K.C. Ligon's Blog

Does Shakespeare reveal himself in his works?

Is it possible for us to address this question without reference to biographical data?  What I propose we consider is where we sense the personal authorial voice.  If we are not concerned with what we know happened with Oxford or WS, or what argues in favor of one or the other being identified as Shakespeare the poet, what remains is the work itself and what it may reveal of the poet's sense and sensibility. Can that be 'read'?

Shakespeare as a borrower

A recent comment from Patrick re "Different Standards for the Bard?' (July 27, 2008) was nicely thought-provoking.  Here's my reply:

Contentment is a good thing, Patrick. And I would certainly agree he borrowed liberally from classical sources, but would add that where he diverges from the source there's treasure abounding. Consider also the works he has to have read in other languages, due to their unavailability in English at the time. Check these out here:

http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/sources.htm

As for his borrowing from contemporaries, I think the direction of influence runs the other way, but then I have another man in mind, who was older and situated earlier in the influence chain.

Do see my other posts in this category, and have a look in here too:

http://kcligon.wordpress.com

Thanks, Patrick.

KC

Different standards for the Bard?

It all centers around the First Folio, and one's perception of it. For the traditional view, F's complexity; (nearly) unprecedented size, the tributes and prefaces, the list of the players, the representational likeness, all point to the man from Stratford as the author unequivocally. For those who doubt the attribution these elements are suspect, full of contradictions that the traditionalists either don't recognize as anomalies, or that are viewed by them as insignificant contradictions.

The standard for attribution allows, in the traditional perspective, a divide between the man's documented life and his works, that is explicated by his imagination and genius. The challengers aver that the standards that are routinely applied to other writers, if applied to Shakespeare, would, based on the anomalies of the Folio, point to another writer.

The inside story

Shakespeare was an innovator.  He told the old stories but in relationship to his own life and times in order to play out in theatre what he could not resolve in life. Accordingly, he transcended experiences that haunted him. He was ahead of his time in that. However, if he had had another outlet for expression of these things, or if the second act of his life had been rosier, we might never have seen his greater works.

Goethe said, "Hamlet is an acorn in a costly jar. The roots expand, and the jar is shattered." That's the story of Shakespeare.

I am that I am

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing:
For why should others false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.

--Shakespeare, Sonnet 121

My Lord, this other day your man Stainer told me that you sent for Amys, my man and, if he were absent, that Lyly should come unto you. I sent Amys, for he was in the way. And I think very strange that your Lordship should enter into that course toward me whereby I must learn that I knew not before, both of your opinion and goodwill towards me. But I pray, my Lord, leave that course, for I mean not to be your ward nor your child. I serve her Majesty, and I am that I am, and by alliance near to your Lordship, but free, and scorn to be offered that injury to think I am so weak of government as to be ruled by servants, or not able to govern myself. If your Lordship take and follow this course, you deceive yourself and make me take another course than yet I have not thought of. Wherefore these shall be to desire your Lordship, if that I may make account of your friendship, that you will leave that course, as hurtful to us both.

*To the right honourable my very good Lord, the Lord Treasurer of England.

--letter from Oxford to Burghley, 30 October 1584

Same spies, same indignation, same phrase (referencing himself as the Deity), same writer.

Why the pseudonym?

There was a desire to render the Lord Great Chamberlain inconspicuous in the activity of playwriting quite specifically in '98, and to direct attention away from him, the pen-name already established in '93 for the poet became fused in '98 with the identity of the player/shareholder with the same name.

In '97 a play by Nashe and Jonson (now lost) considered or at least proclaimed seditious for its satire (it has been suggested by scholars it was a satire of court figures) nearly caused the theatres to be 'plucked down' permanently so this can be viewed as part of the context. Burghley died in in '98, and Robert Cecil came into his own. Meres was the PR man, with his list in '98 that defined one writer as two.

Why? The plays have a different ring or spin when attached to a known insider. The theatrical's attachment makes them complete fiction. Or so the thinking went. And how right that thinking was--how beautifully their myth sustains itself. In any case, with respect to the plays, I think Oxford had Stratford thrust upon him.

Whatever the reasons, previously anonymously published quartos appeared in '98 with Shakespeare on their title pages. This began the period, which lasted until '04, of Shakespeare's obvious supervision of his plays' publication.

In this time frame (1598-1604) he oversaw his work, as he did not later, according to the Heminge and Condell preface to the 1623 First Folio which avers that Shakespeare 'did not have the fate to oversee his own writing.' Curious statement, as the Stratford man lived until 1616. De Vere died in 1604.

Shakespeare and Elizabethan Policy

The assignment was the promotion of the sovereignity of England, and inspiration to unite and fight for it, to stand against invasion of a conqueror:

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
--King John – Act 5, Scene 7

And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
--Henry V – Act 1, Scene 2

Her words were these.

"My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourself to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safe guard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects, and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down my life for my God and for my kingdom and for my people, my honour, and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm; the which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know, already for your forwardness, you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the meantime my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject, not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people."

http://tudorhistory.org/primary/tilbury.html

As for Shakespeare's stirring and patriotic themes and language, without a direct link to the highest levels of governmental policy (the author known to be Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain of England), the origin of this propaganda as a self-serving instrument of government, disappeared.

Conspiracy, or Authorship Disguise

I'd say it began as a serious governmental program (by that I mean it involved the Queen and the Cecils), and gradually became known or guessed at on some level in literary and theatrical circles, which would have included aristocrats associated therein. I expect the amount of actual winking and nodding would have depended on how securely placed one was, or how rash and ill-advised, "painting forth the things that hidden are" as Nashe put it. Nashe, who never mentions Shakespeare by name, yet writes of such a poet. Jonson handled the matter more effectively, and survived, unlike Nashe.

What Nashe wrote, to his 'verie friend' Edward de Vere, or 'Maister Apis Lapis,' or 'Gentle Master William':

http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/snewsOrig101.htm

Why it matters

At a critical moment in the film Rendition (excellent, well-made, but a truly serious film in that one must concentrate and observe some serious cruelty), the character played by Jake Gyllenhaal neatly summarizes his thinking about the detainee--won't spoil it for you with anything more specific--and he does it with a couplet from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

This moment happens with such perfect ease--the person hearing this knows, as do we, how utterly apt the observation is as it applies to their situation.

How often this happens in our daily life is hard to calculate. In films, in plays, on the TV news, in the paper or a magazine, or on the web.  He's always there, this poet.

It's funny to think that most of us don't have any idea of who he was.  And still is.

Consider the Source

Ever hear that Shakespeare was a 'plagiarist'?  That he 'stole his plots'? 

Maybe he did, but if that's so, he stole from the best.  Put another way, some of us think he was a great student, mighty well read.  We think you can tell that from his plays.  And if we consider the sources he must have read in order to make such use of them in his works, we come across an anomaly.  Many of them aren't in English, and weren't available in translation in England, in his lifetime. 

Now if we're talking about the incumbent bard, the traditional Stratford man, we have to take note of the fact that he never left the country.  He may have had access to some sort of library, but we're not talking about a half dozen books here.  And books weren't that readily available, or reasonably priced.

Edward de Vere made the Grand Tour of Europe and had access to a spectacular library.

Sources of Shakespeare's plays, be sure to check out the list the poet read in other languages:

http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/sources.htm