SHAKESPEAREAN

An affectionate, personal homage to the Bard.

Novelist and former editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber, McCrum is a lifelong Shakespeare addict. At the heart of his book—a mix of biography, literary history, and memoir—is a profound pondering: “How was it…that he became, and still becomes, ‘Shakespearean’?” Writing in lively, conversational prose, McCrum sets off to find an answer as he weaves his way through his subject’s life and works, which “enthrall, baffle, and provoke each new generation.” In 1995, he suffered a severe stroke, and during recovery, Shakespeare’s works “became my book of life.” McCrum explores his reception—“at once global and local”—up to the 2016 election, when the titular term “became a consoling shorthand for bewildered American democrats.” The author delves into the key early years when the Bard matured as a poet and playwright during difficult times, mixing “high and low culture, a declaration of artistic intent that was almost avant-garde,” and his work “became all about language” woven through landscape and history. McCrum sharply examines the “haunting, strange, and tragic tale of Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare” and how the latter became a “playwright for his people.” As he surveys Shakespeare’s career, McCrum pauses for close readings of specific plays.A Midsummer’s Night Dream, he writes “brings all [his] natural poetic and dramatic gifts into a perfect, at times thrilling, harmony.” Hamlet, “something utterly and uniquely new,” was the play “that would finally make Shakespeare ‘Shakespearean.’ ” In The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare is “fully in command of his stage, his audience and his art.” McCrum also insightfully juxtaposes the works with those of later writers to show how Shakespeare “gets remodernized.” He dismisses the authorship debate curtly: “Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.” The unauthorized publication of the sonnets in 1609 moved Shakespeare “from metropolitan renown to the grandeur of myth.” McCrum’s Shakespeare is “omnivorous, witty, sophisticated, wise and—from page to page—the most wonderful company.”

McCrum’s enthusiastic paean is a warm, welcoming place for Shakespeare novices and veterans alike.