Table of Contents

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

About the Author

Lois Potter recently retired as Ned B. Allen Chair at theUniversity of Delaware. She has also taught at the Universities ofAberdeen, Leicester, and Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, and at TsudaCollege, Tokyo. Her publications include Twelfth Night: Text andPerformance (1986), the Arden edition of The Two NobleKinsmen (1997, 2001), and Shakespeare in Performance:Othello (2002). She is also the editor of two volumes in theRevels History of Drama in English series (1981 and 1984), and hasbeen a frequent reviewer of plays for the Times LiterarySupplement, Shakespeare Quarterly, and ShakespeareBulletin.

Reviews

Two of the Mighty dead have been brought back to life inexemplary fashion: Shakespeare in Lois Potter s The Life ofWilliam Shakespeare: A Critical Biography, which very cleverly usesexpert theatre-knowledge as a way of making her enigmatic subjectseem plausibly substantial; and Keats in Nicholas Roe s JohnKeats: A New Life, which puts the poet properly in hisplace. (The Guardian, 24 November 2012) This study will have wide appeal to readers who wish toexpand their appreciation of the works of WilliamShakespeare. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; generalreaders. (Choice, 1 November 2012) A richly suggestive, undogmatic book in which Lois Potterranges across the entire canon and the period that helped produceit. (Around the Globe, 1 October 2012) Lois Potter s Life of William Shakespeare, rankswith the most distinguished examples of its kind Herachievement lies in her catholicity, her simultaneous commitment tomatters personal, historical, theatrical, literary, cultural. She exhibits an absolute command of the available facts, alifetime s acquaintance with the works gained in teaching andplaygoing, an unparalleled familiarity with theatrical history from1567 to the present, and a talent for connecting the fictional andthe actual. (Times Literary Supplement, 10August 2012)