William Shakespeare hasn’t had a new play since 1612. But last month in the UK and this month in the US, Arden—one of the most respected publishers of scholarly editions of Shakespeare’s plays—published a “new” play by Shakespeare, edited by Brean Hammond: Double Falsehood, a play that has been lost and found and lost again…

Keep reading at The Millions.

If you haven’t seen the site, of course I encourage you to head on over. In particular, here are a few of my own recent articles:

• Book Review: CONTESTED WILL: WHO WROTE SHAKESPEARE? by James Shapiro. I want to be a book reviewer, so I’m taking advantage of having my own platform to review books about Shakespeare. This one has been getting a really great reception from our readers so far.
• When Is Shakespeare’s Birthday? We celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday on April 23rd, but we’re not sure when he was born: it could have been any day between April 21 and 25, 1564. I reviewed the evidence that survives.
• Double Falsehood: Shakespeare’s New Play? The Arden Shakespeare is publishing an edition of a “new” play by Shakespeare on May 17. How is that possible? Here’s a history of the play that could be Shakespeare’s.

I also wrote an essay for The Millions on Double Falsehood, which will be appearing the week of May 17. Stay tuned!

A quote to whet your appetite:

We are being conditioned, in this age of 140-character thoughts, to expect novel experiences at every turn. Our brains begin to expect that stimulation not just when we are looking at a computer screen but all the time. Instead of being able to think deeply and read deeply, even when we read offline, after a few minutes we begin itching to check email, check Facebook, play a quick game of solitaire, or tweet something. We’re like Pavlov’s dogs, except that instead of salivating only when we see our feeders, our salivary glands are stuck in the “on,” position, and the drool running down our chins is making us look pretty dumb.

My dissertation discussed whether Shakespeare portrayed writers he knew as characters in his plays. Juliet Dusinberre, who edited As You Like It for The Arden Shakespeare, believes that he often created characters who speak with the voice of the author of the work that was Shakespeare’s source for that particular play. Her examples are Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, Jaques in As You Like It and Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra. I show however that Shakespeare does not employ such biographical representation. My argument, however, shows what a careful and strategic artist Shakespeare was.

Poet characters in Shakespeare’s plays

First I looked at characters in Shakespeare’s plays who are poets. There are four: Gower, the chorus in Pericles; Cinna the Poet and the Poet in Julius Caesar; and the Poet in Timon of Athens. Gower was a medieval poet whose poem Confessio Amantis was the source for Pericles. Using a poet for the chorus was an out-of-date technique in Shakespeare’s day, and Shakespeare doubled that effect by having his Gower speak in ancient-sounding verse.

In Julius Caesar, there are two poets; the first is Cinna the Poet, who the Roman mob mistake for another Cinna, one of Caesar’s murderers. They tear him apart onstage. The other poet forces his way into Brutus’s tent when he is arguing with Cassius. He offers the two men three lines of terrible verse and is laughed offstage. Shakespeare seems to imply that poets have nothing to do with politics—they either look ridiculous, or worse, are victims of it.

In Timon of Athens, the Poet brings a moral poem to Timon in hope of receiving a reward. Judging by his description, in verse so obscure that it confused even Dr. Johnson, it must be very bad. But curiously, his description of its argument—a warning to Timon against flatterers—sounds suspiciously like Shakespeare’s poem, the play itself. In all three plays Shakespeare compares himself to other poets and implies that he is a superior artist.

Biographical representations of writers

Romeo and Juliet

In Shakespeare’s source, Arthur Brooke’s poem Romeus and Juliet, Brooke condemns the young lovers for their lust in pursuing a secret forbidden love. Though Shakespeare’s Friar Laurence still is a moral voice in the play, he does not condemn the teenagers. But he does help to form our response to them as seeing their love as authentic and earnest.

As You Like It

Neither Jaques nor any character analogous to him appears in the source, Thomas Lodge’ s novella Rosalynde. Because of this and also because his speeches have such depth, he is often supposed to satirize a real person, perhaps Lodge or Jonson. Lodge’s biography—traveller and libertine—is similar to Jaques’s, but their language is nothing similar. Many of Jaques’s speeches do sound Jonsonian, though their biographies have no correlation. In fact, Jaques is most like the common Elizabethan stereotypes of the satirist and the traveller.

