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Grace Tiffany

Autor/a de My Father Had a Daughter

13+ obres 448 Membres 10 Ressenyes

Sobre l'autor

Grace Tiffany is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at Western Michigan University.

Obres de Grace Tiffany

Obres associades

La Tempesta (1610) — Editor, algunes edicions13,681 exemplars
Shakespeare the Man: New Decipherings (2014) — Col·laborador — 4 exemplars

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Nom normalitzat
Tiffany, Grace
Data de naixement
1958
Gènere
female
Nacionalitat
USA
Llocs de residència
Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
Educació
University of Notre Dame (Ph.D)
Professions
professor (Shakespeare|Western Michigan University)
lecturer
teacher
writer
author
Biografia breu
Grace Tiffany has been a professor of Shakespeare at Western Michigan University since 1995, and has spoken as an invited lecturer at a number of colleges and universities, including Wheaton College in Chicago and the University of Salamanca in Spain. Before moving to Michigan she taught for five years at the University of New Orleans and for one year at Fordham University in New York City. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Notre Dame. She and her family live in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Membres

Ressenyes

Gunpowder Percy is the third of six novels I have read by Grace Tiffany. Grace is a professor of Renaissance Literature at Western Michigan University. All her novels are set in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her previous novels were interesting and required not much more than a passing interest in the time period.

The novel is set in the last years of the life of Queen Elizabeth I. Even though nearly fifty years have passed since the break with the Roman Catholic Church, numerous members of the lower to middle nobility still rankle at the repression of Catholicism. Many of the families hid Jesuit priests in their homes. The men they hid had to be moved frequently because of gossip and rumors, which could quickly lead to a raid by “pursuant.” The consequences of hiding a priest could be arrest, torture, seizure of land and titles and even death. As the queen’s health began to falter, and her death seemed imminent, the succession to the throne became of vital importance. The next in line was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, a catholic daughter of Henry VIII, but she had been executed by Elizabeth. Her son, King James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He was a protestant, and while he promised to relax prohibitions against the Catholics, when he was crowned, he did not keep his word.

Thomas Percy was related to the powerful Percy family, and achieved the status in the minor nobility. Essentially, he was a debt collector for his patron, and his imposing figure and large sword – forbidden at the time – made him a powerful leader of a plot to kill James I and his family. The aim of the plotters was to restore Catholicism in England.

The novel starts off a bit slow, and the English spoken sounds a lot like the Elizabethan English of Shakespeare. Thomas has an intense interest in the plays at the globe theater, and he makes several passing comments about a particularly talented poet. After visiting a “play that man had written, wherein a vengeful son spoke to his father’s kingly ghost” (33), Tiffany writes, “Thomas’s mind turned its slow wheels, and finally the thought came clear. It all fit together. A play about Purgatory. Essex, a playgoer, a friend to the Irish in Ireland so green, and to Catholics at home. Fiery Hotspur, bold challenger of monarchs, whom the fat Falstaff pleased to call Gunpowder Percy, a corpse that might rise. Did these strands not combine in a tapestry depicting one truth? And that truth was that was that this playwright was one of the secret faithful, holding to the old religion of Hotspur’s time, two hundred years before! Now, like the rest of them [Thomas] was biding his time” (33).

These seeds of the plot, and the passing reference to Hamlet and Henry IV, along with Thomas’s belief that Shakespeare was a Catholic, all add to the mystery, suspense and intrigue. In his 2004 work, Will in the World,the Shakespeare scholar, Stephen Greenblatt intimated that Shakespeare was a Catholic and his family may have hidden Father Campion.

I have long been fascinated by the Tudor period, and Grace Tiffany’s excellent novel, Gunpowder Percy, will interest anyone with even a slight knowledge of English history. 5 stars.

--Jim, 5/16/16
… (més)
 
Marcat
rmckeown | May 30, 2016 |
I won this book from Goodreads First Reads. When I first read the synopsis for this book, I was curious and quite interested, so I entered the giveaway. Awhile later, I received an email saying I won! I was ecstatic, so when I received the book in the mail, I stopped whatever book I was reading, and started reading this one. This all happened a year ago, and now you're probably wondering why I only wrote the review now. Well, that's because I only finished the book now. Let me explain why it took me so long...

I DISLIKED...

THE PACING. Maybe it was just me, but I found that the story was a bit choppy, and didn't quite flow enough for my liking. I know many books don't continue from one second to another, but for some reason, in this book, this really irked me.

