In Search of Shakespeare

by Michael Wood

  On the Jesuit missions: T. McCoog, The Reckoned Expense (1996); R. Simpson, Edmund Campion (1896); Henry Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (1875) is an essential collection; Tom McCoog has also published an alphabetical directory of Jesuits in Tudor and Stuart England. The publications of the Catholic Record Society are a mine of information in these matters.

  On the ‘lost years’ E. A. J. Honigmann, Shakespeare: The Lost Years (1985) is full of fascinating detail about Shakespeare and Lancashire, but with no smoking gun; Honigmann was followed recently by Anthony Holden’s enjoyable William Shakespeare (1999), but the Shakeshafte theory has not survived closer scrutiny: see now Bob Bearman in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol LIII, No. 1 (2002). On his Lancashire patrons: Barry Coward, The Stanleys, Lords Stanley and Earls of Derby 1385–1672 (1983); and J. J. Bagley, The Earls of Derby (1985).

  On the theatre in London: E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (1923); Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642 (1992 edition) and Play going in Shakespeare’s London (1987); Herbert Berry, Shakespeare’s Playhouses (1987); Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt, ed. J. Mulryne and M. Shewring (1997); Julian Bowsher, The Rose Theatre (1998); and a very interesting look at the material remains and their analogues, Jean Wilson, The Shakespeare Legacy (1995).

  On the plays I have consulted both the new Arden editions and the handy and user-friendly Oxford editions. On the broader questions of play and text, R. Proudfoot, Shakespeare: Text, Stage and Canon (2001) and David Scott Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book (2001) are informative, enjoyable and highly recommended. The Oxford Shakespeare Topics series, ed. Stanley Wells, offers an interesting crop of handy paperbacks, such as Robert Miola, Shakespeare’s Reading (2000) and Steven Marx, Shakespeare and the Bible (2000); other topics include women, masculinity, race, and film.

  On Shakespeare’s early years in theatre there is still controversy. Again, there is much of value in E. K. Chambers’ Elizabethan Stage (1923). The money now is on the Queen’s Men, on whom see S. McMillin and S. MacLean, The Queen’s Men and Their Plays (1998); E. A. J. Honigmann, Shakespeare: The Lost Years (1985) favours Strange’s Men. As a portrait of his creative process, Emrys Jones, The Origins of Shakespeare (1977) is still, to my mind, the most exciting read of its kind. Peter Thomson, Shakespeare’s Professional Career (1992) looks at the life of a working dramatist; P. Levi The Life and Times of William Shakespeare (1988) is good on the working poet; D. and B. Crystal, Shakespeare’s Words (2002) is an invaluable dictionary of his extraordinary vocabulary; Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language (2000) is essential for anyone interested in the poet, or, for that matter, in poetry.

  Many connections remain to be explored: one is Catholic poetics. Alison Shell, Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination (1999) opens up fascinating paths of inquiry: I owe my knowledge of ‘I C’ to her (see here), and I am also indebted to her unpublished paper ‘Why didn’t Shakespeare write religious verse?’. The Southwell connections also await close attention. Astonishingly he is not indexed in any recent Shakespeare biography. Till we get a full-length study, F. W. Brownlow, Robert Southwell (1996) is a handy guide; see too C. Devlin, The Life of Robert Southwell (1956) and Pierre Janelle, Robert Southwell the Writer (1935). Devlin’s Hamlet’s Divinity (1963), written from the Catholic side, gives vivid and suggestive accounts of topics such as the poisoning of Lord Strange, the Babington Plot and the sinister Topcliffe.

  London: from an immense literature, pride of place goes to John Stow’s Survey of 1598; on the inns: John Taylor, The Carriers Cosmographie (1637); on the streets: A. Prokter and R. Taylor, The A-Z of Elizabethan London (1979) and R. Hyde, The A-Z of Georgian London (1992); on the location of the public and private theatres: E. K. Chambers, Elizabethan Stage (1923).

  Many parish registers are now published, including St Helen’s and St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate; St Botolph’s, Aldgate, and St Mary’s, Aldermanbury; a transcript of St Olave’s, Silver Street, has been deposited by Professor Alan Nelson in the Guildhall library.

  The Middlesex and Southwark Court Sessions and the records of the guilds and livery companies are another rich source of local detail. My account of the 1603 plague in Muggle Street, for example, is taken from Annals of the Barber Surgeons (1890). In addition to these sources, for my maps I used: The London Surveys of Ralph Treswell, ed. John Schofield (1987); David Mander, More Light, More Power: An Illustrated History of Shoreditch (1996); and M. Carlin, Medieval Southwark (1996), which has revolutionized the view of fifteenth- to sixteenth-century Southwark; histories of individual London wards and parishes include Sir John James Baddeley, Cripple gate (1922); and the unrivalled photographic archive of the National Monument Record in Swindon and the London search room, which are open to all researchers.

