In search of Mrs Shakespeare

It's said with rather boring regularity that little is known about Shakespeare the man. It is this that has fed the Shakespeare-didn’t-write-Shakespeare movement. And yet, in reality there’s so much that has been turned up on him, much of it ill-fitting our Romantic view of The Artist.

That’s aside from all those quartos and folios of his work.

Recently I’ve been grappling with a biography of his wife, Ann Hathaway, by Germaine Greer. At one level, it’s an extraordinary achievement – to write 350 pages, tightly packed with relevant information, on a woman about whom next to nothing is known (aside from his leaving her the second best bed).

On the other hand, I’m not at all sure that I will stay the course. One can only take a certain number of might-have-beens, could-haves, we-can-only-imagines, possiblies and supposes.