Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd is very hit and miss for me, but this book was definitely a hit. I really enjoyed it, although sometimes I found Ackroyd's waxing lyrical a little bit painfully Victorian and cringe-worthy. He seems to have an idea of Shakespeare as a 'genius', which involves him being a sort of vessel for some alternative agency, often not fully aware of the complexity and brilliance of what he was doing. I tend to see Shakespeare as much more human than Ackroyd does, and Ackroyd also makes bold claims like Shakespeare being universally acknowledged as the best playwright in his day time, or by far the most bawdy one (the last claim is definitely not true). However, Ackroyd also refrains from making definitely statements or judgements on many contested or uncertain subjects, such as Shakespeare's marriage. For example, he explains that Shakespeare leaving his new family to go to London was highly unusual not only for his social position, but for the time in general, but does not assume that the marriage was unhappy, presenting different points of view. He often claims that one viewpoint is 'most likely', but the other ones are still there. Because so little is known about Shakespeare's early life (in fact it's quite a feat to have managed to write so long a book from the meagre facts that we have), Ackroyd describes the typical life of someone of Shakespeare's status, which makes fascinating reading. As is usual for him, Ackroyd makes extensive use of statistics and numbers, which I don't like, because my head just doesn't process them and they wind up meaning very little to me. The pacing of the book was also a little strange; Ackroyd dwells in exhaustive detail of Shakespeare's early life and parentage, lavishes a great deal of attention on the early plays, but not nearly as much attention on the later ones. Maybe he assumes that enough ink has been spilled over them already. However, I would have loved to get more details on how and why Shakespeare and his company were chosen to be the King's Men when James I became king. It seems to me that this was probably a huge change, both for Shakespeare's social standing and for the company, but Ackroyd sort of just skims over it very fast. Still, it's utterly impossible to cover everything, and this was a fascinating and informative read. I was formerly very impatient and annoyed with those critics who were preoccupied with Catholicism and (or versus) Protestantism in Shakespeare's work, but this book has convinced me that it is actually extremely important. Ackroyd wonderfully describes how, while Shakespeare might not have been (and probably was not) a Catholic, the Catholic connections of his family were of vital importance.