Shakespeare's Wife
Author(s): Germaine Greer
Little is known about the wife of the world's most famous playwright, but much is said about her. Ann Hathaway has been mocked and vilified by scholars for centuries. The glaring omission of her name from Shakespeare's will has been gleefully used by many as evidence that she was nothing more than an ugly old wench whom William was shackled to after a thoughtless roll in the hay in his giddy youth. Yet Shakespeare went on to become the very poet of marriage, exploring the sacrament in all its aspects, spiritual, psychological, sexual and sociological. He is the creator of the most tenacious and intelligent heroines in English literature. Is it possible, therefore, that Ann was the inspiration? Until now, there has been no serious critical scholarship devoted to the much-wronged Ann Hathaway. Part-biography, part-history, "Shakespeare's Wife" is fascinating in its reconstruction of Ann's life, and the daily lives of Elizabethan women. Germaine Greer offers an illuminating portrait of their working routines, the rituals of their courtship, and the minutiae of married life.
Product Information
For fans of Perdita by Paula Byrne, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt, Aristocrats by Stella Tillyard and Daughters of Britannia by Katie HickmanGermaine Greer's most controversial book since the seminal The Female EunuchGuaranteed massive review coverage and a storm of publicity. Nationwide debate and high-profile public appearances will surround publication
Shortlisted for Prime Minister's Literary Awards (Australia): Non-Fiction 2008.
'The course of Shakespearean biography will never be the same again' Professor Stanley Wells (Chairman of the Shakespeare Centre)
Germaine Greer gained her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1967 with a thesis on Shakespeare's early comedies and has taught Shakespeare at universities in Australia, Britain and the US. In 1986 she was invited to contribute the volume on Shakespeare to the prestigious Past Masters series. In 1989 she set up her own publishing imprint, Stump Cross Books, and went on to publish scholarly editions of Katherine Philips, Anne Wharton and Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea. She lives on three acres by a motorway exit in north-west Essex, with two dogs, thirteen geese and a fluctuating number of doves. Shakespeare's Wife has also been shortlisted for The Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
General Fields
- :
- : 55652
- : 55652
- : 03 September 2007
- : 234mm X 153mm
- : United Kingdom
- : books
Special Fields
- : Germaine Greer
- : Hardback
- : 822.33
- : 416