Telling Shakespeare’s story ‘by tale or history’

This article begins by reviewing recent arguments that Shakespeare biographers simply do not know enough to write a true life and, thus, tend to make “bricks without straw”. This sense of incompletion can be traced back to Georgian-lawyer-turned-Shakespeare editor, Edmond Malone, who in the words of Margreta De Grazia championed “Facts”, which she straightaway defines as “information provided or supported by documents, unmediated by transmission”. Though published just 25 years ago, De Grazia’s definition is no longer beyond interrogation. While all facts are certainly forms of information, in the Information Age, the digitization of information goes well beyond the recording of documented facts. As we will see, this recent reassessment of what constitutes information has deeply affected our approach to Shakespeare. In many ways, our recent innovations in Shakespeare biography find their parallel in Malone’s era. This article is published as part of a collection to commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.