'Shakespeare: The Biography' - Peter Ackroyd - Review

Hello again, I apologise for my long absence, I have been very busy at home and abroad.  However, in this time period I have accumulated a lot of new content for this blog.  I am going to begin by reviewing this book which I read all the way back in July.

This book provided a great insight into the bizarre world of Elizabethan theatre.  Ackroyd writes with great enthusiasm about the works of Shakespeare, thus infusing this book with copious praise for England's greatest bard.  The narrative traces Shakespeare's journey from a relatively prosperous upbringing in Stratford-upon-Avon, to London and immortality in literature.  Ackroyd's beautiful language proves him worthy to be a biographer of the great poet.  The entire book is written in magnificent prose containing many eloquent phrases and descriptions, which makes reading such a scholarly work pleasurable.

Other reviews, particularly that of the Guardian criticise Ackroyd's accuracy, and therefore contesting its bold claim to be 'The Biography' of Shakespeare. However, for my purpose which was merely to gain context and an understanding of Shakespeare and his world for my Literature A Level, it exceeded all expectation.  Each play has a synopsis, allowing me to observe interlinks between texts.

Ackroyd tackles all the significant debates about Shakespeare, and relates them when possible to Shakespeare's artistic life. Such as whether his father a covert Catholic? Ackroyd tends to thinks he was and that this explains the financial difficulties he experienced during his son's early manhood. And perhaps, Ackroyd suggests, this is also why 'the plays of Shakespeare are filled with authoritative males', such as Richard II, Brutus and Antony, who have failed. However, despite the faith of his father, Ackroyd believes that Shakespeare himself held no particular belief.  This is because many of his plays, like King Lear that I am studying does not adhere to conventional Christian ethics.

the most interesting theme raised by Ackroyd was the fluidity of Elizabethan plays.  Many plays were written in collaboration with other playwrights, and plagiarism was commonplace.  Shakespeare was not aloof from this, and Ackroyd draws attention to the 'chunks' of Marlowe present in his own plays, and other plays that were jointly written with Shakespeare.  This raises the question of whether copyright and intellectual property laws are a force for good for artists? Personally, I have no problem with one writer taking from another to improve and alter the content as they see fit. Just as Shakespeare8
did to Marlowe's work centuries earlier.

Overall, the book gets a 4/5.