  Foreign visitors: there are many anthologies. My quote about blank verse here is by Samuel Sorbière, whose seventeenth-century Voyage en Angleterre was published in English in 1709. See also F. M. Wilson, Strange Island (1955).

  On censorship: Janet Clare, ‘Art Made Tongue-tied by Authority’, Elizabethan and Jacobean Dramatic Censorship (1999 edition).

  On the Herbert family: M. Brennan, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family (1988). C. Burrow, The Complete Sonnets and Poems (2002) came out after my draft was completed but supports the dating of the sonnets adopted here, with one surprising caveat – a perplexing hint that the Dark Lady poems might be the earliest in the sequence. I assume a statistical quirk here, as Burrow appears to do – most of the poems to the woman are surely from the same period of the later 1590s? Stephen Booth, Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1977) offers a rich commentary, as does Katherine Duncan-Jones, Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1997), and I have gratefully profited from both. Mary Wroth’s sonnets are in Woman Poets of the English Renaissance, ed. M. Wynne-Davies (1999). On Emilia Lanier there is now a full-scale study by Susanne Woods, Lanyer: a Renaissance woman poet (1999). Some of William Herberts poetry was published in Poems Written by the Rt Hon William Earl of Pembroke… (1660).

  On the Jews: James Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews (1996) has a wealth of references. On the Bassano family: D. Lasocki and R. Prior, The Bassanos (1995).

  On Simon Forman there has been a recent flurry of interest, including Barbara Howard Traister, The Notorious Astrological Physician of London (2000); A. L. Rowse, Sex and Society in Shakespeare’s London (1973) has more on the poets circle. On sex, cross-dressing and gender: Stephen Orgel is typically challenging in Impersonations (1996). On the book industry: Peter Blayney, The Bookshops in St Paul’s Churchyard (1990). Blayney also wrote the indispensable The First Folio of Shakespeare (1991).

  For the War of the Poets: James Bednarz, Shakespeare and the Poets’ War (2001) is a fascinating detective story on which I have relied for the chronology. On the tragedies and Greek translation I am indebted to Louise Schleiner, ‘Latinized Greek Drama in Shakespeare’s Writing of Hamlet’, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol XLI (1990), whose version of the Latin Orestes I have adapted here. Stephen Greenblatt, Hamlet’s Purgatory (2001) looks at the changing relationship between the living and the dead in the sixteenth century. On Othello, E. A. J. Honigmann’s new Arden edition (1999); on Elizabethan black people in general Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen (1999), and Shakespeare and Race, ed. Catherine M. Alexander and Stanley Wells (2000).

  On Ireland: C. Highley, Shakespeare, Spenser and the Crisis in Ireland (1997). On Macbeth: Gary Wills, Witches and Jesuits (1995). On King Lear: F. Brownlow, Shakespeare, Harsnett and the Devils of Denham (1993), to which I am deeply indebted here. See too J. Murphy, Darkness and Devils (1984). Two valuable older critical works are John Danby, Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature (1949) and Philip Edwards, Shakespeare and the Confines of Art (1968).

  On revision and collaboration: K. Muir, Shakespeare as a Collaborator (1960); John Jones, Shakespeare at Work (1995); in King Lear. Division of the Kingdoms, ed. Gary Taylor and Michael Warren (1983); in Othello: E. A. J.
Honigmann’s Arden edition (1999). B. Vickers, Shakespeare Co-author (2002) came out too late to be used here, but bears out the view of his collaborations adopted in this book.

  New finds: the widely publicized recent ‘finds’ have all proved illusory. The famous Funeral Elegy, which now appears in many editions of the collected works, including the Norton and Riverside, is clearly not by Shakespeare at all, but by John Ford; the poem ‘Shall I Die?’ has not found acceptance; nor, sadly, has Peter Levi’s seductive party piece for Alice Strange; but hopes of finding more Shakespeare are not yet over. The most likely recent Shakespeare find is printed in W. A. Ringler and S. W. May, ‘An Epilogue Possibly by Shakespeare’, Modern Philology (1972): found in the commonplace book of a member of the Hunsdon household, it is an epilogue spoken to the queen ‘by the players, 1598’ which closely resembles Puck’s epilogue in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A throwaway, but this looks like the real thing.

  On the culture of James I’s reign: James Doelman, King James I and the Religious Culture of England (2000). On the late plays: Simon Palfrey, Late Shakespeare (1997) is good on the language. Contexts: The Tempest and Its Travels, ed. P. Hulme and W. Sherman (2000) and G. de Sousa, Shakespeares Cross-cultural Encounters (2002); Catherine Belsey, Shakespeare and the Loss of Eden (1999) on statues coming alive, child death, and dismembered families. On the late music: J. P. Cutts in Music and Letters, Vol IIIVI (1955) and Musique de la Troupe de Shakespeare (1959); Johnson’s music is transcribed in Ayres, ed. I. Spink (1974).

  For children: Michael Rosen, William Shakespeare (2002) and Andy Gurr’s very breezy photographic re-creation William Shakespeare (1995) are highly recommended. For younger children there are Marcia Williams’s irresistible comic book versions. Novels include Geoffrey Trease, Cue for Treason (1940) and Susan Cooper, King of Shadows (1999). A. Claybourne and R. Treays, The Usborne World of Shakespeare (2001) is especially recommended, with over fifty links to that ‘fantast-icall Engine, call’d Internet.

  Finally, the afterlife: Stanley Wells, Shakespeare For All Time (2002) is a typically readable and humane survey; and John Gross, After Shakespeare (2002) has many gems; future editions might also include Michael Madhusudhan, a Bengali writer I first encountered nearly twenty years ago from the mouth of a wandering holy man one midnight on the burning ghats in Calcutta. A typical Bengali polymath, Madhusudhan was familiar with an incredible range of world literature, from Latin and Greek to Persian and Sanskrit; but in ‘The Hindu and the Anglo-Saxon’ (1856) he argues that English literature is the greatest, and Shakespeare the jewel in its crown. His favourite was the wonderful scene between Falstaff and Hal in the Blue Boar in Henry IV Part 1: Madhusudhan would trade it all for ‘Banish plump Jack and banish all the world’. So would this author. Additions for the paperback edition

  In the two years since this book first appeared there has been much new work on Shakespeare’s life and work. Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World (2004), James Shapiro’s 1599 (2005) and Richard Wilson’s Secret Shakespeare (2004) are full of exciting insights. On the texts, the latest editions in the new Arden Shakespeare and the Oxford Shakespeare continue to offer fresh insights and much closer dating of the plays. Recent recommended essay collections include Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England, ed. D. Taylor and D. Beauregard (2003); Region, Religion and Patronage, ed. R. Dutton, A. Findlay and R. Wilson (2003); and the very stimulating Theatre and Religion, ed. R. Dutton, A. Findlay and R. Wilson (2003); Bob Bearman’s important reconsiderations of John Shakespeare’s Secret Testament and his civic and business career are in Shakespeare Quarterly (2003 and 2005). Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells (2004) is a pithy summary of the scholarship in the excellent Oxford Shakespeare Topics series.

  INDEX

  The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  WS stands for William Shakespeare

  Adam of Oldeditch 18

  Adams, John Quincey 276

  Admiral’s Men 138, 166–7, 241, 246, 252, 282, 318

  Aeschylus 241, 242–3

  Aesop’s Fables 50, 53

  Agamemnon (Rose theatre play) 241–2

  All’s Well That Ends Well 293

  All is True 368

  allegory

  and historical plays 163

  humanist 66–8

  Allen, Giles 126, 183, 244

  Allen, William 80, 104, 147, 159

  Alleyn, Edward 113, 125, 138, 142, 166, 233, 248, 282–3

  Anne of Denmark, Queen 267, 288

  Antony and Cleopatra 220, 280, 284, 317, 322–3, 326, 328, 330, 346

  Archilochus 67–8

  Arden, Edward 20, 48, 77, 79, 95–6, 97, 102, 103, 107

  execution of 99–100, 301

  Arden family 20, 25–8, 82, 97, 102–3, 155

  family house in Wilmcote 27–8, 36, 233

  Arden, John 20, 26

  Arden, Mary (mother of WS)

