Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

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Bodley Head, Oct 6, 2016 - Biography & Autobiography - 448 pages

Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World is widely recognised to be the fullest and most brilliant account ever written of Shakespeare's life, his work and his age.

Shakespeare was a man of his time, constantly engaging with his audience's deepest desires and fears, and by reconnecting with this historic reality we are able to experience the true character of the playwright himself. Greenblatt traces Shakespeare's unfolding imaginative generosity - his ability to inhabit others, to confer upon them his own strength of spirit, to make them truly live as independent beings as no other artist has ever done.

Digging deep into the vital links between the playwright and his world, Will in the World provides the fullest account ever written of the living, breathing man behind the masterpieces.

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About the author (2016)

Stephen Greenblatt is one of the world's best known and most highly regarded scholars of the Renaissance. He is Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, author and co-author of nine books and the editor of ten others, including The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Norton Shakespeare. His most recent book, The Swerve, a study of the origins of the Renaissance, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

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