The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare

by Stephanie Cowell

Book Overview

What better subject for a novel than William Shakespeare, the most celebrated writer of all time? Stephanie Cowell, an established writer of historical fiction, recreates Elizabethan England and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393040607
• ISBN13: 9780393040609
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

"All his life he craved both to be bound and to be free."

Steeped in Shakespearean lore, Cowell has fashioned a remarkable novel of the apprenticeship years of William Shakespeare; leaving wife and children at home in Stratford, Will seeks employment in London. Allowing himself one year to succeed, Will is easily seduced by the city and its merry players and theaters, the excitement of the stage drawing him like moth to flame. Authentic in tone and dialog, Shakespeare's London is roiling with activity and energy, Will surrounded by like-minded creative men, including Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, building a camaraderie that sustains them through the most difficult times, sharing their joys and their failures, a bare existence that thrives on loyalty rather than financial successes. Shakespeare's internal struggle is the crux of this novel, the intimate perspective of a man driven by his love for language and the stories that surround him. Eking only a meager living from this environment, Will persists, unable to resist the siren call of the theater. Supporting himself by penning whatever will bring in money, from treatises to poetry, Will's friends are a great influence on his development as a writer. Still a young man, he harbors aspirations, gradually disdaining performance for playwriting, although his most powerful and enduring works are still years ahead. Cowell's William Shakespeare writhes in the crucible of his ill-defined passions, a yearning he has yet to articulate, status a great determinant in London society. Will, a married man, attempts to restrain himself from sampling the dark beauty of Emilia Bassano, for Emilia is the consort of Queen Elizabeth's cousin, but before long he is obsessed. But temptation arrives in yet another guise, the young Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, whose mother commissions Will to write a number of sonnets urging the handsome young man to marry. His awkward relationship with young Harry draws Will into one of the most agonizing periods of his life, an attraction so deep and troubling that even Emilia's charms cannot help the poet temper his imagination or deny his feelings. What I find most remarkable in this novel is the authenticity of Shakespeare's world, the author's confidence in recreating time and place in infinite detail, from the fond remembrances of Will's youth to the impulsive marriage that leaves him feeling trapped in a place where he can never accomplish his dreams. And those dreams are far from clear as Will experiences London; indeed, besides his attraction to the theater, Will is still fueled by nonspecific ambition. It is this internal emotional conflict that yields the bounty of creativity, a journey through unknown territory and complicated relationships that rend his soul, giving voice to the sonnets and plays that speak to the most vulnerable aspects of the human heart. To read The Players is to walk among them, feel the excitement of Elizabethan times, the queen thirty years on England's throne, and the birth of ideas, an

The Players

This beautifully realized and passionate fictional account of the young Shakespeare's life is rich with period detail that transports the reader back in time to Elizabethan England. The book is also filled with well-wrought, complex characters -- the actors, writers, and others whom Shakespeare knew -- and their relationships with one another. For anyone who loves historical fiction or Shakespeare, or wonders about the "Dark Lady" of the sonnets, this book will be mesmerizing. Highly recommended.

"The Players" is tender, evocative and beautifully written.

Stephanie Cowell's tender, deeply felt, beautifully written "The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare" is a wonderful fictionalized biography, sweet, yearning and passionate. It is the story of Shakespeare's growing up and of his love for the Earl of Southampton and the celebrated Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Marlowe and Ben Jonson are two more of the brilliantly drawn characters, and the whole life of Elizabethan England, the bustle of the busy port of London, and of the art and theater of those days is so really evoked that we feel we are there. My emotions were aroused, and I found the story evocative of my own life, of feelings I have had, the events being so engrossing, so engaging and involving, that I was deeply moved. The Historical Notes at the end of the book are also fascinating. Read this book! You will love it, as I do.--Robert Blumenfeld

Totally sensual and engrossing...couldn't put it down!

Shakespeare came to life as never before. A deep portrait of a sensitive young artist finding himself in his writing. The love triangle was magical.

Deep insight into the humanity of a literary god

William Shakespeare comes alive in this novel. Cowell not only captures the uniqueness of a truly gifted artist, but also the separateness, the ability to both observe and participate in life, loves, relationships, time, country, and culture. The novel takes William from infancy in Stratford through many self-revealing experiences, including the tangled "love triangle" of his relationship with the "dark lady" of the sonnets and the Earl of Southampton. Ms. Cowell has written a masterful literary work that looks honestly, passionately, and compassionately at one of literature's icons, and finds in him a large measure of humanity. I recommend this novel to anyone who loves art and life-- the novel is rich in exploration and discovery, darkness and light, dispair and renewal.