Shakespeare's Literary Lives

"This book is not about Shakespeare. That is to say, it is not concerned with the playwright, born in 1564, who made a career in London, and died in his native Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616; nor does it deal with his works. At best, Shakespeare, thus understood, plays a marginal role in this study. What I am concerned with, in other words, is not essential Shakespeare, but his fictional afterlives: how subsequent generations of creative writers have tried to make sense of his life, his works, and the interrelationship between them. Shakespeare, thus understood, is truly 'myriad- minded', and has led an infinity of lives. He has been a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew and an agnostic; a philanderer and a faithful husband; gay, bisexual, and straight; revolutionary and conservative; black and white; male and female. As one of the icons of Western literature, multiple, often diametrically opposite fictions have been devised around his name. Some of these have been disguised as facts, but most fictional representations are easy to distinguish from serious biographical studies"--