Who
Is This William Shakespeare Geezer
And Why Is Bill Bryson Saying All These Nice
Things About Him...
This review is for the 2009
Hardback Reprint of "Shakespeare: The Illustrated Version" with 256
'oversized' pages (it was originally published as a plain-pages version in 2007
entitled "Shakespeare: The World As Stage"). Bryson’s reprint was
initially £20 as a hardback but in 2018 is now available on the used
marketplace for a lot less and is most definitely the version to own (note
that original issues of "The Illustrated Version" also came with an
exclusive CD of selected sonnets read by Sir John Gielgud - used copies may not
have this).
In this gorgeously
illustrated and brilliantly written account of the English language's greatest
wordsmith - William Shakespeare - Bill Bryson does a fabulous job of 'informing
us'. I mention this because in 2007 when Bryson's original bare-bones variant
was published there were some 24 to 25 thousand books on The Bard and what
Bryson found so amusing (and frustrating) during years of research is that most
knew next-to-diddly about the man. Actual details on WS and what he thought,
believed, felt or even how his process of writing came about are scarce and
because we’re dealing with the 16th Century – notoriously difficult to confirm
as authentic.
Worse - there are then the
5000+ books by debunkers (some with silly surnames like J. Thomas Looney,
Sherwood E. Silliman and George M. Battey - I kid you not) who want to say that
The Earl Of Sussex (Edward De Vere) was in fact the real Shakespeare. Or was
it Christopher Marlowe (his portrait is on Page 123) – or perhaps Francis Bacon
- relative of the mildly demented American lady Delia Bacon - say the
Baconists? These determined revisionists produce clever suppositions and
enticing connections that tell us an obvious truth (to them) – that William
Shakespeare wasn’t in fact William Shakespeare. Rather missing the point though
is that after four hundred or more years - little real evidence of this
hypothesis has ever surfaced anywhere (the mother of all cover ups baby).
Back to the 2009 reprint - as
you turn the large-leaf pages and devour the sleuth-like facts that we do know
about him - you begin to see the problem with Willy Boy. Despite three pages of
Selected Bibliography and two pages of image credits at the rear of Bryson’s
tome - there are only a few actual likenesses of William Shakespeare known to
exist. And of course, someone, somewhere, more knowledgeable than you or I - always
disputes them.
William, the son of Jon
Shakespeare, a humble and not well educated leather tanner, was born 23 April
1564 and while Billy’s name began to appear as early as 1598 on the title pages
of quarto editions of his plays (famous while he was alive) - the depths and
true emotional innards of this icon of literature remain infuriatingly opaque
and elusive (he passed aged 52 in 1616).
One exciting development came
from a two feet square portrait of a dapper but intelligent looking gent
hanging for centuries in the stately home of the Cobbe Family in Newbridge
House outside Dublin in Ireland. Long thought to have been a homage to Sir
Walter Raleigh - one of the Cobbe family was visiting an exhibition in London's
National Portrait Gallery and realised that their portrait might in fact be
someone a tad more famous and historically important. Subjected to three years
of rigorous tests including carbon-dating, X-Rays and atmospheric
dendrochronological probes (trying saying that with a few jugs of ale) - as
recently as 2006 - the Cobbe portrait was declared by the Chairman of The Birth
Place Trust (Shakespearean experts) that it was in fact a new likeness of
William Shakespeare.
I divulge all of this because
outside of casual mentions in other people’s legal documents, a visiting
Dutchman who wrote a short note on a play he saw at The Globe Theatre and had
miraculously sketched what The Globe looked like (only discovered in 1888),
Anne Hathaway's thatched cottage in Shottery (his wife), the cryptic almost
nonsensical verse on his supposed burial place (where of course he isn't buried
at all) and some signatures that may or may not be his own hand (a deed of
mortgage for one of his homes at Blackfriars in 1613) - there is no paperwork,
no evidence of religious beliefs, political leanings, no handwritten notes,
corrections, ideas – naught, zip, and you guessed it - nadda.
Hell a huge number of the 154
Sonnets were actually dedicated to a man succinctly described by subsequent hetro historians as a fair youth. So was Shakespeare gay? Or was it the
opposite? Sonnet Numbers 127 to 154 refer to a dark lady - so was our Wills in
fact a rake – a bounder - a 16th century cad engaged in a lurid and ultimately rejected love
affair as these bitter verses implied?
What we do know is that his
wife Anne had born him three children, a son called Hamnet who died 1596 aged
only eleven in mysterious circumstances and two daughters Judith and Susanna
who lived to a ripe old age of 66 and 67 but never produced children so his
line faded with them. In fact if it hadn't been for the diligence of his two
friends John Heminges and Henry Condell who published the famous "First
Folio" in 1623 (seven years after WS's death in 1616) containing and
saving all of his written work (there are three variants of "Hamlet"
alone with vastly differing lengths) - we might not have known of him except
through other people's accounts or poor variants of the plays published while
he was alive.
The First Folio was meant to
correct all the preceding inferior versions of his work. But is it informative
after eight years of prep? Is it bugger! The First Folio typically has a
portrait of Shakespeare done from memory yonks after he died and offers a
single dedication page that manages to tell you zilch whilst at the same time
being more baffling than Brexit negotiations (so long and thanks for all the
butter). Shakespeare also based loads of his plays in Italy but its known that
he never travelled there...
So, despite lifetimes devoted
to the great man and centuries of digging and cross-referencing - we may in
2018 be more in the dark than ever towards WS.
Be that as it may -
"Shakespeare: The Illustrated Edition" published by Harper Collins
(ISBN: 9780007325238) is a fantastic read and one that's immeasurably enhanced
by a huge plethora of images that illuminate and educate - hand carvings, legal
documents, wills, the dedication page of The Sonnets addressed to Mr. W.H., the
site of his grave and the famously odd four lines of doggerel, one of the 66
different copies of The First Folio on a pedestal and held at The Henry Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington (750 is reputed to be the number first
printed though few know how many have actually survived the ravages of
centuries).
I can’t think of any other writer
who could have produced a book about William Shakespeare that is both detached
in its arguments yet clearly and madly in love with its subject matter - even
awestruck by the man's unparalleled written achievements (2000+ extra words are
in the English language because of him and over 10% of all quotations are attributable
to his pen).
Why do we mere mortals and
the diligent Bryson adore this ancient scribe so much (some of his work is
exactly that – bloody hard work)? Can we dig up that missing Elizabethan nugget
of evidence hidden behind an inglenook somewhere that will finally prove Shakespeare's
genius was all his own - once and for all?
Will a sweaty
Neanderthal-like bricklayer stumble on a copy of his lost play Cardenio behind
a flimsy wall in a Midlands timber-framed shack one day? Cue an edited Sonnet
116...
"...Love...Is An Ever
Fixed-Mark...That Looks On Tempests And Is Never Shaken..."
WOW!
WOW!
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