examining the parallel lives of Ann's siblings and Stratford's inhabitants: how they lived, worked and died and what their expectations of marriage were at the time. The author asserts, for example, that Ann was probably a farm servant, could read the Bible a little and was left to fend for herself and the children when Will left around 1587. Greer suggests that the purchase of New Place in 1597, usually seen as part of Shakespeare's "gentrification project," was "very much more likely" instigated by Ann, who ran a lively business in malt-making and money-lending from the enormous Stratford house. The fact that the scant documents relating to such activities are all in Will's name is waved away: "the dealings of married women were invariably subsumed within their husband's." Using Shakespeare's poetry as evidence, Greer insists that Ann must have loved and missed Will very much. She suggests that, far from being a chronicle of homosexual and adulterous love, some or all of the Sonnets may have been written for Ann. She is, to put it mildly, overanalyzing her sources. An exasperating work that edifies only with its intensive study of the era's mores; it can be used as a sociological study of Elizabethan women, but it doesn't offer a plausible judgment of Ann Hathaway Shakespeare. (Kirkus Reviews)
______________ 'Excellent ... a marvellous imagining of the life of Shakespeare's wife and a devastating exposure of the misogyny of the male biographers who have disparaged her' - Sunday Telegraph 'Greer dares to think the unthinkable ... this is a bold and imaginative book' - Independent 'A spirited, voluble, scholarly book which gives some depth and some dignity to the marginalised Mrs Shakespeare' - Guardian ______________ AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4'S BOOK OF THE WEEK Little is known of the wife of England's greatest playwright. In play after play Shakespeare presents the finding of a worthy wife as a triumphant denouement, yet scholars persist in believing that his own wife was resented and even hated by him. Here Germaine Greer strives to re-embed the story of their marriage in its social context and presents new hypotheses about the life of the farmer's daughter who married our greatest poet. This is a daring, insightful book that asks new questions, opens new fields of investigation and research, and rights the wrongs done to Ann Shakespeare. 'A refreshing corrective to the usual portrait ... Greer is impressive when it comes to detailing their Stratford life and times ... It's robust, lively stuff' - The Times

General

Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Release date: August 2008
Authors: Germaine Greer
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 25mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 978-0-7475-9300-3
Categories: Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Literary
Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Plays & playwrights > 16th to 18th centuries > Shakespeare studies & criticism
Books > Biography > Literary
Promotions
LSN: 0-7475-9300-0
Barcode: 9780747593003

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!

You might also like..

Macbeth - No Fear Shakespeare
Spark Notes Paperback R207 R189 Discovery Miles 1 890
The Shakespeare Book
Dk Hardcover  (1)
R625 R566 Discovery Miles 5 660
King Lear
John Russell Brown Hardcover R2,200 Discovery Miles 22 000
Sudden Shakespeare - The Shaping of…
Philip Davis Hardcover R2,052 Discovery Miles 20 520
Othello
P Edmondson, Stuart Hampton-Reeves Hardcover R2,200 Discovery Miles 22 000
Othello: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe…
Spark Notes Paperback R289 Discovery Miles 2 890
Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama
Hugh MacKay Paperback R320 Discovery Miles 3 200
Coleridge's Criticism of Shakespeare
Foakes Hardcover R2,046 Discovery Miles 20 460
The Face of Mammon - The Matter of Money…
David Landreth Hardcover R2,013 Discovery Miles 20 130
Macbeth
Eric Rasmussen, Jonathan Bate Paperback  (1)
R305 Discovery Miles 3 050
Othello: York Notes for A-level
Rebecca Warren, William Shakespeare Paperback  (1)
R238 Discovery Miles 2 380
Shakespearean Tragedy
A. C. Bradley Hardcover R3,204 Discovery Miles 32 040

See more

Partners