William Shakespeare: A Literary Life

191 Pages·1989·19.277 MB·English

by  Richard Dutton (auth.)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Literary Lives
GelIeral Editor: Richard Dutton, Professor of English
Lancaster University
This series offers stimulating accounts of the Iiterary careers of
the most admired and influential English-language authors.
Volumes follow the outline of the writers' working lives, not
in the spirit of traditional biography, but aitning to trace
the professional, publishing and soda I contexts which
shaped their writing.
A list of the pllblished titles ill the series follows overleaf.
Published Wies
Cedric C. Browtl Michael O'Neill
JOHNMILTON PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Peter Davison Leonee Ormond
GEORGE ORWELL ALFRED TENNYSON
Richard Dutton Harold Pagliaro
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HENRY FIELDING
lan Fergus George Parfitt
JANEAUSTEN JOHNDONNE
lames Gibson Gerald Roberts
THOMAS HARDY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Kenneth Gralram Felicity Rosslyn
HENRYJAMES ALEXANDER POPE
Paul Hammond Tony Sharpe
JOHNDRYDEN T. S. ELIOT
W. David Kay Grahame Smith
BEN JONSON CHARLES DICKENS
Mary Lago Gary Waller
E. M. FORSTER EDMUND SPENSER
Clinton Machamz Cedric Watts
MATTHEW ARNOLD JOSEPH CONRAD
Alasdair D. F. Macrae 101m Williams
W. B. YEATS WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Joseplr McMinn Tom Winnifritlr and Edward Cllitlram
JONATHAN SWIFT CHARLOTIE AND EMILY BRONTE
Kerry McSweetletj lohn Wort/zen
GEORGE ELIOT D. H. LAWRENCE
Jolm Mepham
VIRGINIA WOOLF
William Shakespeare
A Literary Life
Richard Dutton
Professor of EI/~/is"
Lal/casler UI/iversily
algr ve
© Richard Dulton 1989
All rights rcserved. No reproduction. copy or transmission or
this publication may be made without wrilten permission.
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Any pcrson who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be Iiable to criminal prosccution and civil
claims ror damages.
First published 1989
Publishcd by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, ßasingstoke, Hampshire R021 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughoUl the world
ISBN 978-0-333-66548-0 ISBN 978-1-349-14143-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-14143-2
A cataloguc record for this book is available
from the ßritish Library.
Transferred to digital printing 2001
For My Fathel'
and to
the Memory of My Mother
Contents
PreJace, with Suggestions Jor Further Reading ix
1 Myths, Legends and Anonymity 1
2 ßeginnings 17
3 Poems and Patrons 36
4 Servant to the Lord Chamberlain 50
5 English Chronicle Histories 71
6 Sly's Dream - Romantic Comedy 88
7 The Turn of the Century 105
8 The New Reign 126
9 'Tales, Tempests and such Iike drolleries 141
Notes 160
b,dex 174
vii
Preface, with Suggestions
für Further Reading
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
(K;ng Jolm, III.iv.l08-9)
This is an account of Shakespeare's careel' as a dramatist and poet.
Although it foJlows the contours of his life, it does not ahn to be a
biography in the conventional sense. There is nothing here about
Shakespeare's antecedents and very little about his immediate
family; nor do I have much to say, fol' instance, about his education,
his property transactions and other legal dealings, 01' his relations
with the Mountjoy family, with whom we know he lodged in
Cripplegate in 1604. Anyone looking for a life of Shakespeare
which incorporates such issues should go to S. Schoenbaum's
masterly Wi/liam SIJakespeare: A Documentary Ufe (Oxford, 1975) or
the abridged version, WiII;am Simkespeare: A Compact Documentary
Life (Oxford, 1977, revised 1987). This must be regarded as our
standard life of Shakespeare, though the popular biographies by
J. Q. Adams (London and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1923) and
A. L. Rowse (London, 1963) are also worth consulting. Professor
Schoenbaum's Slrakespeare's Uves (Oxford, 1970) is a fascinating
(and, to any biographer, daunting) account of the transmission of
myths and facts about Shakespeare tllJ'ough the ages. Indispensable
for scholars is Sir E. K. Chambers' two-volume William Slrakespeare:
A Stlldy of Facts atrd Problems (Oxford, 1930), a synthesis of all the
materials relating to Shakespeare's life and career. Also useful is
G. E. ßentley's Slrakespeare: A l1iograplr;cal Handbook (New Haven,
1961). Among more specialised studies are Mark Eccles, Sirnkespeare
i/l Wal'lu;ckslrire (Madison, Wisconsin, 1961) and E. A. J.
Honigmann, Simkespeare: Tlle 'Lost Years' (Manchester, 1985). Thc
lattet· questions the orthodox view, rcpresented by Chambers and
Schoenbaum, of when and how Shakespeare's careel' began.
Sir E. K. Chambers' four-volume l'IIe Elizabetlran Stage (Oxford,
1923) is the stm·ting-point for all modern study of Elizabethan (and
early Jacobean) theatres and theatrical practices. Andrew Gurr's
ix
x Preface
'fhe Simkespearemr Stage 1574-1642 (Cambridge, 1970; l'evised 1980)
is a readable summation oE Chambers' material and of scholarship
relating to later Jacobean and Caroline theatre. R. A. Foakes and
R. T. Rickert edited Henslowe's Diary (Cambridge, 1961), the most
informative documents about the Elizabethan commercial theatre
to have survived. J. L. Barroll, A. Leggatt, R. Hosley and A.