Antony and Cleopatra

Enobarbus stems from two persons mentioned in Shakespeare’s source, Plutarch’s Life of Antonius, but a significant number of Enobarbus’s speeches are taken from Plutarch’s exposition. While this might suggest that Enobarbus is a representation of Plutarch, Shakespeare made strategic additions to his lines so that, more than any other character, Enobarbus guides the audience’s reactions to Antony and Cleopatra.

Perhaps more than anything else, by looking at these plays and these characters, it is possible to see that Shakespeare always had a specific strategy in mind for influencing his audience’s reaction, but most of all—and rather mischievously—he instructs us in his own pre-eminence among poets.

Photo by cambodia4kidsorg on Flickr.

Blog=bad writing

A panel of experts on Saturday fortuitously held both Andrew Dickson, the online arts editor for The Guardian, who also blogs, and Michael Coveney, the well-established theatre reviewer for the Daily Mail, whose negative opinions on blogging were soon aired.

The discussion on blogs might have been informative, but it soon became clear that Coveney’s definition of blogging is something like: “bad writing published online.” He went on to connect this to what he sees as young writers cheapening the profession by writing for free online.

I have two points to make:

1. There is bad writing in print as well as online. There is more of it online because the Internet makes it easy to self-publish, but quality, well-researched articles written by trained writers and journalists are published online every day. Blogging is a form, not an assessment of value.
2. Emerging writers have had to write for free since before blogs were invented. Many publications find it difficult to be profitable and cannot pay writers; and in some cases, publishers suppose that since we love writing, we would do it anyway, or worse, that they are doing writers a favor. Believe me, young writers want to be paid just as much as anyone.

The future of many publications will be online. Good writing will continue to be esteemed whatever medium it appears in.

Preservation

The other issue that emerged is more puzzling. The academics at the conference worried about the availability of theatre reviews published on blogs for future researchers. Newspapers can be archived and scanned to microfiche and thus preserved. But the Internet is ephemeral. Once a blog is taken down, it disappears.

How can blog content remain accessible in the future? It may have been archived by a web server somewhere, but that doesn’t make it accessible for future readers. For now the safest way to preserve content is still in print. There must be another answer.

Forbes Mason’s wild-haired Jaques comes to Duke Senior almost moaning about ‘A fool, a fool! I have seen a fool’. He doesn’t laugh, he is not so exultant. He reflects the Boyd’s dark forest; he is a man caught between wishes, unable to be a fool but uncomfortable as a melancholic. As he speaks, it is as if every line is added on in desperation to make Duke Senior laugh. He cannot do it.

Richard Katz’s Touchstone enters in a straight jacket, with a clown’s ruff and overlong shoes. His wild hair marks him as Jaques’s rival, but it is obvious both that his sort of clowning come completely naturally to him, that he could say anything and make it funny, and that Jaques is wildly jealous.

If Boyd emphasizes hunger, poverty, and desperation in Shakespeare’s play, he also plays up the sparkling wit and laughter, especially in Katy Stephens’ Rosalind. Stephens captures perfectly the quick-thinking garrulous Rosalind. She keeps talking and talking, saying whatever comes into her head, so long as it keeps Jonjo O’Neill’s Orlando near her. Whenever she shares the stage with him, whether as Rosalind or in her disguise as Ganymede, she and O’Neill look at each other with a thrilling intensity of passion.

But she nearly has to sacrifice her friendship in order to find her love: Mariah Gale’s Celia sits and looks on for much of the play, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning. She is unable to enjoy much of the delights of Arden, torn apart as she is by love of her father and horror at his actions. For her, Arden is a place of frightening, dark dreams. She reacts angrily when her friend appears to be willing to turn her back on everything—friendship, womanhood—for a courtship that doesn’t really exist as long as she wears trousers.

By the end of the play the cruel winter is replaced by a summer of courtship. The bare backdrop has been opened up. Young men and women lean out of it, their dark Elizabethan dress having slowly transformed to light colourful clothing. Balance and laughter are restored as couples begin to pair up. The desperate shepherd of the beginning has been transformed to Hymen, god of marriage, bedecked with rainbow-coloured ribbons. Boyd’s production is exultant, seeking to prove that love will conquer anything.

