Shakespeare

By: Peter Ackroyd

Narrated by: Simon Vance

This is the big one from Peter Ackroyd — and a worthy companion to London: The Biography.

Only Peter Ackroyd can combine readable narrative and unique observation with a sharp eye for the fascinating fact. His method is to position Shakespeare in the close context of his world. In this way, he not only richly conjures up the texture of Shakespeare’s life, but also imparts an amazing amount of vivid, interesting material about place, period and background.

Some snippets: Shakespeare was secretly a Roman Catholic; the witches in Macbeth were not hags but nymphs played by boys; the “best” bed was for guests which was why he bequeathed his wife his “second best” bed (the matrimonial bed in which he probably died); “ham acting” derives from the strutting walk which showed off the ham-strings; an actor called “Will” played female parts — could it have been Shakespeare himself? And, the strongest bond in the plays is between father and daughter, perhaps reflecting Shakespeare’s own family life.©2005 Peter Ackroyd; (P)2005 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“It really is a stupendous achievement . . . Peter Ackroyd is back at the height of his powers.”
–Phil Baker, Sunday Times

A marvelous biography

A comprehensive, fascinating biography of Shakespeare, comprehensive in its grasp of the age. The reading is also top-notch.

An excellent listen.

A very well researched and written book. Simon Vance was the ideal reader. Highly recommended.

I am so glad I chose this book!

I had read another Shakespeare bio many years ago (Will in the World) but I feel I learned so much more from this book. Simon Vance's narration is utterly clear and perfect. Ackroyd's research was amazingly extensive and his ability to synthethize it in entertaining prose was compelling. So compelling that several times I found myself listening late into the night, unable to "put the book down." It was that good. I eventually got the Kindle version so I could highlight passages and see the footnotes. I haven't read any of Ackroyd's another books but I highly recommend this one.

A balanced appreciation of theater's incomparable genius

Shakespeare: A Biography is a rare achievement, a richly detailed and balanced portrait of a figure whose creative genius and biographical normalcy invite theatrical excesses of speculation. This work allows the reader to focus on the arc, the patterns, and the concrete achievements of Shakespeare's life and work. Other books may fire the reader's imagination more, but for a passionately comprehensive Account of Shakespeare's life, his emergent profession, his creative process, and the time in which he lived, Ackroyd's is the finest imaginable overview. Simon Vance reads beautifully, clearly, and with just enough dramatic flair to enliven the listening experience without wearying the listener.

Much ado about something

This is a wonderful book. I never read nor heard nor watched Shakespeare's plays, but now I will and will have benefitted from the understanding that Mr Ackroid provids. I listened to the book because I knew I had missed an experience.

The reader, Simon Vance, was excellent and must have tried to connect Shakespeare's friend John Aubry with Patrick O'Brian's Captain of the "Surprise".

A Definitive Portrait of the Bard

I got bitten by the Shakespeare bug a while back, and since then I've been working hard to understand the man behind the drama, and thus the drama itself. After several lesser books of background information, I discovered James Shapiro's Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, which put an end in my mind to the authorship debate. Prof. Marc C. Conner's Great Courses lecture series How to Read and Understand Shakespeare peeled back the curtain on the plays. Both of those titles were blessings on this road. This book does the work of both of those indirectly, putting the man in the midst of his setting and using his own work to help illustrate how he and his works developed side by side.

One of the interesting things about this book is that it calls up all of the points of refute used in the authorship debate and smooths out virtually every wrinkle without trying, in a manner akin to a scholastic aikido. Where little is known, the norms of the time and place are called forth in conjunction with lines and scenes from the plays or the poems, in some cases giving us double and even triple meanings.

Shakespeare not only emerges from this book as a fully-realized and considerably less romanticized individual, but so too do many of his contemporaries, as well as the locales, and the politics and turmoils of the age. I feel privileged to have found this book after so many fall starts and discouragements.

As narrator, Simon Vance is the ideal choice. Vance is consistently one of two tied in the #1 spot for my favorite narrator due to his clarity, eloquence, and ability to sound both enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the material. It feels as though he's not reading a book, but rather engaging in personal discourse about it... except, of course, where he reads chapter headings.

Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd

I've loved all of Ackroyd's biographies (Dickens, TS Eliot, Blake). One thing Ackroyd does better than anyone else is explain the texts of a writer in contemporary terms, so that here he explains Shakespeare's imagery (flowers, trees, landscapes, even books and events) in terms of what the man probably experienced. It made me want to reread Shakespeare from start to finish--surely how a biographer wants a reader to react.

Well written

My daily companion after a long day at work. Relaxing and listening to my favorite book. Found myself wanting to listen to it again, but alas I must move on.

Vivid Portrait of an Elusive Man

A very nicely put together portrait of Shakespeare and his time, the late 1500s, early 1600s in London. Ackroyd plays out the consequences of most of the mainstream conjectures on Shakespeare's life (no one really knows much about him, of course; he left barely a personal trace at all in the records even after centuries of digging). I would've liked a bit more general historical background, especially on the everyday cultural life of London, but Ackroyd had only so many pages to work with, and it's pretty long and full of detail as is! There's perhaps a bit too much conjecture and conclusion drawn on thin evidence on Shakespeare's alleged crypto-Catholicism. This seems to be a particular hobbyhorse of Ackroyd's, and the evidence is slim that it mattered that much to Shakespeare or that any Catholic underground culture shaped his life and work. Ackroyd always seems to be reaching when he makes these conclusions in the book. But I was generally enthralled throughout this account; Ackroyd's novelist's skills made the writing clear and vivid and those qualities in the prose made listening extremely easy and enjoyable.

Engrossing

Wonderfully researched and the narrator was excellent. It was a pleasure to listen to and I was sorry when it ended.