WHO THE NAME SHAKESPEARE IS
In English Literature, William Shakespeare is regarded as the most influential playwright, poet and the greatest dramatist.
Hundreds of editions of his plays have been
published, including translations in all major languages. Scholars have written
thousands of books and articles about his plots, characters, themes, and
language. He is the most widely quoted author in history, and his plays have
probably been performed more times than those of any other dramatist.
There is no simple explanation for
Shakespeare’s unrivaled popularity, but he remains our greatest entertainer and
perhaps our most profound thinker. He had a remarkable knowledge of human
behavior, which he was able to communicate through his portrayal of a wide
variety of characters. He was able to enter fully into the point of view of each
of his characters and to create vivid dramatic situations in which to explore
human motivations and behavior. His mastery of poetic language and of the
techniques of drama enabled him to combine these multiple viewpoints, human
motives, and actions to produce a uniquely compelling theatrical experience.
But is he the greatest author ever?
The stories in Arabian Nights are told by a
legendary queen named Scheherazade in a broader frame story, which starts
at the beginning of the collection and gives a context to the various stories it
contains. The frame story begins when the sultan Schahriar finds that his wife
has been unfaithful and orders her execution. He is so enraged that he resolves
to marry a new woman every night and have her killed at daybreak. Scheherazade
agrees to marry Schahriar despite the decree and crafts a scheme to thwart him.
The night after the wedding, she tells one of the stories to her sister so that
the sultan can overhear. She stops, however, before the story comes to its
conclusion, and the sultan allows her to live another day so that he can hear
the end. She continues this pattern night after night. After 1001 nights, the
sultan relents and decides to let Scheherazade live.
The earliest record of Arabian Nights is a fragment
of the collection that dates from the 800s. The collection grew during the
following centuries until it reached its present form, written in Arabic, in the
late 1400s or the 1500s. A scholar named Antoine Galland translated it into
French between 1704 and 1717, and called it Les Mille et Une Nuits. The
best known English-language versions are Arabian Nights, translated by
Edward William Lane in the 1840s, and The Thousand Nights and a Night,
translated by Richard Francis Burton in the 1880s. The stories also have been a
valuable source of information for scholars studying early Middle Eastern
culture.
CRITICISMS AGAINST SHAKESPEAREThere is actually a big contention if Shakespeare. In the mid-19th century, some scholars believed that Shakespeare's plays were
authored instead by Sir Francis Bacon.Some people also believed that the reason why Shakespeare's work has been over-hyped is because of his relationship with the monarchs and the elite class and they helped in pushing him.
With the exception of Homer, about whom
nothing definite is known, Shakespeare is the only major writer in the world’s
history whose authorship has been so widely disputed. Since the 18th century,
scores of books have been written to prove that Shakespeare’s works were written
by another person or persons. Dozens of candidates have been proposed, including
writers such as Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe,
Robert Greene, George Peele, and John
Lyly; a multitude of titled men, including the earls of Rutland and
Derby, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Bacon, and the
Earl of Oxford; and even Queen Elizabeth I.
The first systematic theory doubting
Shakespeare’s authorship was set forth by William Henry Smith, who in 1856
published a book declaring that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of the
plays. In the same year, an American schoolteacher named Delia
Bacon (no relation to Francis Bacon) wrote an article and then a book
supporting Bacon’s authorship, and later she conceived the notion of the dual
authorship of Sir Walter Raleigh and Bacon. For a long time, Bacon was the
leading candidate of the anti-Shakespeareans, but Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of
Oxford, is now the most popular nominee. He was first proposed by an English
schoolmaster with an unfortunate last name, J. Thomas Looney, in 1920.
Christopher Marlowe, whose candidacy also has been strongly advocated, was first
named by American writer Wilbur Zeigler in 1892 as one of a group of possible
authors of the plays.
