Author(s): Michael White

Cultural Studies

A chat with William Shakespeare turns into an evocative journey into the personal and professional worlds of the greatest writer in the English language. Over the past four centuries his iconic status as a poet and dramatist has come to represent what it means to be a genius, and his words have given us a means of expressing every human emotion.
But what kind of a man was he?
Here we are able to follow his steps from a small town in Warwickshire to centre stage in Elizabethan London. We hear about his favourite actors, his methods of writing, his learning, his inspiration and ambitions, his relations with his wife and children ...and with rival playwrights such as Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe. And we learn too about the colourful, often surprisingly violent but also surprisingly civilized times in which he lived.

First published 2008.