Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

"Master-Mistress" This chapter focuses almost exclusively on Shakespeare's poetry, his many sonnets and his epic poem Venus and Adonis. His second epic poem, The Rape of Lucrece, is mentioned in passing. The author picks up the narrative of Shakespeare's life and career at the moment of the publication of Robert Greene's anti-Shakespeare tract. Another popular poet of the time, Thomas Nashe, published a desperate attempt to deny any connection with Greene or his tract, and the author suggests that pressure for him to do so came, probably through the intervention of a servant, from the Earl of Southampton, the young aristocrat who eventually became Shakespeare's patron.

The Earl was self-indulgent, very rich, very attractive in an almost effeminate way, and determined not to marry. The author theorizes that Shakespeare was one of several poets hired by the Earl's guardian, one of...