Book Review - Contested Will by James Shapiro

Contested Will : who wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro

London: Faber & Faber, 2010                  ISBN 9780571235766

For those interested in the Shakespeare conspiracy, and for an accessible guide to its history and why those who believe in an alternative writer of the plays are irretrievably wrong, this is as good a place as any to start reading. Focusing on the claims of Bacon and Oxford in the main, with a passing reference to other claimants, Shapiro not only gives a good run-through of the evidence that convinces sane people that Shakespeare wrote the plays, but also brings out some of the absurdities in the claims for Bacon and Oxford.

What I found most interesting in this book is that both Delia Bacon (no relation to Francis), who proposed Francis as Shakespeare, and John Looney, who first proposed Oxford, did so after spiritual and personal crises which - as Shapiro points out - had a lot to do with them becoming iconoclast. It almost goes without saying that their initial doubts about Shakespeare arose from a complete misunderstanding of theatre and playwrighting in the 16th and early 17th centuries, and by them thinking of authorship during that time as reflective of how authors worked and thought in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Shapiro demonstrates that it is all too easy to fall into the trap of using Shakespeare's writings to try and discover something of his life, and also explains that in the 1500s and 1600s the idea of writing - especially for the stage - that was in any way autobiographical was almost unheard of.

As historical work on Bacon, Oxford, and Shakespeare has moved on in the later 20th and 21st centuries, it has become clear that both Bacon and Oxford could not have written the plays, and that Shakespeare - despite what Baconians and Oxfordians might have you believe - was acknowledged at the time by various sources as the writer of the plays we know, and of others now lost. It has also become clear that Shakespeare collaborated on several of his plays as well.

For every character or situation in the plays or poems that the conspiratists use to further their theories, there are two or three that offer a counter view, and Shapiro uses those characters in his final summing up, which is a withering attack on the small imaginations of those who would doubt Shakespeare. For it seems that those who refuse to believe that Shakespeare could write the plays also refuse to believe that it is possible to make up stories and plays from one's imagination, using things one has read or heard. It's actually quite sad to read the bleatings of these people.

So, well worth reading, and with an excellent bibliographical essay with which the reader can take their own journey through the major literature of the authorship question if they wish. Or, just stop at Shapiro.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Shakespeare Conspiracy

The Shakespeare conspiracy by Graham Phillips & Martin Keatman

London: Century, 1994                                ISBN 0712658831

Oh dear. This book fulfilled my expectations  - when you read on the flyleaf that "the authors' previous book, ...King Arthur: the true story, identified for the first time the historical King Arthur, his 'Camelot' and his final resting place." - you know you're going to be reading something with a tenuous relationship to the facts.

This book is the classic straw-man setup. After demolishing several well-held (and some not so popular) ideas about Shakespeare's career, the authors then present their own theory, which is just as, if not more, tenuous than the others.

The premise of The Shakespeare conspiracy is that Shakespeare was a secret agent, and part of Walter Raleigh's "School of Night", and ended up betraying Raleigh, who organised to have Shakespeare killed, after he had retired to Stratford because he had been injured in the fire at The Globe .

When all these theories are put together, the absurdity is obvious, but it is less so in the book, as it is padded out with histories of other players, quite a bit about Marlowe's death (which is to put the reader in the mind to believe their Shakespeare theories), and much history of the intrigues at Court.

There are many famous "inconsistencies" around the life of Shakespeare, mostly due to gaps in documentation of his life (hardly unusual for a commoner, even a famous one, in the 16th Century). This has led to many theories about Shakespeare and the authorship of his plays, which I'm not going to re-hash here, but which allows works such as this to flourish.

Phillips and Keatman make much of Shakespeare's lack of education (although it is fairly certain he would have had a good grammar school education in Stratford), suggesting that Shakespeare, being friends with Marlowe, would have been part of Ralegh's "School of Night", and thus have access to his books and ideas. There is absolutely no evidence of this, and their suggestion that some lines in Loves Labor's Lost point to Shakespeare's knowledge of Ralegh's school seems complete nonsense.

They make much of the dedication on the original edition of Shakespeare's sonnets to a W.H., and link that to a certain William Hall, who was one of Cecil's secret agents, and make the leap that Shakespeare was William Hall. There is absolutely no evidence of this.

They suggest that Shakespeare left London after he was injured in the fire at The Globe theatre, based on a reading of the dedication in the First Folio, which to me (and everyone else) clearly refers to the texts of the plays that had been available up until the First Folio's publication, and not to Shakespeare's physical state. They cite Shakespeare's purchase of a house shortly before he left London as unusual, given he was leaving, which may not be the case at all - it is just as valid to think he bought it knowing he was leaving, to have a base for times he might return.

