Helen Hackett

For those interested in Elizabeth or Shakespeare or both this book offers a good grounding in the various ways in which they have 'met' over the centuries. I have some (mock) dismay to find that the author asserts some of my own contentions for my work in progress, but this actually an excellent thing, since it (hopefully) suggests that I'm not completely off-base in my work. The work is arranged chronologically and thematically, so it can be a bit jarring when the author jumps from mid-century to early century, etc. However, this isn't a major problem, but it definitely requires attention from the reader. Some of the "meetings" are likely to be familiar to a wide audience (e.g. Shakespeare in Love (1998)) but Hackett also deals with 18th- and 19th-century meetings. The images are black and white and none too large, but they are helpful. So much so that I found myself wanting more examples of the engravings, paintings, etc. that she mentions. Overall, this work has more breadth than depth; as a survey, however, this is a good feature. Hackett cites extensively, pointing readers toward larger treatments of portions of her work. She does discuss the 17th century as much, but refers readers to Watkins' excellent work on Elizabeth in that century. This work certainly suggested new movies, novels, plays, and academic works to me--I am looking forward to more closely reading the notes and bibliography. There are notes, a bibliography, and an index. The theoretical framework or thesis is a bit vague; it can be difficult to determine what, if any, point Hackett is attempting to make. She seems to take some notions for granted which I felt could be investigated further. However, the book overall certainly reads much like a foundational text and as such is a survey, negating the absolute necessity of a single point. It is enough to present in a unified and readable work the various themes that lead to meetings of Elizabeth and Shakespeare in fiction and even in nonfiction. This last point is important: we have no evidence that Elizabeth and Shakespeare met, but this book is a fascinating study of the shifting (and sometimes cyclical) reasons for imagined meetings between the two.… (meer)