Shakespeare: HAMNET, O'Farrell

Published: 2020, 306 pages

Dialectic Journal /Lesson Plans: 197 pages, 80,442

O"Farrell takes us on a guided tour of how William Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway met, married, and stayed together spanning about 10 years in Stratford and London.  Going from a full-fledged backwater  village to possibly the most populated city in the world, Shakespeare uses his stage to make sense of his life, Agnes (Ann) uses her forest to create her magic, and they both use their marriage to create Judith, Susanna and Hamnet.

Shakespeare leaves for London and leaves Agnes to watch over the three children, then the plague hits the town and O'Farrell has the disease passing from one child to another and then claiming their only son.  Two families who aren't too friendly offer their opinion on the Shakespeare marriage and abandonment.  Although he comes home from London when the children are sick, his son doesn't make it.

And it's a an anticipated play about Hamnet that Agnes attends with her brother, Bartholomew 4 years after Hamnet's death.  The story returns to Shakespeare at the end with the Hamlet play.  But now we know a little bit more about the world's greatest writer and his family.