How do you write a “complete” life of Shakespeare when very little complete information about his life exists?

[Lawrence Gerald]

https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/the-complete-life-of-william-shakespeare-with-paul-menzer/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUnbpRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBWJyaWQRMXJtajhLVWtqNFBVenIzNnBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe-OGo4sSErs8XmU4-ziEje-7ecXAE0Lp3tCG9qaHMWxbhVSm_xThAp1MS3xA_aem_SAE_JdoW68af6SrdA0p71Q

 Making something up out of nothing.LG

Four centuries after Shakespeare’s death, the legends that have grown up around him have taken on a cultural significance of their own. As Inaugural Folger Chair in Shakespeare Studies Paul Menzer puts it, “The verifiable facts of his life would fit on the back of a postcard. But the stories that we have told about them would fill a dozen phone books.”

Menzer’s new book, The Complete Life of William Shakespeare, dives into the life story of one of history’s most editorialized yet most enigmatic figures, navigating the space between fact and fancy. Did Shakespeare embark on a lone hero’s journey, or was his move to London more of a family road trip? Could such a great poet have also been a shrewd businessman? And why aren’t there more Shakespeares out there?

In this episode, Menzer lays out the known facts of the Bard’s biography and posits how we might connect the dots on what’s missing—while throwing some “wobbles into the orbit” of well-trenched folk wisdom.

rom the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 22, 2026. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Technical support was provided by Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Web production was handled by Megan Fraedrich. Transcripts are edited by Leonor Fernandez. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Paul Menzer is Executive Director and professor of Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin University, where he served as the Dean of Arts and Sciences and as Provost. A renowned Shakespeare scholar, he has written several biographies of the playwright. He has also written several books about performance studies and theater history, scholarly editions of early modern plays, and written about the American Shakespeare Center at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, a repertory theater known for embracing Shakespearean theatrical practices. He is also an acclaimed educator, winning teaching awards at Mary Baldwin and serving as a visiting faculty member for the Folger’s Teaching Shakespeare Institute. He is the inaugural Folger Chair in Shakespeare Studies.

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[Christie Waldman]

Menzer's William Shakespeare: A Brief Life (London: Bloomsbury, 2023) was 257 pages. I wonder how much longer the "complete life" will be, given that the verifiable facts of his life would fit on a postcard. Should it be shelved with fiction or nonfiction? 

[Christie Waldman]

Oh, the Complete Life (240 pages), just out today, is shorter than the 2023 Brief life (257 pages)! 

Well, maybe they've put more words on a page, or taken stuff out.

From the publisher's website: "This edition is adapted from William Shakespeare: A Brief Life with an updated introduction, further connections between Shakespeare's works and personal biography, new illustrations of Shakespeare's journey between London and Stratford, cutting-edge scholarship and recent archival discoveries about Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway." https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/complete-life-of-william-shakespeare-9781350542648/   The table of contents (at the link) is exactly the same as in the Brief Life, except that three new chapters and an epilogue have been added. 

Didn't I just buy the Brief Life! last year? 

I wonder if they left in their one brief reference to Francis Bacon: "Truth is the daughter of time," in their discussion about King Lear. (Brief Life, p. 194). I wonder what made Menzer think of Francis Bacon in connection with King Lear. Was it just the fact that Lear was a play about daughters?  In Lear, I.1, at 36 and at 112, are two passages that have to do with daughters, time, and, in the second passage, truth as well. Truth will be Cordelia's dower. https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.php. His one reference to Francis Bacon has to do with truth.

To be fair, if he thinks he needs to make his book better, he should have the chance to do so. 

 

Edited September 29 by Christie Waldman
typo and 2d sentence, 5th par. , added 6th par.