Shakespeare’s Wife
by Germaine Greer was the book from which I had to take a hiatus to read The Obamas. The first several chapters, especially the
ones recounting the genealogical history of the Hathaway and Shakespeare
families, were fascinating. Then the
middle chapters started to drag. When I
came back to the book, the remaining chapters sucked me right back in.
Shakespeare scholar Greer attempts to shed new light on the
controversial figure of Ann Hathaway, William Shakespeare’s wife. Hathaway has long been maligned as the
spinster strumpet who seduced her boy-husband and entrapped him into marriage
with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. These
are charges usually made by other scholars based upon little to no proof. Scholars also contend that Shakespeare was himself
embittered by the marriage and grew to resent the wife from whom he may (or may
not) have spent long periods of time physically estranged while he pursued
playing in theater and writing—assumptions again made based upon little to no
proof or upon misinterpretations of historical context and social mores of the
time period.
Greer uses church records, court records, and other
contemporary records as well as historical research on the time period, its
social customs, practices, mores, and culture to re-draw the portrait of Ann
Hathaway.
What is more frustrating is that Greer shares in the book how we will
never know certain details about Shakespeare and his private life, including
his family, because Shakespeare himself was a very private man and as a result
there survives no personal correspondence written by the playwright himself.
Fans of William Shakespeare, historical mysteries, and
literature will enjoy this book, which is available in county.
--Reviewed by Ms. Angie
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