Laurie Maguire & Emma Smith 
30 Great Myths about Shakespeare [EPUB ebook] 

Think you know Shakespeare? Think again . . .

Was a real skull used in the first performance of Hamlet? Were
Shakespeare’s plays Elizabethan blockbusters? How much do we really
know about the playwright’s life? And what of his notorious
relationship with his wife? Exploring and exploding 30 popular
myths about the great playwright, this illuminating new book
evaluates all the evidence to show how historical material–or
its absence–can be interpreted and misinterpreted, and what
this reveals about our own personal investment in the stories we
tell.

Tabella dei contenuti

Introduction 1

Myth 1 Shakespeare was the most popular writer of his time 6

Myth 2 Shakespeare was not well educated 11

Myth 3 Shakespeare’s plays should be performed in
Elizabethan dress 18

Myth 4 Shakespeare was not interested in having his plays
printed 26

Myth 5 Shakespeare never traveled 34

Myth 6 Shakespeare’s plays are politically incorrect
40

Myth 7 Shakespeare was a Catholic 47

Myth 8 Shakespeare’s plays had no scenery 54

Myth 9 Shakespeare’s tragedies are more serious than his
comedies 60

Myth 10 Shakespeare hated his wife 66

Myth 11 Shakespeare wrote in the rhythms of everyday speech
72

Myth 12 Hamlet was named after Shakespeare’s son 80

Myth 13 The coarse bits of Shakespeare are for the groundlings;
the philosophy is for the upper classes 86

Myth 14 Shakespeare was a Stratford playwright 94

Myth 15 Shakespeare was a plagiarist 99

Myth 16 We don’t know much about Shakespeare’s life
106

Myth 17 Shakespeare wrote alone 113

Myth 18 Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical 119

Myth 19 If Shakespeare were writing now, he’d be writing
for Hollywood 125

Myth 20 The Tempest was Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage
130

Myth 21 Shakespeare had a huge vocabulary 137

Myth 22 Shakespeare’s plays are timeless 143

Myth 23 Macbeth is jinxed in the theater 150

Myth 24 Shakespeare did not revise his plays 156

Myth 25 Boy actors played women’s roles 163

Myth 26 Shakespeare’s plays don’t work as movies
169

Myth 27 Yorick’s skull was real 175

Myth 28 Queen Elizabeth loved Shakespeare’s plays 183

Myth 29 Shakespeare’s characters are like real people
190

Myth 30 Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare 196

Coda 202

Further Reading 207

Index 211

Circa l’autore

Laurie Maguire is Professor of English at the University
of Oxford, tutorial fellow at Magdalen College, and the author or
editor of seven books. She is a regular theater reviewer for
the TLS and has lectured widely across the UK and the
USA.

Emma Smith is tutorial fellow at Hertford College,
Oxford. She is the author or editor of six books, a regular
reviewer for the TLS, and has lectured widely across the UK
and the USA.

The authors have previously collaborated together on articles on
Middleton and Shakespeare and on graduate courses at the University
of Oxford.