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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2007
This year has been spared the wilder extravagances in Shakespearian biography. F. E. Halliday usefully summarizes the known facts in the pleasantly illustrated Life of Shakespeare and it is unfortunate that he extended his brief to interpretation. He is not happy in his account of Shakespeare’s marriage, shaky in the chronology of the plays—essential data in his biographical method—and disastrous in his occasional sallies into criticism. Not uncharacteristic is the opening of chapter 6 where biography is tied to criticism: ‘the death of Hamnet was a blow that had bruised the very centre of his being . . . so that . . . he turned to themes that matched the temporary cynicism of his outlook.’ The Merchant of Venice is a ‘heartless comedy of revenge about a vindictive Jew and a company of Christian adventurers’. These are unfortunate blots on a work that was needed.
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