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Author Charles Lovett promotes his new book The Bookman’s Tale, a fictional story in which he explores the Shakespeare authorship debate and concludes that only the man from Stratford could be the author, and how could anyone ever have doubted it. He does suggest that students study the issue for themselves, to learn about how history can be manipulated and misrepresented, even in such prestigious publications as The New York Times. Well, we can agree with that! Please proceed.
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Theatre as Literature: Who Was This William Shakespeare?
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If you have students who have seen the film Anonymous, or who have delved into one of the thousands of books casting doubt on the authorship of the Shakespeare canon, you might like to be equipped to answer this question; my answer might surprise you. After reading some of the best and most up-to-date scholarship on Shakespeare, I have come to this startling conclusion: the plays commonly attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, were actually written by William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Shocking, right? Well, you’d be surprised how many people (including some characters in my novel) disagree with me.
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Bill Bryson, whose book is slim, readable, witty and perfect for high school students or even middle school students wanting to know more about Shakespeare, writes that “nearly all of the anti-Shakespeare sentiment — actually all of it, every bit — involves manipulative scholarship or sweeping misstatements of fact.” This is another great learning opportunity for students. We live in an age when, more than ever, students need to learn to evaluate the information they receive. Showing students that information that has appeared in such venerated sources as the New York Times, History Today and Scientific American can still be based on “manipulative scholarship and sweeping misstatements of fact” can help open their eyes to the dangers of taking any information at face value without corroborating research.
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Simply stated, the problem with the anti-Stratfordians is twofold. First, after nearly two hundred years of challenging Shakespeare (following two hundred years during which no one, including those who knew him, challenged him), they have yet to present a single shred of solid evidence that someone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Secondly, they have summarily ignored quite a few shreds of evidence that Shakespeare did in fact write his plays.
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Anonymous (2011) Movie Review – Joely Richardson
May 23, 2013
Film reviews Anonymous Leave a comment
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The film Anonymous is still attracting attention with its DVD sales, and introducing to a new audience the idea that not only is there a Shakespeare authorship question, but that the proposed answer to the question involves high-stake politics in the court of Elizabeth: “All art is political … otherwise it would just be decoration.”
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This political thriller set in the 16th century follows a conspiracy narrative in which the plays and poems of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) are instead attributed to Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.
Recorded history is … creatively re-imagined in order to present a compelling period drama in which the theatre of Shakespeare’s day becomes caught up in political manoeuvrings and a power play to decide England’s next monarch after Queen Elizabeth.
As the Earl of Oxford explains; “All art is political, otherwise it would just be decoration.”Anonymous is also original and engaging in the way in which it deals with a range of other subject matter, including conspiracies concerning Queen Elizabeth and Essex’s Rebellion, although at times these did seem to overwhelm the Shakespeare storyline. Nevertheless, the film was highly watchable and will probably act as inspiration for others to do their own research on the subject of England’s Greatest Playwright.
Shakespeare 1 Molière 0: ‘Linguistic treason’ as France prepares to accept English teaching for university sciences
May 21, 2013
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An interesting turn of events in France. Shakespeare would have loved it, and for those of us who think part of the real Shakespeare’s “real agenda” was to put the English language up on par with French, how sweet it is.
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“The French language will finally concede defeat in its 1,000 years old war with English on the floor of the French parliament tomorrow. … The French minister for higher education, Geneviève Fioraso, will, according to her critics, propose the capitulation of the “language of Molière” before the all-conquering “language of Shakespeare”.
“Ms Fioraso will table a draft law that will allow the teaching of some scientific courses in French universities in the English language.”
“Ms Fioraso’s proposal has ignited a passionate debate in France, which has long tried to resist the linguistic imperialism of English.”\
“Ms Fioraso’s supporters – including many senior French academics – say that her bill is an overdue recognition of reality. French is the eighth most spoken language in the world. English is the second most spoken, behind Chinese, but is globally recognised as the language of science.”
“The centre-left newspaper, Libération, entered the debate on her side yesterday, by publishing its entire front page in English. “Teaching in English. Let’s do it” said the main headline.”
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‘Coriolanus’: Nothing Plebeian About Him
May 17, 2013
Plays, Theatre reviews Coriolanus Leave a comment
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The good news here is that Coriolanus (following the brilliant Ralph Fiennes film last year) is now being produced on stage, and we agree that it’s a powerful political statement. But note how, in this Wall Street Journal review, scant attention is paid to Volumnia, Corlianus’s tiger mother who created him in every sense of the word.
