What words come to mind? Cheapskate, skinflint usurer, tax cheat, grain hoarder, cad with a second best bed. The Shakespeare who left Stratford did so after an undisclosed transformative experience. Ordinary country folk don't just wander off a hundred miles to London and take up with a theater company unless something is up. If we take Ben Jonson at his word there was something funny about Shakespeare and he put it in writing, "he wrote out of his head perfectly and never had to scratch through anything". Sounds like a modified Shakespeare to me, maybe a rather large walnut fell on his head and he woke up with a rare gift. Why were so many previously unpublished plays in the First Folio? Who had custody of them? The North/Leicester's Men origin of source plays/material would indicate that rewriters would not need any specific knowledge of anywhere because all of the necessary information was already there. Shakespeare or Shakespeare proxy was an artful rewriter who had a close association with Ben Jonson and his circle, John Florio for example. Good show
My view is that WS ran off to London to join the theatre because he was gay: uncomfortable as a young family man. I agree he was a re'writer. You know, when you think about it, it is of course ludicrous to assume that the entire Shakespeare body of work was created by a lone individual: a single pen genius, with encyclopedic knowledge and of prodigious industry. Of course it was a team game. Many hands were involved. Key playwrights would collaborate. Researchers would translate source narratives and scribes would lay out early manuscripts. It was done quickly. Priority was production to meet demand. We need to understand the industry. There was no radio, television, RUclips or cinema. Best entertainment for the masses were wooden riverside theatres, open to all classes: penny in the pits and more for benches in the circle. Packed full and roudy, they provided drama, comedy, romance and intrigue; elaborate costumes from exotic lands; kings and queens; sword fights and murder; ghosts and witches. Plays were not written for posterity. There was no copyright. There was no high literary calling. There was no need for accurate historical fact or location details. It was entertainment. It was showbusiness. It was all about getting money now: 'bums on seats' - that is, filling the theatre for an exciting new production. The theatre company would 'call down' (purchase) a play and take ownership of it. Shakespeare would then edit and rewrite for best stage production; add narrative and characters, plot clarity, dramatic tension, soliloquays etc with his extraordinary lyrical and descriptive stage vocab. His concern was the drama. It was theatrical production. The plays were not produced to be read. They were watched and experienced. Shakespeare was therefore a broker of selected plays circulating in the market. They were all given the appearance of his own hand by the rewriting and editing with exceptional aptitude and soaring command of prose and verse. We are not wrong to recognise the input of others. But we are not wrong either to recognise the Shakespeare as owner of the product. The Bard.
Awesome!
Lovely lecture!
What words come to mind? Cheapskate, skinflint usurer, tax cheat, grain hoarder, cad with a second best bed. The Shakespeare who left Stratford did so after an undisclosed transformative experience. Ordinary country folk don't just wander off a hundred miles to London and take up with a theater company unless something is up. If we take Ben Jonson at his word there was something funny about Shakespeare and he put it in writing, "he wrote out of his head perfectly and never had to scratch through anything". Sounds like a modified Shakespeare to me, maybe a rather large walnut fell on his head and he woke up with a rare gift. Why were so many previously unpublished plays in the First Folio? Who had custody of them? The North/Leicester's Men origin of source plays/material would indicate that rewriters would not need any specific knowledge of anywhere because all of the necessary information was already there. Shakespeare or Shakespeare proxy was an artful rewriter who had a close association with Ben Jonson and his circle, John Florio for example. Good show
My view is that WS ran off to London to join the theatre because he was gay: uncomfortable as a young family man.
I agree he was a re'writer.
You know, when you think about it, it is of course ludicrous to assume that the entire Shakespeare body of work was created by a lone individual: a single pen genius, with encyclopedic knowledge and of prodigious industry.
Of course it was a team game. Many hands were involved. Key playwrights would collaborate. Researchers would translate source narratives and scribes would lay out early manuscripts. It was done quickly. Priority was production to meet demand.
We need to understand the industry. There was no radio, television, RUclips or cinema. Best entertainment for the masses were wooden riverside theatres, open to all classes: penny in the pits and more for benches in the circle. Packed full and roudy, they provided drama, comedy, romance and intrigue; elaborate costumes from exotic lands; kings and queens; sword fights and murder; ghosts and witches.
Plays were not written for posterity. There was no copyright. There was no high literary calling. There was no need for accurate historical fact or location details. It was entertainment. It was showbusiness.
It was all about getting money now: 'bums on seats' - that is, filling the theatre for an exciting new production. The theatre company would 'call down' (purchase) a play and take ownership of it.
Shakespeare would then edit and rewrite for best stage production; add narrative and characters, plot clarity, dramatic tension, soliloquays etc with his extraordinary lyrical and descriptive stage vocab. His concern was the drama. It was theatrical production. The plays were not produced to be read. They were watched and experienced.
Shakespeare was therefore a broker of selected plays circulating in the market. They were all given the appearance of his own hand by the rewriting and editing with exceptional aptitude and soaring command of prose and verse.
We are not wrong to recognise the input of others. But we are not wrong either to recognise the Shakespeare as owner of the product. The Bard.