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
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