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Coriolanus’: Nothing Plebeian About Him | Shakespeare Theatre Company – WSJ.com
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Why has “Coriolanus” never been popular? It’s been mounted on Broadway only once—in 1938. The last time that I reviewed a production in this space was eight years ago. Yet connoisseurs need no reminding of the immense stature of Shakespeare’s most explicitly political play. T.S. Eliot ranked “Coriolanus” above “Hamlet,” calling it “Shakespeare’s most assured artistic success.” A man I know who used to work for one of America’s best-known politicians claims that it’s one of only two pieces of literary art that tells the whole truth about politics (the other, he says, is “All the King’s Men”). And if you should be lucky enough to see Shakespeare Theatre Company’s new production, directed by David Muse and featuring a towering performance by Patrick Page, you’ll come away wondering why it doesn’t get done regularly by every drama company in America.
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Enter Coriolanus (Mr. Page), a paragon of the military virtues who more or less single-handedly defeats the enemy. Physically fearless and noble without limit, he has only one flaw: He knows that he is a great man, and refuses to pretend otherwise. Indifferent to the praise of “the common people,” he will not “flatter them for their love,”
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He understands that “Coriolanus” is not about any particular politician, or any particular war: Its real subject is pride. Is there room in a democracy for an aristocrat like Coriolanus who refuses to play the popularity game? Or is it his duty to don the hypocrite’s mask in order to serve the greater good?
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You’ll be paralyzed by the hideous, red-faced howl of horror that he wrenches from his depths when his terrified mother (Diane d’Aquila) begs him not to renounce his family and his country.
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Shakespeare: commuter, landlord and tax-dodger – Telegraph
May 17, 2013
Biography, History Leave a comment
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Another London newspaper article trying to make the Stratford man real, right in sync with the Shakspeare Beyond Doubt publicity campaign. And yet the article has next to nothing new to say about anything, even beginning with the obvious observation that what is known seems to contradict his whole writing career. So what to do? Imagine his imagination, and then all’s well.
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Shakespeare: commuter, landlord and tax-dodger – Telegraph
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“They say you should write what you know, but the greatest writer of all completely ignored the world on his doorstep. William Shakespeare set plays in Venice, Rome, Scotland and other locations around the world. Some of his plays revolve around the British Court, but he set almost nothing in the rough-and-tumble of 16th-century London or sleepy Stratford upon Avon, where he spent most of his life.”
“This is all the more puzzling when, as a new exhibition at the London Metropolitan Archive (LMA) proves, his life was so intimately bound up with the capital. ”
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“As always with Shakespeare, the details are tantalisingly sketchy. Over the centuries, scholars have tried to flesh out a story on the barest of bones. “A lot of what we have is subjective,” says Laurence Ward, the chief archivist at the LMA, “but that’s part of what makes it so interesting.”
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“His wife and children lived in Stratford, and it’s appealing to imagine him as a weekly commuter, seeing the family and pottering in the garden at weekends, before returning to the city during the week to work on his plays.”
“Other details from the time are refreshingly familiar to modern residents. Carts were banned from waiting outside theatres during performances, because they clogged up the roads. They had to go away and come back when the show was finished. ”
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“Shakespeare died in 1616, three years after he bought his Blackfriars property. In his will, he left the house to his daughter, but at the time of his death he had a lodger. Pub-goer, evicted tenant, weekly commuter, tax-dodger, good neighbour, and buy-to-let landlord: at the start of the 17th century, Shakespeare had a life in property as rich and varied as any today.”
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A Marlovian Review of Shakespeare Beyond Doubt
May 16, 2013
Book reviews Christopher Marlowe Leave a comment
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Marlovian Ros Barber writes one positive thing she found in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Shakespeare Beyond Doubt, which is that their guy —Marlowe— is taken as seriously as Oxford as a "claimant" to the Shakespeare crown. Oxfordians would respond that the SBT pumping up Marlowe is just another tactical move, similar to their forced ignoring of Diana Price’s destruction of the Stratford man in Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography.
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"Three weeks ago, the second book on the authorship question to be published by an academic press was published to considerable media attention. The title of Shakespeare Beyond Doubt succinctly states the book’s aims: to settle the authorship question once and for all. That it cannot do so is clear from the fact that the book – entirely in contravention of accepted scholarly practice – fails to address (or even mention, except buried in an "additional reading" list on page 247) the first academically published book on the subject, Diana Price’s Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography (2001)."
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"This book rehashes the methods employed by James Shapiro in Contested Will (2010): analyse the psychology (or pathology) of early doubters, offer "evidence" that no-one disputes and claim it supports Shakespeare-of-Stratford’s authorship, ignore scholarship from the last fifty years, and avoid Price’s research. Non-Stratfordians conversant with the evidence and arguments supporting Shakespeare scepticism will have no problem dismantling Shakespeare Beyond Doubt."
