The Life of William Shakespeare

LOIS POTTER recently retired as Ned B. Allen Chair at the University of Delaware. She has also taught at the Universities of Aberdeen, Leicester, and Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, and at Tsuda College, Tokyo. Her publications include Twelfth Night: Text and Performance (1986), the Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen (1997, 2001), and Shakespeare in Performance: Othello (2002). She is also the editor of two volumes in the Revels History of Drama in English series (1981 and 1984), and has been a frequent reviewer of plays for the Times Literary Supplement, Shakespeare Quarterly, and Shakespeare Bulletin.

List of Illustrations vi Preface and Acknowledgments vii

List of Abbreviations x

The Shakespeare Family Tree xii

1 “Born into the World”: 1564–1571 1

2 “Nemo SibiNascitur”: 1571–1578 21

3 “Hic et Ubique”: 1578–1588 40

4 “This Man’s Art and That Man’s Scope”: 1588–1592 64

5 “Tigers’ Hearts”: 1592–1593 86

6 “The Dangerous Year”: 1593–1594 106

7 “Our Usual Manager of Mirth”: 1594–1595 134

8 “The Strong’st and Surest Way to Get”: Histories, 1595–1596 162

9 “When Love Speaks”: Tragedy and Comedy, 1595–1596 181

10 “You Had a Father; Let Your Son Say So”: 1596–1598 201

11 “Unworthy Scaffold”: 1598–1599 231

12 “These Words Are Not Mine”: 1599–1601 258

13 “Looking Before and After”: 1600–1603 277

14 “This Most Balmy Time”: 1603–1605 300

15 “Past the Size of Dreaming”: 1606–1609 330

16 “Like an Old Tale”: 1609–1611 360

17 “The Second Burden”: 1612–1616 384

18 “In the Mouths of Men”: 1616 and After 414

Bibliography 443

Index 475