In Search of Shakespeare 寻找莎士比亚

Like all stories from history, this is a search for ghosts -- a quest for the people who made us what we are, and for one man in particular. William Shakespeare is the most famous writer of all time, and yet his life is still shrouded 1 in mystery, so much so that a vast web of conspiracy 2 theories has grown up over whether he even wrote his own plays or not. This is a historical detective story, an Elizabethan whodunit 3, searching for the life of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon set against the turbulent times in which he lived.

"Where are you going?"
"We are walking up the ancient road, it's one of the old roads of England."
"Are you walking all the way up?"
"Yeah! Bye!"

So why go in search of Shakespeare? Can the life of a writer ever be as interesting or exciting as a conqueror 4, an inventor or an explorer, and Napoleon, Columbus, and Alexander the Great?
Oh, yes, yes, it can! More so, because the writers and the poets are the explorers of the human heart and long after the conquerors 5 are forgotten, their legacy 6 will be the most valuable to us as human beings, and Shakespeare is the greatest writer who ever lived, who wouldn't want to know what made him tick. That's what I want to try to do on this journey.

Our search for Shakespeare will take us into the hidden landscapes of Elizabethan England and the secret archives of English history. Luckily for us, Elizabethan England was a police state. Its spies recorded everything. Through them, we can trace Shakespeare's connections from Warwickshire to the wilds of Lancashire. We can follow him into the teeming 7 suburbs of Tudor London and find his landlady 8, his tax dodging 9, even his summons for grievous bodily harm. We'll pinpoint 10 the site of his first playhouse, the place which ignited the golden age of the theater: a time which has left its mark on our culture from that day to this and which gave us the greatest gallery of characters in the literature of the world.

Words and phrases: -- by improving

1. be shrouded in mystery == to keep information secret so that people do not know what happened
--VARIATIONS: be shrouded in mystery/secrecy (OR be shrouded/veiled in mystery)
--e.g. The incident has always been shrouded in mystery.
--e.g. The reason of his death is veiled in mystery.

2. a web of conspiracy == complicated set of secret plans
--VARIATIONS: a web of deceit/deception/intrigue/conspiracy;
--e.g. a tangled 11 web of relationships

3. what makes somebody tick == the thoughts, feelings etc give sb their character or make them behave in a particular way
--e.g. I've never really understand what makes her tick.

4. teeming == crowded, full of people;
--e.g. the teeming streets

5. tax dodge 12 == a way of paying less tax

6. summons [noun, pl.] == an official order to make sb appear in a court of law;
--e.g. The judge must issue a sUmmonS.
--e.g. He had been accused of a drug offence but police had been unable to SERVE a summons ON him.

7. grievous bodily harm [Br.Eng] == serious injury caused by a criminal attack

8. playhouse == a theatre, usually used in the name of theatres; e.g. the Oxford Playhouse