'Packed with brilliantly original close readings of points most critics and editors have skimmed over.'Andy Gurr, University of Reading'In his searching and erudite new book, Steve Sohmer re-examines passages which have baffled generations of annotators, and finds evidence of a personal Shakespeare visible through the textual aporia of his plays.'Michael Dobson, Shakespeare Institute'Adventurous, inventive, iconoclastic Steve Sohmer invites us to rethink what lies behind the references in a number of Shakespeare's plays. A tour de force that launches out from the familiar pathways of Shakespeare scholarship and biography to challenge and disturb accepted wisdom. Sohmer has an acute eye for the unusual and the unexplained, and his textual discoveries are imbued with a striking audacity that builds surprising edifices on the formal foundations of a familiar historical context. Whether it's the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, who in Sohmer's historical imagination morphs into Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, or what lies behind the Oldcastle/Falstaff controversy in the Second Tetralogy, or the puzzling details of Maria's letter for Malvolio in Twelfth Night, or the real people lurking behind Shakespeare's dramatic characters: Sohmer tracks them down to uncover a personal sub-text for the plays that offers us a window into Shakespeare's elusive creative consciousness. This is a book that is at once knowledgeable, speculative, and, above all, entertaining.'John Drakakis, University of Sterling'Steve Sohmer's well-stocked mind can be relied upon to produce intriguingly fresh perspectives on Shakespeare's plays.'Stanley Wells, Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust‘Not only does Sohmer get to the point, but he also makes enough of them to keep the reader continually interested, even if one disagrees with some of his conclusions. In a blurb on the book’s jacket, Sir Stanley Wells notes that “Sohmer’s well-stocked mind can be relied upon to produce intriguingly fresh perspectives on Shakespeare’s plays.” Sohmer’s perspectives are not always persuasive, but they are indeed fresh and stimulating takes on the work.’Sean Benson, University of Dubuque‘The ever bold Steve Sohmer rejects faddish but misguided efforts to deracinate Shakespeare’s texts from its roots in his life; instead, Sohmer accepts Sigurd Burkardt’s challenge that we try to read Shakespeare’s mind, attentive to all the overlooked or misunderstood clues in his works … He is controversial but often persuasive, as he notes that Shakespeare’s contemporary audiences and readers would ‘catch every nuance, intimation, allusion, and innuendo of London life’.’Richard M. Waugaman, Georgetown University, 71.1 (Spring 2018) issue of Renaissance Quarterly