As You Like It plays in repertoire at The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from 18 April – 3 October 2009.

I haven’t been to this place yet, but their sign
makes me laugh. Photo by Elemsee.

Best lunch: Russons Restuarant, Church Street
After I arrived on Friday afternoon, I went in search of a light lunch. Having been recommended to try out Russon’s, I found a chicken salad with goat cheese on their lunch menu. The chicken arrived piled in the midst of greens, with the cheese resting on top, formed into a patty and lightly fried. All had been drizzled with a house dressing I couldn’t identity—something a bit tangy and a bit sweet. The inside of the goat cheese turned out to be nearly molten and ran onto the salad when I broke into it. I’m not usually a salad person, but this would be worth going back for.

Best dinner and dessert: Edward Moon’s English Brasserie
I had eaten here before and went away raving, so I came back as soon as I could. An appetizer listed on the day’s specials menu—scallops with a strawberry and mushroom sauce—sounded too interesting to pass up, so I ordered it in a dinner portion. Strawberries? Mushrooms? I was skeptical, but the result was an interesting mix of flavour. The strawberries added tang to the mushrooms and scallops. It was perhaps a wise choice of the restaurant to list it as an appetizer; the interest in the mix of flavors is wonderful but best in small portions.

For dessert I ordered a rhubarb cheesecake. It had a grainy texture that was a surprising but welcome change from the normal smooth-as-butter affair.

Best tea
I’ll mention two places because I didn’t find the perfect cream tea while I was there. For the tea itself, I was most impressed with the Henley Street Tea Rooms, which was the only place to serve me a pot made with loose tea rather than a bag. I didn’t have their cream tea (I will next time), but I did try the cream tea at Shakespeare Hotel on Chapel Street. The highlight was the size of the clotted cream bowl they gave me—it might have been larger than my tea cup.

On Friday, I offered a short history of sequels to the novels of Jane Austen and novels that situate themselves in Austen’s “world”; for simplicity’s sake, let’s call them all sequels. I began down that path by wondering how this trend of sequel-writing had progressed to pairing Jane Austen with zombies, vampires, and sea monsters.

But perhaps first the question to be asked is why Austen’s novels are open to creative adaptation at all. The obvious answer is that two of them were left unfinished; and indeed, the first two sequels published, written by two of Austen’s nieces, endeavored to provide endings for Sanditon and The Watsons. However, there have been only seven (that I can find) novels responding to The Watsons and five to Sanditon. There are dozens to Pride and Prejudice.

marriage

Emma Tennant, whose Austen sequels include Pemberley and Emma in Love, says that it is because Austen always ended with marriage that the books are open to sequels. Beside the intrinsic happiness in the occasion of a marriage, a marriage promises children, and therefore a new story.

But while this theory might explain most sequels, it does not explain Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, nor does it offer any clues as to why sequel authors choose to show us Mr. Darcy’s Daughters and not Beatrice and Benedick Four Years Later, or Isabella Marries the Duke (two imaginary titles for sequels to Shakespeare plays that might prove just as entertaining, I think).

Austen’s novels are not just about marriage. To many Janeites, her novels represent an attractive system of morals, decorum, and good taste, which they believe is lost to modern society. As a writer, Austen is admired for her masterful use of irony and realism; she is often compared to Shakespeare.

shakespeare

For shock value, zombies can do nothing better than to attack a world with this sort of reputation, both social and literary. At the same time, perhaps the paranormal genre, by allying itself with Austen (doesn’t Pride and Prejudice and Zombies list the authors as Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith?) makes a statement about its own standing as literature. Or maybe not.

Shakespeare’s plays also have a rich history of inspiring sequels and novelistic commentaries. Some are created to honor the original plays; some to appropriate their literary status; some to satirize them. Maybe Austen’s supernatural sequels are the modern equivalent of the latter.

Austen’s novels are unique in being claimed by popular and high culture alike. They belong equally to the realms of book club and graduate seminar. It is perhaps both an embrace of the first and reaction against the second that makes Austen’s books so attractive to zombies.

your turn

It’s difficult and perhaps inane to formulate a theory on a topic like this. I could have missed the mark completely—what do you think?

