![]() ![]() Bryson begins by telling us what Shakespeare did (or did not) look like. Like Show White sweeping up for the Seven Dwarfs, he whistles while he works. Bryson is so cheerful as he goes about debunking received wisdom, cockamamie theories, eccentric research and serious but flawed scholarship. On and on go the disclaimers: “We know precious little ….” “We hardly know what he was as a person.” “Ever a shadow in his own biography, he disappears, all but utterly ….” And yet Shakespeare: The World as Stage is not an ongoing discouragement, because Mr. ![]() Bryson deduces, “is an irreconcilable mystery.” ![]() We don’t know, for instance, exactly when he was born or how to spell his name or whether he ever left England or who his best friends were. Bryson sets off on a mission: “ see how much of Shakespeare we can know, really know, from the record.” The series in question is Eminent Lives, which describes itself as “brief biographies by distinguished authors on canonical figures.” (The general editor, James Atlas, is the matchmaker.) Thus, Mr. ![]()
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