Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
by McNally Robinson - Monday Jul 21 2008 2:18 pm
Posted in: Reviews

Reviewed by Caroline Walker.

When I finished reading this book I immediately turned to the beginning and started reading again. It's an incredibly rich journey into sixteenth and seventeenth century England, full of fascinating details about everyday life and death in that era as well as tantalizing glimpses of Shakespeare's wife, Ann Hathaway. This is not so much a biography of the woman, because so little is known about her, as a whack at all the male academics and critics over the years who have made assumptions about her based on their own prejudices. Was Ann a homely spinster who trapped young Will into marriage (she was 26, he 18), or was she an attractive woman of independent means who was wooed and courted by an eager young pup until she finally let him into her bed?

Greer draws on myriad sources such as letters, wills, church records, and legal documents, as well as Shakespeare's own poetry and plays, to explore the attitudes and practices of the day and to paint a vivid picture of the town of Stratford and its inhabitants.

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