Theatre history - Who was Shakespeare? And why does it matter? William Leahy on the latest Bard identity saga
The news that Mark Rylance, the outgoing artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, has proclaimed that Shakespeare's plays were written by Francis Bacon was met with universal groans this month, not least by the various corporate sponsors of the Globe, who doubtless have no wish to be linked with what is considered to be the opinions of a "lunatic fringe". "Bonkers" and "baloney" were words liberally bandied about in response to Rylance's views, though admirable restraint was demonstrated by one and all in the universal refusal to be lured into the enticing world of Bacon punning. Nobody was so rash.
The nub of Rylance's claims is that, as a mere grammar-school boy, Shakespeare could not possibly have written the plays, because they contain learning and intellectual depth that would simply have been beyond the scope of someone who was not educated at university, whereas Bacon was. Indeed, the plays are seen to be so complex and profound that Rylance believes that Bacon led a whole team of writers, constituted, naturally, by university types such as Edward de Vere and Christopher Marlowe.
A simple Google search shows that Rylance is not part of a lunatic fringe. There are thousands of sites dedicated to the question of the authorship of the plays and it seems that almost anyone who lived anywhere near London or visited it, however briefly, during any part of the years in which the plays were possibly composed gets the nod from someone or other. Time restricts one's ability to check every site, but there is no doubt a claim somewhere that Pocahontas was the only person capable of bringing such richness to The Tempest, Othello and, erm, Julius Caesar. The possibility of alien abduction could doubtless shed some light on the wilder metaphysical ramblings of King Lear.
There is, of course, nothing new in such claims. There is a whole tradition of "Shakespeare denial", a tradition foun-ded in the kind of elitism that delineates Rylance's views. As Dominic Dromgoole, the incoming artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, has argued, the Baconites et al are snobs who wish to deny the author of the plays any kind of working-class status and cannot accept that he was not really "one of them". This is obviously a problem for the Pocahontas scenario, but there is a good deal of truth in such an argument. While the term "working class" is an anachronistic one to apply to this period, there is an evident resistance to the idea that the author of the plays could have indulged in such low activities as drinking ale, eating with bare hands, swearing or having common sex - more McDonald's than Macbeth.
However, equally interesting is the vehemence of the "Shakespeareans" who will have no truck with any suggestion that the Bard was not the historical figure known as Shakespeare. They point to the evidence that is the First Folio, the works attributed to Shakespeare and collected in one volume in 1623, a mere seven years after his death. To buttress their argument, they cite the dedication contained therein and written by Ben Jonson (another candidate for the Shakespeare deniers), in which he praises Shakespeare.
In the front line of the army of Shakespeare supporters is the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, the town in "Shakespeare Country" with shops called Julius Cheeser, Henry the Fitter and As You Like Kit. The ranks of this army are made up of academics who pour scorn on those who deny Shakespeare, not least because the majority who do so are perceived to be failed versions of the academics themselves: cranks who have not been lucky enough to turn their hobby into their career. This army will never allow the lunatics to take over the academic asylum and will always resist the attempt to "bring home" Marlowe, or de Vere or, indeed, (the) Bacon.
This resistance is hardly surprising given that, as is clear from ambling through the streets of Stratford, there is simply too much at stake (or steak). For Shakespeare is a global brand whose name will be protected by those who have an interest in this industry and who cannot have their brand undermined. The same is true of academia. So many hundreds of courses are run every year with titles such as "Shakespeare" or "Shakespeare and History" or "Shakespeare and Hats", that to give in suddenly to the idea that Shakespeare was somebody else is unthinkable.
Imagine the reaction of the publishers when faced with all of those books to pulp! Stratford would become a ghost town, with wild dogs feeding upon the thousands of dumped boxes of Shakespeare Eclairs, Tempest Toffees and Coriolanus Cough Drops. The many American and Japanese tourists would find somewhere else to go - a Bacon fun park, perhaps, or "Marlowe's Marvellous Merrie-world".
The debate that Rylance has once again ignited is, when all is said and done, rather a stupid one. It is time-wasting of a truly bourgeois sort: those who deny Shakespeare wish merely to supplant his name with another, usually that of the writer whose works they like most. Thus, those who like Marlowe more than Bacon will plump for him. But it is bourgeois in the sense that one feels these people must surely have something more worthwhile to do and must have more humility than to try to remake the Bard in their own image. To like one author's works more than another's is fair enough, but to attempt to give the preferred author credit for writing all of the best works, irrespective of any evidence or lack of it, is arrogance of a most pernicious kind. There is, in fact, a fair amount of evidence that Shakespeare was the author of the plays, and little that somebody else was.
However, because of the lack of really solid and absolute proof, Shakespeare can be whatever you want him to be. So, I will go for a woman. My proof? Twofold. First, the plays are full of the most profound representations of women's feelings and thoughts; only a woman could have presented them in this way. Second, just take a look at the existing drawings. OK, so the figure in those drawings is bald and has a moustache. But look more closely. Go on. See what I mean?
Dr William Leahy is director of studies in English at Brunel University and the author of Elizabethan Triumphal Processions (Ashgate, 2005)
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