Reviews for Shakespeare's England

The average rating for Shakespeare's England based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-04-23 00:00:00 Keith Jernquist I finished this several weeks ago but haven't had the chance to write it up. I thought it was brilliant history. I borrowed it from the library but was only part way through the first chapter when I decided to buy my own copy because I was making so many notes. This book wasn't simply a discussion on women playrights with an analysis of specific texts rather it was a detailed gender history of the period and women's role in theatre. I think people who already know the period well might find it a bit frustrating as the first two chapters are background but I found them fascinating. The book totally changed my idea on the type of writer and person Clemance Dane was. Having read Wild Decembers, and the reviews, I thought she was a little soft, focusing on the romance and wedding of Charlotte. But there were many wonderful feminist quotes from her in here that totally changed my idea of her and gave me a fresh perspective on her work. It became much easier to see why Bea was involved in the production. What I think this book did best was to put the women in context as mainstream popular writers. It challenged the view of traditional theatre history that only the radicals are worth talking about. It also showed how the plays women tended to write, about gender and family, were often dismissed as not tackling hard issues. The book also has a compendium of plays written by women at that time, (and ones co-written with men). For people who are interested in women's theatre history and women's writing history I can't recommend this book highly enough!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-08-09 00:00:00 Malaika Dracu I loathed this book. He "imagines" Shakespeare's life, with lots of talk about Shakespeare's feelings and opinions. It picks and chooses different scholars' varying theories about the details of Shakespeare's life and presents them as if they were fact. Bad, bad, bad.