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 Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 4:59 am
Last night at about quarter to eleven my friends and I went to Kmart. My friends stayed in the toy section and I went to the books. If you've ever bought books at Kmart you'l know that you're sacrificing quality and quantity to save some money. So I went there with low expectations but came out with Shakespeare by Bill Bryson.
It's not about his plays but about him. And about how little we really know about him. For instance-
There are only three likenesses of Shakespeare: two of them are done poorly and years after he died and a portrait that might not even be him.
Bryson writes "The paradoxical consequence is that we all recognize a likeness of Shakespeare the instant we see one and yet we don't know what he looked like".
Also, historians don't know the correct spelling of his name because in the surviving signatures they have of his are spelled 'Willm Shaksp', 'William Shakspe', 'Wm Shakspe', 'William Shakspeare', 'Willm Shakspeare' and 'William Shakspeare'.
Personally, I think it's the last one.
On the first, third and fifth name, the historians say that they were written that way as an abbreviation, popular at the time.
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:41 pm
It goes beyond just that. In fact, there is reason to doubt that Shakespeare even wrote those plays. Many people believe the true author just used Shakespeare as a pen name.
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