Kernan, 'J1fe Revels Histor'y 01 Drama in Elfglislr, lll: 1576-1613
(London, 1975) is an authoritatively informed introduction to the
theatrical period, G. E. Bentley's Tlre Profession of Dramatist in
Slrakespeare's Time, 1590-1642 (Princeton, 1971) and M. C.
ßradbrook' s Tlre Rise of tlre C"",molf Player (London, 1962) examine
two major facets of the Elizabethan theatrical profession. John
Orrell's Tlre Quest for Sirakespeare's Globe (Cambridge, 1983) is the
most authoritative stlldy of the theatre with which Shakespeare
was most associated. Three volumes in Routledge and Kegan
Paul's Theatre ProductiOil Studies series are illuminating about the
staging of Shakespeare's plays at different phases in his career:
Michael Hattaway's Elizabethan Pop"lar 'flreatre (London, 1982);
Pctcr Thomson's Sirakespeare's 'nreatre (London, 1983) and Keith
StUl'gess's ]acobemr Private 'flreatre (London, 1987),
Accollnts of Shakespeare's life-in-his-time include E. I. Fripp's
Slrakespeare: Man and Al'tist, 2 vols (Oxford, 1938, 1964), which is
particlllal'ly strong on local Stratford detail; M. M. Reese, Sirake
speare: His Wo1'ld and His Work (London, 1953; revised 1980); and
M. C. ßradbrook, Slrakespeare: tlre Poet in His Wor'ld (London, 1978).
T. W. Baldwin exhaustively described the educalion he is likely to
have received in William Slrakespeare's 'Small Latine & ,"esse Greeke',
2 vols (Urbana, IlIinois, 1944). The SOUl'ces and analogues of
Shakespem'c's wOl'ks have been collected in Gcoffrey ßullough's
Narrative arId DI'amatic SOIll'ces of Simkespeare, 8 vols (London, 1957-
75), and flIrther analysed in Kenneth MlIir's Sirakespeare's Sources
(revised, London, 1977).
Many othet' works rclating to Shakespeare's life and limes are
cited in my text and in the notes at the end of this book, but it is
impossible to do jllstice to the sheer volume of material. Anyone
wanUng to pursue a parUcular topic relating to Shakespeare
might usefully start with Stanley Wells (ed.) Sirakespeare: Seleet
Bibliogmp/fical Guides (OxfOl'd, 1973, cllrrently being revised),
coming up to date with the annual bibliographies incilided in
SIrakespeare Survey (Cambridge) and Slrakespeare Quarterly (Washing
ton, DC). Other helpful starUng-points would be Stanley WeHs
11re/ace xi
(ed.) 'file Cmllbridge C011Jpanioll to Shakespeare StJldies (Cambridge,
1986) or John F. Andrews (ed.) William Shakespeare: His World, His
Work, His lrtflueltce, 3 vols (New York, 1985), both of which contain
up-to-date bibliographical details on a topical basis.
I wish to record my own debt to all the works I have mentioned,
particularly those by Chambers and Schoenbaum. Anyone writing
about Shakespeare, of all subjects, has to be intensely aware of
standing on so many other people's shoulders, some whose
sturdiness it would be churlish not to acknowledge. My own small
qualification for adding myself to the human pyramid, not to
mention another volume to the immense pile of books, is that of
having spent most of my academic careel' thinking and writing
about Ben Jonson, the most challenging of Shakespeal'e's conlem
porary rivals but also the one who has suffel'ed most from standing
in his shadow. The histol'Y of Jonson criticism is littered with
complaints (often backed by spul'ious accusations of envy and
ingratitude) to the effect that he neHher wrote like Shakespeare
nor, which is worse, even tried tOi it is still common enough,
particularly in the c1assroom, to have to explain that this was not a
cl'ime or self-evidently a disquali(ication (rom genius. Nevertheless,
this can open up fruitful ways of focusing on what is significant in
Jonson's own achievement. So in this book I have tried to return
the compliment. The silent question to which I keep returning is:
why did Shakespeare not wl'ite, 01' try to write, like Jonson? Posed
like this, it is a nonsense. Shakespeare led and Jonson followed,
with the example of the oldel' man to emulate 01' react against. But
they wel'e both professional dramatists, operating broadly within
the same market-place. Why did Shakespeare work in modes and
styles so different from those adopted by his younger riyal? In
asking the question I hope to isolate some of the qualities unique
to his achievement and to offer !lew pel'spectives on a tale
somewhat more than twice-told.
Quotations from Shakespeare' s wOl'ks refer to William Shakespeare:
The Complete Works, general editor Alfred Harbage (revised, Balti
more, 1969). As with most editions of Shakespeare, the text has
been modernised to meet the needs of students and general
readers. I have followed suit with all other quotations, modernising
even where my sources (notably Chambers in Tlle Elizabethan Stage
and William Simkespeare: A StJldy 0/ Facts alld Problems - l'espectively
ES and WS in the notes) have preserved the original. So too, I