The Shakespeare game : the mystery of the great phoenix / by Ilya Gililov ; translated from Russian by Gennady Bashkov & Galina Kozlova with the help of Evelina Melenevskaia.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Gililov, I. (Ilʹi︠a︡)

Contributor:

• Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Standardized Title:

• Igra ob Uilʹiame Shėkspire, ili, Taĭna Velikogo Feniksa. English

Language:

• English
• Russian

Subjects (All):

• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Authorship.
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.
• Rutland, Roger Manners, Earl of, 1576-1612.
• Authorship.
• Rutland, Roger Manners, Earl of, 1576-1612--Authorship.

Physical Description:

xvi, 482 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Mystery of the great phoenix

Place of Publication:

New York : Algora Pub., [2003]

Summary:

Originally published in Moscow, The Shakespeare Game quickly hit Russia's "nonfiction best seller" list. It was an intellectual sensation and went through three editions in the first year. Asking why do we have Shakespeare, and who is Shakespeare, Gililov has studied watermarks and printer's type, registration dates, and documented biographical details of Shakespeares contemporaries, considering the physical evidence as well as the personalities and motives of the suspects. Gililov suggests an answer to the Shakespeare riddle -- one that will delight literature fans and confound the proponents of other "candidate bards." He finds the key in the most mysterious Shakespeare poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle, and the collection in which it was published; he identifies its heroes and reveals the meaning in this shocking requiem and its connection with works by Ben Jonson, John Donne and other great contemporaries of "Shakespeare." Along the way, Gililov probes and refutes the mystification around the court jester Thomas Coryate and numerous other Elizabethan/Jacobean literary oddities.

Contents:

• Chapter 1. Robert Chester's Mysterious Birds 7
• A Poetic Requiem
• for Whom? 7
• The Phoenix and the Turtle 9
• Threnos 10
• The Legend of the Wonderful Bird, the Phoenix 13
• Only Three Copies of the Book Extant, and Each One Different 15
• Love's Martyr
• The Story of the Life and Death of the Turtle and the Phoenix 20
• The Turtle's Cantoes and Shakespeare's Sonnets 29
• Mourned by a Chorus of Poets 35
• John Marston Sees the Wonder of Perfection 43
• Ben Jonson Knew Them Well 47
• Ode Enthusiastic 51
• Behind the Shroud of Mystery 52
• Awakening
• First Conjectures and Hypotheses 53
• "Enjoy the Music of the Verses ..." 60
• Take Another Look At Those Dates! 65
• A Strange "Misprint" in the British Library's Copy 70
• The Most Famous Publisher 74
• Dead Salusbury Helps to Open the Curtain 76
• No Other Couple Like Them In All England 80
• A Platonic Marriage 84
• Hamlet's Schoolfellow 86
• Chapter 2. A Long-Standing Controversy About Stratford-on-Avon 89
• "Shakespeare Without End" 89
• Who Invented "The Shakespeare Authorship Problem"
• And Why? The Traces of Genius 92
• William Shakspere from Stratford, his Family and Occupation 96
• The Last Will of the Lord of Language? The Riddle of the Signatures 104
• A Close Friend of the Earl of Southampton 112
• A Crow In Someone Else's Feathers 117
• Cambridge and Oxford knew the Spear shaker 122
• A Self-Satisfied Pork-Butcher or a Melancholy Tailor? 136
• A Portrait Ben Jonson Recommended Not Looking At 149
• The Great Bard Acquires a Biography 162
• The Anniversary 169
• Chests of Manuscripts 171
• The First Doubts; Baconian Heresy 183
• Formation Of The Scholarly History. Rutland Appears
• Coincidences, Coincidences... 191
• An Ideological Taboo 198
• The Discussion Becomes More Involved. New Candidates, New Evolutions of the Elusive Image 203
• In Academic Circles
• The Facts Keep Piling Up 213
• The Hour Has Struck For the Turtle and the Phoenix 219
• Chapter 3. The Chaste Lords of Sherwood Forest 225
• The Trail Leads to Belvoir 225
• A Child of State 232
• Oh, Padua, Padua ... The Portrait Decoded 238
• Phoenix, Daughter of Phoenix: Rosalind 247
• Jaques-the-Melancholic Craves to Play a Fool 247
• Cambridge Games on the Muses' Home Turf 259
• A Favorite on the Scaffold. Downfall 275
• The Ship is Bound for Elsinore: Two "Hamlet" Quartos 280
• The Poets of Belvoir Vale 287
• The Countess of Pembroke
• Mistress of Poetic Arcadia in Foggy Albion 296
• The Transfiguration of Captain Lanyer's Wife 306
• Chapter 4. Thomas Coryate of Odcombe, the World's Greatest Legstretcher, Alias the Prince of Poets 317
• All the Poets of England Sing the praises to the Giant of Mind and his Crudities 317
• Across Europe at a Gallop 330
• "Cabbage" As a Dessert For The Idiots Readers 334
• To India, On Foot, with His Majesty's Water Poet Laughing All the Way 344
• The Rabelaisian Carnival 352
• Interlude: Excerpts from the book "Coryate's Crudities" 357
• Some "Panegyric" Introductory Material Honoring the Unordinary Legstretcher and Writer 357
• Chapter 5. Death And Canonization Behind the Curtain 387
• The Enchanted Island of Master Magician Prospero and His Bequest 387
• The Faces of the Dead Were Covered and Everybody Was Silent 397
• Covert Elegies 408
• And Manners Brightly Shines 413
• My Tongue-tied Muse in Manners Holds Her Still... 418
• When Did the Shakespeare Plays About the War of the Roses Appear? 431
• Chapter 6. For Whom the Bell Tolled 445
• Coming Back To Chester 445
• The Bell Tolled For Shakespeare 465.

Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Originally published: Igra ob Uilʹiame Shėkspire, ili, Taĭna Velikogo Feniksa. Moskva : Artist, rezhisser, teatr, 1997.

ISBN:

• 0875861822
• 0875861814

OCLC:

51613848