Life of William Shakespeare

Lois Potter recently retired as Ned B. Allen Chair at the University of Delaware. She has also taught at the Universities of Aberdeen, Leicester, and Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, and at Tsuda College, Tokyo. Her publications include Twelfth Night: Text and Performance (1986), the Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen (1997, 2001), and Shakespeare in Performance: Othello (2002). She is also the editor of two volumes in the Revels History of Drama in English series (1981 and 1984), and has been a frequent reviewer of plays for the Times Literary Supplement, Shakespeare Quarterly, and Shakespeare Bulletin.

• List of Illustrations vi Preface and Acknowledgments viiList of Abbreviations xThe Shakespeare Family Tree xii1 “Born into the World”: 1564–1571 12 “Nemo SibiNascitur”: 1571–1578 213 “Hic et Ubique”: 1578–1588 404 “This Man’s Art and That Man’s Scope”: 1588–1592 645 “Tigers’ Hearts”: 1592–1593 866 “The Dangerous Year”: 1593–1594 1067 “Our Usual Manager of Mirth”: 1594–1595 1348 “The Strong’st and Surest Way to Get”: Histories, 1595–1596 1629 “When Love Speaks”: Tragedy and Comedy, 1595–1596 18110 “You Had a Father; Let Your Son Say So”: 1596–1598 20111 “Unworthy Scaffold”: 1598–1599 23112 “These Words Are Not Mine”: 1599–1601 25813 “Looking Before and After”: 1600–1603 27714 “This Most Balmy Time”: 1603–1605 30015 “Past the Size of Dreaming”: 1606–1609 33016 “Like an Old Tale”: 1609–1611 36017 “The Second Burden”: 1612–1616 38418 “In the Mouths of Men”: 1616 and After 414Bibliography 443Index 475

“Two of the Mighty dead have been brought back to life in exemplary fashion: Shakespeare in Lois Potter’s The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography, which very cleverly uses expert theatre-knowledge as a way of making her enigmatic subject seem plausibly substantial; and Keats in Nicholas Roe’s John Keats: A New Life, which puts the poet properly in his place.”  (The Guardian, 24 November 2012)“This study will have wide appeal to readers who wish to expand their appreciation of the works of William Shakespeare.  Summing Up: Highly recommended.  Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.”  (Choice, 1 November 2012)“A richly suggestive, undogmatic book in which Lois Potter ranges across the entire canon and the period that helped produce it.”  (Around the Globe, 1 October 2012)“Lois Potter’s Life of William Shakespeare, ranks with the most distinguished examples of its kind … Her achievement lies in her catholicity, her simultaneous commitment to matters personal, historical, theatrical, literary, cultural.  She exhibits an absolute command of the available facts, a lifetime’s acquaintance with the works gained in teaching and playgoing, an unparalleled familiarity with theatrical history from 1567 to the present, and a talent for connecting the fictional and the actual.”  (Times Literary Supplement, 10 August 2012)