The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography - Lois Potter Audiobook Free

Written by Lois Potter
Read by J. Paul Guimont
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography

Written by: Lois Potter
Narrated by: J. Paul Guimont
Length: 22 hrs and 47 mins
Format:
Release Date:04-18-13
Publisher: Audible Studios
Program Type: Audiobook

Publisher’s Summary

Think you know Shakespeare? Think again… Was a real skull used in the first performance of Hamlet? Were Shakespeare’s plays Elizabethan blockbusters? How much do we really know about the playwright’s life? And what of his notorious relationship with his wife?

Exploring and exploding 30 popular myths about the great playwright, this illuminating new book evaluates all the evidence to show how historical material - or its absence - can be interpreted and misinterpreted, and what this reveals about our own personal investment in the stories we tell.

©2012 Lois Potter (P)2013 Audible Ltd

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00. Preface and Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
The Shakespeare Family Tree

01. “Born into the World”: 1564–1571
Birth and Baptism
William Shakespeare’s Name
John and Mary Shakespeare
Stratford
The Imaginative World
02. “Nemo Sibi Nascitur”: 1571–1578
Grammar School
The Books
Role Models
Becoming a Writer
Becoming an Actor
Recognition
03. “Hic et Ubique”: 1578–1588
John Shakespeare’s Finances
Shakespeare After School
Theater in the 1580s
Marriage and Children
04. “This Man’s Art and That Man’s Scope”: 1588–1592
The Playwriting Business and Henslowe
Playwrights of the 1580s
Art and Scope and Shakespeare
05. “Tigers’ Hearts”: 1592–1593
The Early Quartos: Competing Theories
The Henry VI Plays
Actors vs Playwrights
Titus Andronicus
06. “The Dangerous Year”: 1593–1594
Venus and Adonis
Summer 1593
Lucrece
WS and HW
The Early Sonnets
07. “Our Usual Manager of Mirth”: 1594–1595
Theater Companies of 1594
Shakespeare the Actor
The Taming of the Shrew
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Comedy of Errors
Writing for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men
08. “The Strong’st and Surest Way to Get”: 1595–1596
Richard III
Edward III
King John
Richard II
09. “When Love Speaks”: 1595–1596
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Love’s Labour’s Lost
“Every word doth almost tell my name”
10. “You Had a Father, Let Your Son Say So”: 1596–1598
The Coat of Arms and Hamnet Shakespeare
1 Henry IV
The Merchant of Venice
No Place and New Place
The Merry Wives of Windsor
2 Henry IV
Much Ado About Nothing
The After-Effects of Grief
11. “Unworthy Scaffold”: 1598–1599
Ben Jonson
The Scaffold and the Globe
Satire and Satiric Drama
Sonnets of Competition
As You Like It
Julius Caesar
Henry V
12. “These Words Are Not Mine”: 1599–1601
Recognition: Palladis Tamia and The Passionate Pilgrim
Quotation: Belvedere, England’s Parnassus, and The Parnassus Plays
Appropriation: the Essex Rebellion
Attribution: Love’s Martyr and Attribution
Revision: Sir Thomas More
13. “Looking Before and After”: 1600–1603
Hamlet
Stratford Land
Twelfth Night
Troilus and Cressida
The End of the Reign
14. “This Most Balmy Time”: 1603–1605
Welcoming the New Reign
The 1603/1604 Season
The King’s Playwright?
Measure for Measure
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
15. “Past the Size of Dreaming”: 1606–1609
“Late Style”
All’s Well That Ends Well
Timon of Athens
Guarini and Tragicomedy
Antony and Cleopatra
Pericles
Coriolanus
Events in Stratford, Events in London
16. “Like an Old Tale”: 1609–1611
Embarrassments of 1609: Troilus and Cressida, “Shakespeare’s Sonnets” and Pericles
The Masque
Cymbeline
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest
17. “The Second Burden”: 1612–1616
John Fletcher and Cardenio
Henry VIII and Its Aftermath
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Last Years
The Survivors
18. “In the Mouths of Men”: 1616 and After
The Folio of 1623
Actors, Biographers, and Editors
Performance
Cornucopian Shakespeare: Criticism — and Everything Else
Memorializing Shakespeare: National and Global
Conclusion: Myth and “Genius”