Mon, 01 Sep 2008
Bryson's Shakespeare
Bill Bryson, Shakespeare, Harper Press
Notwithstanding those who dislike Shakespeare, which included the likes of
Bernard Shaw, here is a book to revel in if you have any interest whatsoever in
the man, the place, or the time.
Bryson brings his humour and his research capabilities to bear on what is
actually quite a difficult subject. It's difficult because, other than his plays
and poetry he didn't leave much of a trail.
Bryson takes us back in time and tells us what is generally known and deals
with various arguments about what happened along the way. What we get is a
fascinating picture of Elizabethan and Jacobean life in addition to details of
what we know about W. Shakespeare.
There are many puzzles along the way and Mstation would like to put in a
suggestion about one of them ... One controversial aspect of Shakespeare's
writing concerns his sonnets. These beautiful love poems, which Shakespeare apparently
hadn't intended to have published, were directed at a fellow male. Consternation!
The Victorian English came up with various ways of explaining this ... which
included saying that he was practising different voices and points of view, as
he regularly did later when writing parts for both male and female. The
general consensus these days is that this was not so and they were indeed directed
towards a male. The next question is, who was this person? Prime candidate is
the Earl of Southampton who apparently was both pretty and effeminate and with
whom Shakespeare had some dealings. There have been many objections to this
based on the vexing question of class dealings and also having reference to the
things said by Shakespeare in his dedications ... which were in the nature of a
plea for patronage and, while extremely pleasant, hardly suggest more.
Another tack might be to look at the theatre itself: In those times, the parts
of women were played by boys - not tiny little boys mind you, but boys enough
that their voices hadn't broken. Another puzzle of Shakepeare's plays was that
so many, maybe most, of the really great speeches were for women. This is
completely unexpected as one would have thought that these long and complicated
parts would have been reserved for the older males. Shakespeare must have had
rather special beliefs and feelings about the actor or actors to whom he
entrusted these roles. Unfortunately we know next to nothing about who these
boys were and what became of them. We don't even know who played these roles
at that time. In any case, one of these boys seems a rather likely subject of
the sonnets. We should also
say that academic opinion leans towards the idea that his love as stated in the
sonnets was never consumated.
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here