Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
 
Product details:

ISBN13:9781982171278
ISBN10:1982171278
Binding:Paperback
No. of pages:432 pages
Size:212x139x25 mm
Weight:259 g
Language:English
Illustrations: 1-c photos t-o
700
Category:

Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies

How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
 
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date of Publication:
Number of Volumes: Trade Paperback
 
Normal price:

Publisher's listprice:
GBP 10.99
Estimated price in HUF:
5 308 HUF (5 055 HUF + 5% VAT)
Why estimated?
 
Your price:

4 512 (4 297 HUF + 5% VAT )
discount is: 15% (approx 796 HUF off)
The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.
Click here to subscribe.
 
Availability:

Not yet published.
 
  Piece(s)

 
Short description:

A delightful romp through the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him became the greatest taboo in literature… and who the Bard might really be.

Long description:
An “extraordinarily brilliant” and “pleasurably naughty” (Andr&&&233; Aciman) investigation into the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote his plays became an act of blasphemy…and who the Bard might really be.

The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.”

In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo. Whisking you from London to Stratford-Upon-Avon to Washington, DC, she pulls back the curtain to show how the forces of nationalism and empire, religion and mythmaking, gender and class have shaped our admiration for Shakespeare across the centuries. As she considers the writers and thinkers&&&8212;from Walt Whitman to Sigmund Freud to Supreme Court justices&&&8212;who have grappled with the riddle of the plays’ origins, she explores who may perhaps have been hiding behind his name. A forgotten woman? A disgraced aristocrat? A government spy? Hovering over the mystery are Shakespeare’s plays themselves, with their love for mistaken identities, disguises, and things never quite being what they seem.

As she interviews scholars and skeptics, Winkler’s interest turns to the larger problem of historical truth&&&8212;and of how human imperfections (bias, blindness, subjectivity) shape our construction of the past. History is a story, and the story we find may depend on the story we’re looking for.

“Lively” (The Washington Post), “fascinating” (Amanda Foreman), and “intrepid” (Stacy Schiff), Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies will forever change how you think of Shakespeare…and of how we as a society decide what’s up for debate and what’s just nonsense, just heresy.

“An extraordinarily brilliant and scholarly work, written with an unyielding sleuthing instinct and sparkling with pleasurably naughty moments. This page-turner is mesmerizing.”
—André Aciman, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name