Shakespeare Without a Life

An original account of the development of the 'idea' of Shakespeare, by one of the world's leading Shakespearians Based on the Oxford Shakespeare Wells Lectures series Stimulates a rethinking of the role of biography in Shakespeare studies Explores the different ways in which Shakespeare's works were understood and valued by readers and writers until the nineteenth century, without the biography of Shakespeare we now regard as indispensable Offers a new way of reading the Shakespearean anecdotes as literary criticism rather than proto-biography, with a focus not on what he did, but how he wrote Examines Shakespeare's Sonnets in manuscript and print before their canonization