

Greenblatt builds entire scenarios around the limited evidence. In all, however, they form only a sketchy trail with considerable gaps. Scattered records of other moments, especially of transactions in which he was involved, also exist.

Some of these correspond to the usual signposts: birth, marriage, and death. As with other persons in Elizabethan England-England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, 1558–1603-there are records of Shakespeare's life. In it, Greenblatt proposes to answer the question of how a man with only a secondary school education, the son of a small town glove maker, became the most renowned playwright of all time. Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (2004) is a biography of William Shakespeare. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
