Robert Nye

Did Shakespeare Write Shakespeare?

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

By

Jonathan Cape 406pp £20 order from our bookshop

The Age of Shakespeare

By

Weidenfeld & Nicolson 194pp £12.99 order from our bookshop

Weidenfeld & Nicolson 194pp £12.99

THE EFFIGY CARVED in the north wall of the chancel in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, depicts a man who looks like a successful pork butcher rather improbably in the act of poetic composition, with his fat right hand on a golden cushion and holding a golden quill. The first thing to say about Stephen Greenblatt’s William Shakespeare is that he would have written nothing with a golden quill, and that it is unlikely that he ever rested his hand on golden cushions.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    • 'We read from left to right and from start to finish. Or do we?' Stuart Hannabus considers the merits of reading i… ,
    • Domestic scandal, sexual abuse and serial killers are on the menu in April's crime round-up. revie… ,
    Follow Us