Description
An âextraordinarily brilliantâ and âpleasurably naughtyâ (André Aciman) investigation into the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote his plays became an act of blasphemyâ¦and who the Bard might really be. The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bardâs biography is a âblack hole,â yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) âimmoral.â In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo. Whisking you from London to Stratford-Upon-Avon to Washington, DC, she pulls back the curtain to show how the forces of nationalism and empire, religion and mythmaking, gender and class have shaped our admiration for Shakespeare across the centuries. As she considers the writers and thinkersâfrom Walt Whitman to Sigmund Freud to Supreme Court justicesâwho have grappled with the riddle of the playsâ origins, she explores who may perhaps have been hiding behind his name. A forgotten woman? A disgraced aristocrat? A government spy? Hovering over the mystery are Shakespeareâs plays themselves, with their love for mistaken identities, disguises, and things never quite being what they seem. As she interviews scholars and skeptics, Winklerâs interest turns to the larger problem of historical truthâand of how human imperfections (bias, blindness, subjectivity) shape our construction of the past. History is a story, and the story we find may depend on the story weâre looking for. âLivelyâ (The Washington Post), âfascinatingâ (Amanda Foreman), and âintrepidâ (Stacy Schiff), Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies will forever change how you think of Shakespeareâ¦and of how we as a society decide whatâs up for debate and whatâs just nonsense, just heresy.