They try to make the fact that no-one in Stratford seemed to know about his theatrical activities somehow sinister and odd. I think that it can be explained by the fact that Shakespeare's circle of acquaintances in Stratford might not have been interested in the theatre (they probably would not have had the opportunity to see any of his plays either), and so why would they mention that about the man they knew as a successful business man.

I could go on, but I don't feel like wasting any more time on this book - the select bibliography, the name only index, and lack of footnotes make this book a lightweight tome with very little to recommend it - one for the conspiracy nuts only.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt

Will in the World : how Shakespeare became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004                      ISBN  0393050572

Who was William Shakespeare? That seemingly simple question has consumed a lot of ink over the centuries, and, it seems, continues to do so at if anything an increasing rate as the years go by. While many of these books are of dubious value, or are  even junk (vide Baconians and other fruitcakes), there have been quite a few books that allow us to view Shakespeare in a new light. Will in the World is one of them.

Stephen Greenblatt is at the forefront of current Shakespearean studies, and has used his considerable erudition in the area to produce a book that weaves what we know about Shakespeare’s life, material from his plays, and from the wider world he lived in, into an interesting and colourful book about the greatest playwright to have lived. It can be dangerous to read too much of a writer’s life into their works, as some have done referring to Shakespeare, but Greenblatt corroborates his readings by looking at wider influences on Shakespeare and England to reinforce his conclusions.

And what does he conclude about the man from Stratford? That he was a passionate, canny, quiet, hard-working man, who enjoyed making money and hated the idea of being cheated out of it. He was a man that listened, looked and read intently wherever he was, and who used every bit of material he had gathered in his work. While he knew how to keep his head above water and how to keep out of trouble, he liked to use his native wit to push the boundaries.

Greenblatt is deft in showing how Shakespeare responded to the times when writing his plays – whether it be bouncing off Marlowe (the Jew of Malta leading to the Merchant of Venice, Tamburlaine inspiring Henry VI), or responding to the ideas of King James (Macbeth). While Shakespeare used very little of his personal life in his plays, Greenblatt teases out some thoughts on Shakespeare’s marriage (not happy), his pride (he wanted to be successful), his religion (probably not too fussed).

Greenblatt’s suggests that during Shakespeare’s “lost years” he did in fact work for some Catholic families in the north of England, some members of whom lost their heads: which Greenblatt suggests led Shakespeare to be very careful about how much he wrote or spoke about certain matters. It seems relatively certain that at least some of his immediate family were Catholic, and in fact it could be that his father’s beliefs were part of the cause of his fall from grace; something that seems to have stayed with Shakespeare throughout his life. While he was careful not to reveal his thoughts in the plays, it’s clear that Shakespeare was very familiar with the old rites.

That was not the only thing Shakespeare was familiar with: he was well-versed on the legalities of loans and shares, the wool trade, leather work and glove making, among other trades. References to these are scattered through the plays, and in some way are the ‘smoking gun’ that proves he was indeed the author of the canon we know today. (Surely it’s much easier for someone like Shakespeare to gain a basic familiarity with court ritual than it would be for a Noble to learn the ins and outs of a trade or mercantile affairs.)

Greenblatt surmises that Shakespeare saw his work as just that – work. He seems to have spent his time writing, running the company, and ensuring that the money he made was well invested and looked after. It does seem that he had some affairs of the heart, which are revealed to some extent in his sonnets, but again it is hard to know for sure just how far these progressed.

Perhaps the greatest mystery in the book is Shakespeare’s retirement; why did he give it all away and go back to the country? Greenblatt struggles to provide a satisfactory reason, but, as a country boy who went to the big city and who is now back in the town I grew up in, it seems natural to me that Shakespeare just wanted to go home, and he had enough money to do so in style. By that stage his favourite daughter had married well and had children, so I think he just wanted to relax and see out his days in as carefree a manner as possible. Alas for him he died not long after.

Of course there is also the possibility that Shakespeare began to realise he was reaching the bottom of the well - from his early plays, which were drawn from clear sources and had more traditional structures, Shakespeare had changed the way theatre interacted with both audiences and actors, with concealed and unknowable forces propelling late characters such as Macbeth and Prospero. After expending so much effort to create his late masterpieces, perhaps Shakespeare felt he'd done what he could, and that to continue would not reveal anything more.

For anyone interested in Shakespeare and his times, this book is really a must-read. There is so much information in it that it rewards re-reading and going back to the plays to see how Greenblatt infuses new light into them. While not setting out to refute anyone else's "theories" about Shakespeare and the plays, this book is fairly conclusive in showing that William Shakespeare was the author of the canon as we know it, and some other works besides. Engaging and well-written, it is probably the go-to book for a life of Shakespeare in the early 21st century.

Highly Recommended

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell