Summer Reading: Will in the World, Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Great Fear

            The majority of Shakespeare’s plays take place in different countries, countries that did not undergo extreme religious upheaval multiple times over in the past half-century. In fact, save for the ancient and mythical plays, most of Shakespeare’s plays are set in very Catholic Italian cities (Verona, Padua, Venice, etc.) With such settings, it is no wonder that many plays include Priests, Friars, Nuns and a novice. And speculation about Shakespeare as a secret Catholic came about.

            Greenblatt uses this chapter to discuss the possibility of Shakespeare as a secret Catholic, or as someone who could have come into contact with members of the Catholic resistance. Two people, Thomas Cottam and Edmund Campion are mentioned at length as Greenblatt discusses their entry into England as secret Catholic missionaries – hearing confessions and saying masses in barns. It is very difficult for a Nation of people to change their beliefs and practices at the rate at which the English Crown was changing heads in the later half of the 16^th century. It is not surprising that there was a desire for the old religion at this time.

            Why does Greenblatt think that Shakespeare may have been a secret Catholic? Well aside from the fact that many of his plays take place in catholic cities with catholic characters? Shakespeare’s lost years, again. The man may have been a law clerk, but there also seems to be the possibility that Shakespeare was a school teacher for a time, and it just so happens that the school where he would have been teaching, had an odd habit of hiring professors with Catholic leanings.

            However, even though they were in some hushed high demand, Catholic priests were not permitted to say mass or even practice on English soil. The end of this chapter goes into detail about the executions of each man. Drawing and quartering, entrails being burned in front of their very eyes – Greenblatt goes into detail, so if you have a weak stomach, this may be something to skip.

I wasn’t a fan of this chapter, I understand the need for it – and Greenblatt ties it up nicely with reference to Shakespeare’s journey to Anne Hathaway’s farm for a little roll in the hey. Yes there are references to Catholicism in Shakespeare’s plays – but England was a country in religious transition, and it’s fairly certain the citizens of Stratford-Upon-Avon would have a hard time letting go of their old ways.

Summer Reading: Will in the World, Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Dream of Restoration

            When I see the word Restoration in a theatre book, or any book that talks about English History, my mind instantly goes to the restoration of the monarch in the 1660s when Charles II came back from France to his coronation as the King of England. The puritans were overthrown and England entered in a cultural explosion as years of repression gave way to many years of vulgar but enjoyable ‘Restoration Comedies.’

            Scratch that though, none of that here. This chapter focused a great deal on the lineage of William Shakespeare, his father’s rise and then dramatic fall from stature – and his mother’s loss of family property. John Shakespeare’s profession (outside of civil servant) seems to have been work with leather, gloves, and other apparel made from animal skins. This comes across in a great number of Shakespeare’s plays with references to leather, sewing and the use of animal skins for different products.

            John Shakespeare married the youngest Arden daughter – descendent of the great family of Arden that came over to England with William the Conqueror. This family owned – to quote Monty Python – ‘Huge tracks of land,’ some of which was a forest, later known as the Forest of Arden (As You Like It, anyone?). Unfortunately, John seemed to have run into some financial difficulties in his life, because it wasn’t long before John sold off the land that his dear wife had inherited in order to pay off his debts.

            William was also affected by his father’s sudden decline in status and wealth – it appears that a number of young men around him with ambitious fathers attended university. William, very conspicuously did not. Granted, he did get married at the age of 18, have his first child and two more just a few years later all in the early 1580s, but this probably would not have happened if he had been sent away to continue his schooling. No, instead it appears that William worked in a law office. What with all of his many (correct) references to law in early modern England, this would make perfect sense. It would have kept his wife and children fed and clothes, while also introducing him to new words and important pieces of information that later became key to a number of his plots.

            John Shakespeare’s desires to elevate his family did not go away, though, simply because he was in dire financial straights and had lost his public office: he still wanted his family to have their own Coat of Arms. To have a Coat of Arms was to be a gentleman – and to be a gentleman was to be better than the average man – at least in social status. If you’ve seen Downton Abbey, you know that status as a gentleman is even better than wealth in England for the majority of early modern history onward. So John Shakespeare filed his claim for a Coat of Arms, which was received and then ultimately ignored and forgotten until magically in the late 1590s, when it was suddenly approved. Greenblatt mentions that this is almost undoubtedly due to an intervention by the now successful young William Shakespeare.

            Later, William also had his mother’s Coat of Arms (that of the Arden family) added to his as a way of acknowledging both his father’s right to the title of gentleman (as a civil servant) and his mother’s gentle heritage. Still, the Shakespeare Coat of Arms is the only one that lies above his grave. But he assures any onlookers that is in fact, a gentleman.

            There was also mention in this chapter of William’s natural knack for puns and rote within his plays. I have no understanding of French and was surprised to learn that the words that the French princess is trying to learn in Henry V can easily be turned into French puns for much more rude words. And with many of the quotes from Shakespeare’s sonnets and poems in this chapter, I now know that I should endeavor to read Venus & Adonis next.

Summer Reading: Will in the World, Chapter 1

Will in the World: Chapter 1
Primal Scenes

One of the defining factors of New Historicist study is that one looks at the norms of the time, holds up a figure against these norms and the events that happened around them and make suppositions based upon these. A large portion of this chapter is written with an air of “This could have happened” and William “probably saw this.” This is how schooling is spoken about within this chapter, and Greenblatt is able to hold up specific examples within Shakespeare’s plays that do seem influenced by teaching styles and curriculum of the time.

Chapter One of Will in the World explores what William Shakespeare’s life would have been like as a young boy growing up as the son of the Bailiff of Stratford-Upon-Avon. Greenblatt explains that Bailiff was an early form of Mayor and that Daddy Shakespeare may not have had the greatest grasp on written English – but was very insistent that his son attended the local grammar school, where he would learn to read and write in English and Latin.

Transition from school into entertainments, Greenblatt explains that Latin lessons were often reinforced by the use of plays within curriculum: Latin plays. In this plays, scholars of the time were very insistent that schoolmasters do not allow the boys to actually kiss in the performance of these plays, he quotes “For the kiss of a beautiful boy is like the kiss of ‘certain spiders’: ‘if they do but touch men only with their mouth, they put them to wonderful pain and make them mad’” (Kindle Location 279). My contemporary perspective sees this as a homophobic warning – not unbelievable, nor inexcusable at a time when sin was so heavily condemned by the church (which citizens were required to attend). Greenblatt does not mention here – but it does seem to foreshadow discussions of Shakespeare’s possibly homosexuality in future chapters.

Besides the use of plays in schools, plays also occurred in Stratford-Upon-Avon under the permission of William’s father, the Bailiff, who welcomed in the Queen’s Men on numerous occasions. Greenblatt uses the account of a man similar in age to William Shakespeare, who lived just a few towns over, to present the very likely possibility of Shakespeare viewing plays in his youth. Greenblatt brings up many examples from the common ‘Morality Plays’ that also appear within Shakespeare’s works to emphasize the likelihood of this occurrence.

            The royal tours that Elizabeth would embark upon to see her country and allow her people to see her are also brought up as a likely experience of the young Will. Greenblatt references records of performances put on by the infamous Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s famous favourite, for her tour of the Midlands (near to Stratford-Upon-Avon). Greenblatt draws upon the similarities in these performances to Shakespeare’s Rude Mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Not too surprising considering the obvious references to Elizabeth within that very play. Many of the cultural occurrences that happen around Shakespeare are mirrored within moments of his plays, and I’m interested to see where else the culture of Early Modern England is present within his words as I continue reading.

Summer Reading: Will in the World

Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt.

            I have been interested in Shakespeare’s works since I was nine years old and my father brought Much Ado About Nothing home from Blockbuster (yeah, way back then). I remember watching, asking questions, and quickly being taken in by the fiery wit and electric chemistry of Benedict and Beatrice within the first act. I enjoyed the antics that their friends played on them, fooling them into falling (or realizing they were) in love. I was only nine, but my heart broke for Hero as she was rejected on the morning of her wedding and rejoiced when she and Claudio were reunited at the end. I was hooked.

            I must have watched the VHS a few more times at least before my father returned it, my older sister and I starting to quote certain lines from memory.  A year later, VHS tapes were distinctly out of fashion and we had just acquired a brand new DVD player. My parents very diligently went about restoring our film library, replacing VHS tapes with their DVD counterparts, and acquiring new DVDs as well. Much Ado About Nothing must have been on sale in Target, because one day, my parents came home from a day of errands, and there it was on the coffee table in our living room. I very diligently went about learning the scene between Benedict and Beatrice by heart, and probably annoyed my parents to no end. Eventually my mother dug out her enormous copy of “The Riverside Shakespeare,” and suddenly I had endless stories before me.

            I was not initially involved with theatre and acting. I read, a lot. I read and I wrote, played soccer and took a couple dance classes. One summer, it seemed my mother thought I spent a bit too much time sitting in my room and reading, because she forced me to sign up for an arts summer school. The stipulation was that I could pick any 3 classes I wanted, but I also had to a take “Fitness for the Performer.” (I barely ate, I was not a chubby kid, to this day – the only justification I can see for this is that she thought I needed to expand my horizons and meet more people, and move.) One of the classes I chose was simply called “William Shakespeare.” I thought it would simply be able reading his plays and learning about his plays. I was wrong.

            We did learn about plays, but we also learned about Sonnets and scansion, verse and prose and iambic pentameter. I spent hours lying on my bed and repeating lines out-loud to memorize signs and monologues. The teacher recognized my young adoration of Shakespeare and singled me out as one of the ‘key performers’ in the class, presenting every time a ‘higher up’ or visiting parent came into the room. This stroked my ego, fired up a passion for performing that I didn’t even know I had and changed my life forever.

            Throughout high school, I stated that I was best with Shakespeare, and indeed I found the style easy and the plays – while sometimes a challenge, more interesting than the average Arthur Miller or David Mamet. In High School my mother gave me “Will in the World” as a birthday present, and while I found the first couple chapters enlightening – I was too lazy to read the entire book. This summer (almost ten years later) this is one of my goals: To actually forge ahead through this book and respond in this blog (daily), to one chapter at a time. I know it will speak directly to a lot of what I studied, read and wrote about in my dissertation for my Masters and I hope it will help me as I continue to contemplate the possibility of a PhD.

I spent most of 2014 researching Shakespeare, his time and using other pieces by Stephen Greenblatt as a reference – but this particular book never floated into my periphery. Now, over two years out of my Masters, I think this can serve as a perfect refresher and an interesting exercise for myself as an academic and a writer. So please – feel free to follow this journey of mine as I re-explore New Historicism and Shakespeare studies.