Skepticism as to Shakespeare’s authorship
has arisen for a number of reasons. Some critics have claimed that too little is
known about the man from Stratford for him to be the author of these great
plays. But it is important to remember that far less is known about most other
writers and public men of the time. Other critics have said that what is known
about Shakespeare is incompatible with the sort of man who could have written
the works. Still others have argued that the lack of surviving manuscripts of
the plays indicates a mystery concerning the author’s identity. In general,
however, resistance to the notion that a glover’s son from Stratford wrote the
plays we attribute to Shakespeare comes from a form of snobbery. We know
Shakespeare did not go to university and he was not educated at court, so it has
seemed to some impossible that he could have written the wonderful works
ascribed to him.
The biography of Shakespeare that Rowe
included with his edition of the works in 1709 may have added to the skepticism.
Rowe painted a very respectable background for Shakespeare and made sweeping
assumptions from the known facts. In addition, a number of traditional although
unsubstantiated stories about Shakespeare, such as that of his deer poaching,
came to be accepted as true, and other legends accumulated. On the basis of
these, some skeptics decided that Shakespeare was an ignorant butcher’s boy from
an uncultured background who could not have written anything significant, let
alone great literary masterpieces that show intimate knowledge of aristocratic
manners. The misconceptions about Shakespeare were compounded in the 19th
century, when he acquired a reputation for vast learning and virtual
omniscience.
For a more balanced evaluation of
Shakespeare’s knowledge and education, it is necessary to take into account the
facts of his background. His native Stratford was a prosperous market town with
one of the best grammar schools in England. Shakespeare’s father held official
positions, which would indicate that he must have been an ambitious man who
would hardly have denied his son the free education to which he was entitled at
the grammar school. Most scholars familiar with the Elizabethan age believe that
the works display exactly the sort of knowledge that Shakespeare could have
obtained in the Stratford grammar school.
A number of scholars have closely studied
the book-learning exhibited in the works. They have concluded that even the
mythological allusions, which have sometimes been cited as proof of the author’s
wide classical reading, are no more numerous or obscure than those used by other
writers. Moreover, these allusions come from relatively few literary sources or
popular traditions. Nor is there evidence in the works of precise knowledge of
the scientific and philosophical trends of the day. As most modern scholars see
it, the author revealed in the works was a keenly sensitive and intelligent man
whose reading was inspired by wide curiosity, but that, unlike Sir Francis
Bacon, he was not a learned man of scientific bent.
The claim that the plays display
Shakespeare’s intimate knowledge of the customs and manners of nobility and
royalty is illusory. The plays show kings speaking in regal tones when the
dramatic situation calls for emphasis on the dignity of royalty. In other
scenes, however, they speak as ordinary human beings, in keeping with the
emotional situation in which the action places them. In any case, Shakespeare
played at court many times before Queen Elizabeth and King James and had an
official position as one of James’ servants as a member of the King’s Men. It
would not, therefore, have been difficult for him to become familiar with
aristocratic life and manners.
The fact that Shakespeare’s manuscripts
have vanished is not surprising in the light of Elizabethan practices. Very few
play manuscripts from the period have survived. Plays were not considered
literature, and play scripts would not have had much value, except to the acting
company. In any case, once a playwright sold a script to an acting company, it
was no longer the author’s property. The manuscripts in the playhouse were
undoubtedly preserved for as long as they were usable, but afterward they were
probably used as scrap paper. The manuscripts supplied by Heminges and Condell
for the printing of the 18 previously unpublished plays in the First Folio would
most likely have been returned to the acting company after the book was in
print. The Second, Third, and Fourth folios are printed from the text of the
First Folio, rather than from manuscripts. When Parliament ordered the closing
of London’s playhouses in 1642, many companies sold their assets, including play
manuscripts. In addition, many manuscripts must have perished in the great fire
that swept London in 1666. Thus, it would be unusual if the manuscripts of
Shakespeare’s plays had survived.
Those who seek another author for
Shakespeare’s works believe that distinction of birth and education is a
necessary qualification for writing great literature. Yet it is the quality of
imaginative genius rather than a display of learning that distinguishes the
creator of these plays. The miracle is not that a man of Shakespeare’s
background wrote them, but that any human imagination produced creations of such
enduring power and beauty.
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