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Overview
In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history and culture of the Elizabethan era to enlighten us about William Shakespeare and his poetry and plays. Opening with the big picture of the religious and dynastic events that defined England in the age of the Tudors, Kermode takes the reader on a tour of Shakespeare’s England, vividly portraying London’s society, its early capitalism, its court, its bursting population, and its epidemics, as well as its arts—including, of course, its theater. Then Kermode focuses on Shakespeare himself and his career, all in the context of the time in which he lived. Kermode reads each play against the backdrop of its probable year of composition, providing new historical insights into Shakspeare’s characters, themes, and sources. The result is an important, lasting, and concise companion guide to the works of Shakespeare by one of our most eminent literary scholars.
Synopsis
In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history and culture of the Elizabethan era to enlighten us about William Shakespeare and his poetry and plays. Opening with the big picture of the religious and dynastic events that defined England in the age of the Tudors, Kermode takes the reader on a tour of Shakespeare’s England, vividly portraying London’s society, its early capitalism, its court, its bursting population, and its epidemics, as well as its arts—including, of course, its theater. Then Kermode focuses on Shakespeare himself and his career, all in the context of the time in which he lived. Kermode reads each play against the backdrop of its probable year of composition, providing new historical insights into Shakspeare’s characters, themes, and sources. The result is an important, lasting, and concise companion guide to the works of Shakespeare by one of our most eminent literary scholars.
The New York Times
Kermode clears the way with an overview of Tudor politics and the growth of English Protestantism, a rich background for his discussion of what is known about Shakespeare's early life, including the recent debate over his possible Catholicism. The heart of the book is its account of the swift evolution of English drama from its late-medieval forms to its professional heights not long after Elizabeth's death in 1603, and the many threads, political, financial and social, that connected the theater to the worlds of court and city. Kermode's portrayal of the crush of the London playhouse and its place in a bustling world of commerce and competition is vibrant and full of learning. Shakespeare's rivalry with poets like Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson develops in the context of other contests, in which adult actors vie with boys' troupes and court factions plot for power. — Joy Connolly
Editorials
The New York Times
Kermode clears the way with an overview of Tudor politics and the growth of English Protestantism, a rich background for his discussion of what is known about Shakespeare's early life, including the recent debate over his possible Catholicism. The heart of the book is its account of the swift evolution of English drama from its late-medieval forms to its professional heights not long after Elizabeth's death in 1603, and the many threads, political, financial and social, that connected the theater to the worlds of court and city. Kermode's portrayal of the crush of the London playhouse and its place in a bustling world of commerce and competition is vibrant and full of learning. Shakespeare's rivalry with poets like Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson develops in the context of other contests, in which adult actors vie with boys' troupes and court factions plot for power. — Joy ConnollyPublishers Weekly
While the age of Shakespeare overlapped with the both the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, Kermode's compact, erudite appreciation of the Bard is less about Shakespeare's private life and turbulent times than his theatrical milieu and the worlds he created for the stage. Quick summaries of the pressing political issues of the Protestant Reformation and the successor Queen Elizabeth are followed by up-to-date surveys of the debates over Shakespeare's possible crypto-Catholicism and his "missing" years. But Kermode hits his stride with the plays. His breakdown of Shakespeare's artistic development and mature achievement by the various acting companies and theaters he was associated with from the Lord Chamberlain's Company to the renamed King's Men, from the Theatre and the Rose to the Globe and Blackfriars proves a satisfying structure to match the swift pace. Inevitably, the brevity of the Chronicles format can't provide equal time to all of Shakespeare's million-plus words of dramatic poetry, and Kermode prefers the tragedies and romances over the histories and comedies (to say nothing of the sonnets). Occasionally shifting to lectern manner, he also revisits some of his favorite tropes, which he explored in Shakespeare's Language, such as rhetorical doubling and pairing in Hamlet and the theme of equivocation in Macbeth. While Ben Jonson declared, "[Shakespeare] was not for an age, but for all time!" Kermode pleasurably shows how he and his works were of their age and also transcended it. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.KLIATT
The distinguished critic Frank Kermode presents Shakespeare as an actor, a playwright, a poet, a minor courtier, and a highly successful businessman. He blends his discussion of Shakespeare's life and works into an analysis of the political, religious, and economic realities of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. The result is an astute assessment of the greatest dramatist in a period of explosive interest in drama. An astounding 3000 plays were written in this time period, of which approximately 650 survive. Kermode demonstrates that as the world of the theatre changed and developed, so too did Shakespeare. Some plays receive more commentary than others. Of the comedies, he refers to The Two Gentlemen of Verona as "a slight work" and to Love's Labour's Lost as "the finest." He agrees with W. H. Auden that The Merry Wives of Windsor is "'a very dull play indeed.'" As one might expect, he concludes that Hamlet is "the most remarkable" in its "complexity and scope," and explains that in Hamlet Shakespeare uses a "new dramatic language to explore the minds of the characters." This led to a new type of acting he refers to as "personation." Another example of Kermode's gifted analysis is in his discussion of King Lear. He questions, "Why must Cordelia be murdered?" noting "no existing version of the story except Shakespeare's records this loss." He concludes that the play is one "conscious of apocalypse," reflecting "a darkness in the national mood" at the time. Although focused primarily on the plays and the times in which they were written, Kermode does not avoid some of the controversies surrounding Shakespeare's personal life. He offers somelevelheaded responses to questions relating to Shakespeare's religion, the "lost years," and the identity of the Dark Lady of the sonnets. Perhaps his most provocative comment is the suggestion that Shakespeare may not have intended to retire to Stratford, noting that only three years before his death, he purchased the Blackfriars Gatehouse in London. Readers of this volume will be pleased in every respect except one—it is too brief. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2004, Random House, Modern Library, 214p. illus. notes. bibliog. index., Ages 15 to adult.—Anthony Pucci