THE SENTENCE STRUCTURE/LANGUAGE. I knew from the start that this book was from Shakespearean time, and that it was based off one of his poems(Dark Lady?), so I should have seen this coming. Maybe I kind of did, but I honestly didn't expect for the language to be that hard to understand. This was such a big determent for me. It was really hard to get into this book because of this...

These two factors were the main reasons why it took me so long to finish this book. After reading through the first few chapters, my excitement slowly decreased, and I was easily distracted by other books, which lead to other books, and so on. So a year later (a few days ago), I finally decided to finish reading this book.

I LIKED...

THE PLOT. Despite not understanding much of the language, I am proud to say that by the time I finished reading the last word in this book, I can confidently say that I understood the book as a whole, even if I didn't exactly understand every single word. I can also proudly say that I quite enjoyed the story, and how it ended.

Overall, not too bad, but I probably won't pick up another Shakespearean book for some time, at least until I can understand more of this strange, strange language. :)

… (més)
 
Marcat
elizabeth1929 | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Oct 6, 2015 |
The benefits of belonging to a book club go beyond the reading, the discussion, and the camaraderie with friends and colleagues. For me, of equal importance, involves discovering new authors I might not consider for solo reading. My Father Had a Daughter: Judith Shakespeare’s Tale by Grace Tiffany is a perfect example. According to her website, Grace Tiffany is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance literature at Western Michigan University, and the author of five historical novels. Her fiction has been honored by the American Library Association and by Book Sense 76, the “best books” list of the association of American independent book sellers. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

At one time, I devoured as much historical fiction as I could, but like my phase reading fantasy/science fiction, it passed. Tiffany’s take on Shakespeare’s youngest daughter, might just revive that phase. In researching for this review, I see that she has a new novel, Paint, which delves into the mysterious “Dark Lady,” about whom Shakespeare wrote almost 30 sonnets.

Judith was the twin daughter of Hamnet, Shakespeare’s second and third children. Hamnet dies when he was about 11, and the circumstances are unknown. The young girl felt guilty about her brother’s death, missed her father, and feared her fate if she stayed in Stratford. So she cuts her hair, wears boys clothing, and makes her way to London. She passes as a boy, and gets a job in a pub serving ale. Nearby, the Globe theater has recently been constructed, and she visits the site. She approaches Richard Burbage, the premier actor on the Renaissance stage, and begs and cajoles him into giving her a small part in a play. She narrowly escapes the notice of her father supervising rehearsals.

Tiffany’s style captures the feel of Elizabethan England. She writes, “My brother […] was open-faced and bold, and he did what I wanted, and for that I loved him. That he was a boy and ten minutes my elder did not lead him to run riot over my desires; he was gentle and he listened and laughed out loud at all and any of my ideas and plots and was the willing reflection of my spirit. We would hang from the ash trees like monkeys, though the first time we did it my smock fell over my face. From then on, he lent me his second pair of trunks and hose, and in those I climbed as high as a squirrel. We played mumblety-peg in the garden and then, when we were six and he went to school and I had to stay home, he lent me his hornbook to show me what he had learned each day, so we learned to read together” (4). Judith faced a life of falling further and further behind the men in her life. But the free-spirited Jude was not about to let that happen.

One of the fun things about the novel is the allusions to plays sprinkled throughout. For example, when Will sends his daughter back to her mother, he comforts her when, “he kissed the top of [her head, and said] ‘All’s well that ends well, Jude’” (180). Tiffany also puts references to the “Dark Lady,” Macbeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Julius Caesar. My Father Had a Daughter by Grace Tiffany, is a delightful read even for those not familiar with Shakespeare and his works. 5 stars

--Jim, 8/24/14
… (més)
 
Marcat
rmckeown | Hi ha 3 ressenyes més | Sep 19, 2014 |
I read this immediately after reading "My Father Had a Daughter" by the same author because the first book piqued my interest in Shakespeare and his times. I enjoyed it, but didn't like it as well as "My Father Had a Daughter." In the story of Shakespeare's daughter, the author created a more fully-realized character and explored Shakespeare's life through that character's perspective.

When the prespective shifts to Shakespeare telling his own story, he becomes a less interesting figure. Authors of biographical fiction about iconic figures (like Shakespeare) are constrained by both the historical facts of that person's life and that person's reputation in popular culture, which leaves a very narrow margin in which an author can devleop the characters and plot that make a novel more fun to read than biography.… (més)
1 vota
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bdinan | Hi ha 2 ressenyes més | Feb 27, 2010 |

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Obres
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Membres
448
Popularitat
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Valoració
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Ressenyes
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ISBN
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