There have been about one hundred and fifty literary works that adapt and build upon or even complete Austen’s works, including a collection of imaginative essays, a handful of short stories, and a one-act play. What has become a tradition was kicked off by Austen’s own relatives: her niece Anna Austen Lefroy completed Austen’s manuscript of Sanditon in the 1830s or 40s; and in 1850 Mrs. Catherine Hubback, née Austen, another niece, published The Younger Sister, a completion of Austen’s other fragment, The Watsons. Austen’s great-grandnieces are still publishing derivative works today: Joan Austen-Leigh, a great great grandniece of Austen who lives in Canada, has written A Visit to Highbury and Later Days at Highbury, both of which explore the world of Emma.

The first true sequel, however, appeared in 1913: Sybil G. Brinton’s Old Friends and New Fancies, a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, which has far and away the largest numbers of sequels and is followed by a pretty even number for Emma and Mansfield Park. Old Friends and New Fancies tells of the later lives of Georgiana Darcy, Kitty Bennett, and Colonel Fitzwilliam, but Elinor Ferrars becomes the confidant of Elizabeth Darcy when Edward Ferrars becomes rector at the Pemberley church; the Darcys meet the Wentworths when on vacation in Bath and Anne and Elizabeth become fast friends; and the Crawfords and the Knightleys also make appearances.

The publication of sequels was slow but steady until 1949, when three novels and one play appeared; then for nearly twenty-five years no further sequels appeared. Although it is difficult to make judgements as to causes, it seems likely that the comparative glut of Austen sequels in 1949 might have been a late reaction to the first-ever movie adaptation, Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. But perhaps so many Austen-inspired novels glutted the market for the next two decades. The next sequel appeared in 1973.

Things picked up again in the mid-1990s, and this time it is easy to see the relationship between the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, the Emma Thompson adaptation of Sense and Sensibility of the same year and the upswing in sequel production. There have been close to one hundred sequels and derivative novels since then, including Bridget Jones, The Jane Austen Book Club, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, and a series of mystery novels by Stephanie Barron that feature Jane Austen herself as detective.

On Monday I will post a follow-up article on why I think this sequel trend has led to zombies.

As we walked into the bistro, dressed in our graduation finery, one of my aunts remarked that she, herself, hated to spend very much money on a meal, or a bottle of wine. “It’s gone so quickly, you can’t really enjoy it,” she said. “I’d rather spend my money on something I can hold in my hands.”

My aunt hit on what might be two basic varieties of consumer:

• Those who seek to purchase an experience, which is often synonymous with aesthetic quality.
• Those who prefer to spend on objects that can be accumulated, shown off, and enjoyed repeatedly.

Type one consumers might be people who enjoy wine, fine food, and travelling. Type twos collect Hummel figurines, have large jewellery boxes, and rarely own a car for longer than five years.

In case you already are penning an indignant and/or witty comment, let me assure you that the above distinctions (and those about to be made) are tongue-in-cheek and in no way scientific. I establish this binary in order to produce a theory on a related topic. In fact, while I myself exhibit many of the tendencies of a type one consumer, I also accumulate books at an alarming rate and have, in the recent past, caused quite a few chuckles when I remarked that a pearl necklace was a smart purchase as an “investment piece.”

Book buyers are type two consumers. We struggle against the impulse to save money buying books online because we covet the experience of stepping into a familiar bookstore, padding quietly between shelves, running fingers over spines to feel the prettiness of the covers. Find a possible match, open it and smell the paper, the ink; turn the pages and admire the chapter titles, make the commitment and stand at the cash register feeling—nervous, excited, hopeful, longing—walk home with it safely tucked under one arm, into purse. We choose both bookshelves and bags and sometimes homes and boyfriends based on the amount of books that can fit into them. Our favorite volumes are arranged at eye-level so we can show them off but also draw comfort from their presence.

For all of this, I am happy to pay $30 (or £30) for a book. But for an e-book? Here I pause. What would I pay for that?

Perhaps e-book buyers are type one consumers. Collecting objects is not as important as purchasing an experience. They are happy to pay a higher price for a better quality (not a product, really, but) experience. Perhaps the difficulty in convincing consumers that some e-books ought to cost more than $10 is really a difficulty in convincing them that some e-books can provide an experience worth, say, $30.

But how do you do that? My theorizing is at an end for today, but I would love to hear your comments.