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"Unlike Shapiro’s Contested Will, however, the book does make space for Marlowe as a major candidate: an indication, perhaps, of Marlovian progress in the last three years."
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"Having dealt at some length with the version of Marlovian theory espoused by Calvin Hoffman’s [The Murder Of] The Man Who Was Shakespeare (1955), Nicholl claims that "There have been various further explorations and refinements of his theory, but no great changes or new directions." This is simply untrue, and as an attempt to dismiss nearly sixty years of more recent research, disingenuous. Other than agreeing with the theory that Marlowe’s death was faked and that he survived to write much of what is attributed to Shakespeare, modern Marlovian arguments contain very little of Hoffman’s material."
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"Thus it is clear that despite the generally improved tone of Shakespeare Beyond Doubt, the defenders of the orthodoxy continue to hold the line that authorship questioners are morally or logically deficient, and the question itself invalid."
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The Hub Review: A post-mortem on Pericles: lost and found at sea
May 13, 2013
Plays, Theatre reviews Pericles Leave a comment
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This review of a Boston production of Pericles is revealing about the current state of the authorship debate, circa 2013. While authorship is mentioned dismissively (with collaboration vs. the lone genius cited as a reason, not snobbery, etc.), it still seems that overlooking the significance of incest to the plot vis-a-vis the current state of the debate within the Oxfordian movement about the significance of incest as the reason there was an authorship coverup (with the 2011 film Anonymous being a prime example) is a big mistake. It’s true the reviewer is contemptuous of the debate, but to bring it up in his review and —apparently— not be aware of the larger implications of what he is saying is a disservice to his readers.
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The Hub Review: A post-mortem on Pericles: lost and found at sea
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“But anyway, back to Pericles, Prince of Tyre (the play’s full title) – which intrigues because it is so important in the canon while being a strange jumble of a play. Much of it probably isn’t by Shakespeare, in fact; these days the latest software tells us that the first two acts (or more) may be by one George Wilkins (who published his own account of the legend prior to the play’s quarto edition; it didn’t make it into the First Folio).”
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“Now to many observers, the mixed (or contested) authorship of the play somehow makes it of lesser artistic interest than the rest of the canon. But to my mind, the reverse is actually true. Indeed, Pericles fascinates me precisely because, like Timon of Athens, it seems half-finished, so viewing it is like viewing a cross-section cut out of the Bard’s work process.”
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“But let’s back up a bit and ponder the whole Shakespearean authorship question. No, not that authorship question – the whole Earl-of-Oxford boondoggle is an utter waste of time. I mean the question of what Shakespearean “authorship” actually means – for I certainly don’t think Shakespeare was an author in the Romantic sense of being the “onlie begetter” of his plays, the lone genius who forged our conscience in the smithy of his soul. Not that educated people quite believe that; even schoolboys know the Bard borrowed his plots – but few seem to grasp what this means, that it makes Shakespeare something of a critic of his own raw material, a re-shaper and re-caster rather than, well, an “original,” for lack of a better word. Indeed, you could argue (to paraphrase a famous quip about musicals) that a Shakespearean text isn’t written – it’s re-written.”
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“But why did George Wilkins’ Prince of Tyre capture the imagination of the Bard? Part of its appeal perhaps lay in its timing: Shakespeare began working on Pericles just as the birth of a granddaughter no doubt inspired a sense of rapprochement with his semi-abandoned wife and family. But as Celia comments in As You Like It, “There is more in it.” I have little doubt that as Shakespeare surveyed the “rough cut” of Pericles he began to perceive in it an amazing coincidence (rather like the many in the play itself): its stripped-down, cartoonish tropes paralleled and even extended many of the deep themes that had been moving beneath the surface of his own oeuvre. Storms and shipwrecks, identities lost and found, families broken and healed, societies rejuvenated; twins and doubles and hints of magic; he had been trading in these (in more sophisticated form) since The Comedy of Errors, that is for his entire artistic life.”
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“Even more artistic wobbles I’m afraid dominated the first two “Wilkins” acts. The opening presentation of incest (Pericles discovers his intended bride has already been bedded by her father) had little threatening force, and director Allyn Burrows played the ensuing pursuit of his hero largely for laughs – as many a misguided production does, even though curious stage directions such as “Enter Pericles, wet” clearly indicate that rebirth is the business at hand. Real evil is afoot in the action, too (as well as genuine good), but all this seemed lost in broader-than-broad antics… “
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everreader 