Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Book Note: Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare?

Wells, Stanley. Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare? Ebrington: Long Barn Books, n.d. [Note: The edition I have isn't dated, but other sources offer 2007 as a publication date.]

Stanley Wells is one of the great popularizers of scholarship about Shakespeare. He writes clearly and entertainingly about both simple and knotty problems.

This volume is no exception. It's brief, but it's fascinating, and it's the kind of book anyone can dip into to get succinct, comprehensible answers to a number of questions commonly (and uncommonly) asked about Shakespeare.

I'm providing a number of examples below, starting with one I've investigated and written about before (for which, q.v.).



Some of the questions Wells addresses form part of the anti-Stratfordians arguments, like these that deal with the writing habits of his family:



Here's another question related to the argument that Shakespeare didn't write the plays attributed to Shakespeare:


The questions aren't all designed to put to rest the quibbles of the anti-Stratfordian camp (though there is an extensive section toward the end of the book that deals with a host of pretenders to the authorship of Shakespeare's works), but they are all enlightening—whether you're well-versed in the bard and his oeuvre or a relative newcomer to the man and his works. I recommend getting a copy to leave on your coffee table for everyone who comes into your home to dip into.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

—The Tempest