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2491990 No.2491990 [Reply] [Original]

Looking for good biographies of Shakespeare, Chekhov and Beckett.

Can /lit/ recommend?

Also, good biographies of writers general.

>> No.2491995

>wikipedia

>> No.2492005

Beckett in 90 Minutes was enjoyable, although it may be too superficial for you.

>> No.2492012

Here's a cool blog post that recommends biographies of Dostoevsky, Joyce and Beckett, check it out: http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Unabashedly-Bookish-The-BN/Three-Literary-Biographies/ba-p/70
7166?nobounce

>> No.2492036

>>2492005
Looks like it's more about their works than the life. Am I wrong?

>>2492012
Thanks. Looks good. I hear the Ellman bio of Joyce is pretty much the standard.

>> No.2492064

There isn't much source material on Shakespeare's life so you won't find any 'biographies' although I've heard of some reconstructions that have been done from the content of the plays, which a lot of critics have derogated for academic dishonesty or whatever...

Fundamentally, the artist, I believe particularly the dramatist, projects with some distance from their own self, the controversial persona theory, so plays are complicated source material for biography.

>> No.2492083

>>2492064
Hmm...that's what I thought. There's Anthony Burgess' Nothing Like the Sun which I heard is very good and seems to do what you're talking about.

>> No.2492089

A "biography" of Shakespeare would be the length of a couple pages. That's pretty much all we know about him.

If you're going to write a biography about Shakespeare than extends beyond 4 pages, you're probably just making it up.

>> No.2492102

>>2492089
Well, yes. Few documents about the man himself exist.

However, we know a lot about the Globe theatre and Lord Chamberlain's Men, which overlap Shakespeare's life.

I know what you're saying and I agree, but some more information can be gleaned--not definitive information, but some information.

>> No.2492171

>>2492102
Can you point me in the right direction? I'm interested in the Globe Theatre et al

>> No.2494441

Does anyone know a good biography of Cervantes?

>> No.2494506

>A "biography" of Shakespeare would be the length of a couple pages. That's pretty much all we know about him.

>Well, yes. Few documents about the man himself exist.

Duh. In which case, the book you are looking for is Schoenbaum's "William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life."

Schoenbaum reproduces and discusses all of the relevant documents, ranging from the few tantalizing autograph scraps we have to Elizabethan ephemera like "Willobie His Avisa" and Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit". (It only lacks such things that were unearthed after publication, such as the Elizabethan day-book sold by Wreden to the Folger Library, which contains the first manuscript record of the purchase of one of Shakespeare's published works.)

It is, charmingly enough, printed in folio format. A decent research library should have a copy.

>> No.2494521

Shakespeare: The World as Stage is a nice, fun little read about Shakespeare that at least does a good job at dispelling all the "shakespeare didn't actually write any of the plays" nonsense.