  and Catholicism 39

  children 31–2, 40

  churching 34–5

  death 335

  family background 16, 26–8

  and family financial troubles 72–3, 233

  marriage 26, 28–9

  and Shakespeare’s education 49–50, 51

  Arden, Robert 26, 27–8, 103

  Arden, Thomas 26

  Arden, Walter 26

  Arden–Somerville plot 95–104, 106, 232

  Aristotle 307

  Arundel, Philip Howard, Earl of 154

  As You Like It 51, 54–5, 164, 238, 250–1, 280

  Aspinall, Alexander 85

  Aubrey, John 74, 191, 194, 202, 289, 297, 359

  Audeley, John 75, 76

  Augustine, St 10, 78, 192

  Babington Plot (1586) 108–9, 163–4, 301

  Bacon, Sir Nicholas 76

  Badger, George 237

  Badger, John 71

  Barkworth, Mark 257, 258

  Barnes, Barnabe, The Devil’s Charter 312–13

  Bassano family 125, 204, 211, 215, 221, 346

  Bate, Hugh, vicar of Packwood 37

  Beaumont, Francis 287, 354, 359

  Becket, Thomas 9

  Beckett, Samuel 308

  Bell, William 79

  Belott, Simon 268, 269

  Bertie, Susan, Countess of Kent 212

  Biddle, Simon 46

  Black Bull inn, Bishopsgate 133, 134

  black people, in Elizabethan London 272–5

  Blackfriars monastery 342

  Blackfriars Theatre 183–4, 224, 341–3, 346

  blank verse 127–9

  The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (Day) 247

  Blount, Charles, Lord Mountjoy 172

  Blount, Edward 359

  Boleyn, Anne 10, 12, 29, 366

  books 51, 234–5

  and censorship 255

  play quatros 234–5

  Borromeo, Cardinal of Milan 81

  boys’ companies 238–9, 248–9, 251, 261

  Brecht, Berthold 326

  Brend, Nicholas 244

  Bretchgirdle, John 32, 34, 50

  Brownsword, John 50

  Burbage family 118, 224

  Theatre 119, 124, 125–7, 139, 166, 183, 224, 225, 244

  Burbage, James 113, 115, 118, 119, 166, 224, 244

  Burbage, Richard 113, 118, 138, 139, 166, 167, 168, 192, 202, 210, 278, 372

  as a Kings Man 282, 287, 296, 306

  Burghley, Lord see Cecil, William (Lord Burghley)

  Butter, Nathaniel 299

  Byrd, William 155, 258

  Calderón, Pedro, Love after Death 367

  Campion, Edmund 57, 76–80, 81, 82, 84–5, 106, 154, 301, 327

  Cardenio 347, 363–4

  Case, John 205

  Catesby family 20

  Catesby, Robert 310, 311, 312

  Catesby, Sir Willia
m 78, 85

  Catholicism

  and the accession of Elizabeth I 28–31

  and the Arden–Somerville plot 95–104

  and the Babington Plot 108–9

  Catholic

  Counter-Reformation 30, 76–80, 147–8

  and church papists 39–40, 77–8, 79, 83, 316

  and the Earl of Southampton 154–5, 158

  in Elizabethan England 36–9

  enforcement of anti-Catholic laws 71–2, 74–6, 159, 316

  and grammar schools 56–8

  and the Gunpowder Plot 310–12

  and Hamlet 263

  and James I 279, 288

  the Jesuits and the Devils of Denham 300–3

  and Pericles 333

  recusants 39, 75–6, 78, 79, 85, 148, 150, 316–17, 365

  and the secret testimony of John Shakespeare 80–4

  and Shakespeare’s beliefs 174, 293–5, 376–7

  and Shakespeare’s Blackfriars house 365–6

  and Shakespeare’s religious roots 20–1, 25, 27, 28–9, 36–8

  and Southwell 158, 159

  and traditional Christian society in England 9–10, 27, 355, 380

  Cawood, Gabriel 103

  Caxton, William, Golden Legend 9

  Cecil, Robert 169, 261, 273–4

  Cecil, William (Lord Burghley) 103, 104, 155, 158, 159, 261

  Césaire, Aimé 358

  Chadborne, Robert 99

  Chamberlains Men 134, 139, 166–7, 188, 239, 248, 275, 278

  and the War of the Poets 252, 260, 261

  Chapman, George 238, 241, 249, 258

  Chappell, John 270

  Chattock, Richard 96–7

  Chaucer, Geoffrey 9, 65, 369

  Chesne, Beau 49

  Chester, Robert 258

  Chettle, Henry 152–3, 154, 241, 242, 243, 246

  Children of the Chapel 251

  Children of St Pauls 239, 248, 318

  Cholmeley players 339

  Cicero 50, 55

  Cinthio, Hundred Stories 66, 272, 275

  Civil War (1640s) 12, 166, 341, 353

  Clarendon, Earl of 191

  Clopton, Hugh 231–2

  Cobham, Lord 179, 188, 224, 230