Despite new insights being revealed every year about his work and the early modern world he inhabited, the things we still don’t know about William Shakespeare would fill several internets. Though we talk a lot about Shakespeare’s genius — the richness of his language, the timelessness of his characters, the universality of his stories, and the beauty of his poetry — for my money, we don’t talk enough about his greatest achievement of all: The mystery surrounding the man himself.
We know only the barest facts of Shakespeare’s biography: Where he was born and when he died, when he was baptized, the date of his marriage, the birthdays of his children, a number of his court appearances, and a handful of real estate dealings. There are huge gaps where we know practically nothing about him (most of his first 18 years) and don’t know where he was or what he was doing (particularly the seven-year gap between 1585 and 1592). And after 400 years of searching, scholars still haven’t uncovered any of Shakespeare’s workbooks, diaries, rough drafts, or love letters written to his wife (and/or mistress) — anything that would reveal something of the man’s politics, personality, or personal feelings.
In All is True, Shakespeare is not particularly welcome at home; he's been away too long for his wife to allow him to share her bed, so he sleeps in the "second-best bed" which is prepared for visitors (and Elton uses that designation to offer some explanation for why Shakespeare wills that second-best bed to his wife Anne). He mourns his son Hamnet to the disappointment of Hamnet's surviving twin, Judith, who has a secret, while Anne and Judith share a secret about the boy's death at age 11. When Shakespeare learns their secrets, he changes and some of the wounds of the family are healed.
He doesn't seem to fit in very well in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon either, and has some conflict with Sir Thomas Lucy, which may date from an earlier accusation of poaching. For the most part, Elton ignores the issue of religion in sixteenth century England, although Anne does remind her husband that on Sunday in their town, you'll be fined if you don't attend Church of England services. And Sir Thomas Lucy would be one of those noting whether or not you attended on Sunday at Holy Trinity Church. As William and Anne take their place in church, Lucy alludes to the fact that Shakespeare's father John had not been regular in his attendance, but Branagh's Shakespeare provides the explanation in another scene that John did not attend because of the debts he owed in town, not because he was a recusant Catholic. The main religious conflict in town is between Anglicans and Puritans, and the vicar of the church is trying to keep the peace.
But Sir Thomas Lucy was an earnest Protestant, and as the old Dictionary of National Biography explains: "He often appeared
at Stratford-on-Avon as justice of the peace and as commissioner
of musters for the county. As justice of the peace he showed
great zeal against the Catholics, and took his share in the arrest
of Edward Arden in 1583." Edward Arden was a relative of William Shakespeare (Mary, his mother, was an Arden). He was implicated in one of the plots against Queen Elizabeth I and as Robert Harrison in the old Dictionary of National Biography judges, he:
was a probably innocent victim of the rigorous severity adopted by the ministers of Queen Elizabeth in order to defeat the numerous Roman Catholic conspiracies in favour of Mary Queen of Scots and against the protestant sovereign. He was the head of a family that had held land in Warwickshire for six centuries from the days of Edward the Confessor downwards. His father, William, having died in 1545, Edward succeeded his grandfather Thomas Arden in 1563. He kept to the old faith and maintained in his home, Park Hall, near Warwick, a priest named Hall, in the disguise of a gardener. This man, animated with the fierce zeal of his order, inflamed the minds of the Arden household against the heretical queen, and especially influenced John Somerville, Edward Arden's son-in-law. This weak-minded young man had been greatly excited by the woes of the Scottish queen, who had given to a friend of his a small present for some service rendered her when at Coventry in 1569. He talked of shooting the Queen of England, whom he vituperated as a serpent and a viper, and set out for London on this deadly errand. Betraying himself, however, by over-confident speech, he was arrested, put to the rack, and confessed, implicating his father-in-law in his treason, and naming the priest as the instigator of his crime. All three were tried and sentenced to death. Somerville strangled himself in his cell. Arden was hanged at Tyburn (October 1583), but the priest was spared. Arden's head and Somerville's were set on London Bridge beside the skull of the Earl of Desmond.
Interesting that the priest was spared . . .
I enjoyed watching All is True; it's a film trying to answer some of the questions we have about Shakespeare: some things may be plausible, others not.
One funny note: Branagh as Shakespeare never wears a hat, even when in town. I think that's so he looks like Shakespeare in the Chandos portrait!
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