August 19, 2013 at 1:23 P.M. A new practice in Manhattan is to hire young women as waitresses (or hostesses) in order to slip a little something into their drinks. Told that "they have to" participate in this ritual because "everyone does it," young women are placed in great danger, exploited, damaged in so many ways. Some of these young women do not make it home or to safety.
Please direct all hostilities to me, New Jersey, not to any members of my family. ("Marilyn Straus Was Right!")
Ben Protess & Jessica Silver Greenberg, "Charges Against 2 Traders Fault JP Morgan for Lack of Oversight," The New York Times, August 15, 2013, p. A1. (If you believe that the JP Morgan story and the Wall Street crisis it symbolizes comes down to 2 middle-level London traders, you are sadly mistaken. These "two-bit players" did not write our play, entitled: "The Financial Crisis in Wall Street and the World.")
Jessica Shuessler, "Much Ado About Who: Is it Really Shakespeare?," The New York Times, August 13, 2013, p. A1. ("Michel Foucault and the Authorship Question" and "Shakespeare's Black Prince.")
Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare: The Biography (New York: Random House, 2005).
Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love Life (New York: W.W. Norton, 1964).
Anthony Burgess, Shakespeare (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1970).
John Banville, The Sea (New York & London: Vintage International-Penguin, 2005). (Along with Iris Murdoch's original, this tribute novel to Shakespeare's "Tempest" and to Ms. Murdoch's masterpiece -- listed below -- won the Booker Prize. "John Banville's 'The Newton Letter'" and "Martha Nussbaum, Iris Murdoch, and the Philosophy of Love.")
John Banville, Ancient Light (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).
Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare: After All (New York: Pantheon, 2004).
Colin McGinn, Shakespeare's Philosophy (New York & London: Harper-Perennial, 2006), pp. 134-156, pp. 199-205.
David Mikics, Who Was Jacques Derrida?: An Intellectual Biography (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 2009).
Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea (London: Penguin, 1978). (Genius.)
A.L. Rowse, Shakespeare: The Man (London: Penguin, 1973), p. 175, et passim.
Adam Shatz, "Not in the Mood," The London Review of Books, 22 November, 2012, p. 11. (Reviewing Benoit Peeters, Derrida: A Biography (London: Polity, 2012), 629 pages.)
Rene Weiss, Shakespeare Unbound: Decoding a Hidden Life (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2007), entirety.
"To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee ..."
Genius disconcerts us. We are baffled -- or infuriated in some strange cases -- by persons who see the world differently from the rest of us. The sheer dazzle of the authorial intelligence that glosses a passage of text rendering it infinitely more meaningful than we thought possible, the ability to twist a tired phrase into an original aphorism, unique gifts of empathy and imagination remake the world for everyone.
Genius is the fire of the gods stolen by Prometheus and bestowed upon a (sometimes) grateful humanity that, nevertheless, continues to seek understanding of what will always transcend all understanding. ("Why philosophy is for everybody.")
We are so enraptured by this gift that we seek it everywhere and, when we find it in some unexpected person, we struggle to possess or imprison that person in order to own this special magic.
Much the same is true of beauty's intoxicating and dangerous power for some envious observers -- notably, many women. "Mirror, mirror on the wall ..." ("'Diamonds Are Forever': A Movie Review.")
We feel that genius cannot belong to the powerless and poor, to those strange persons who do not share our world view in the centers of privilege of society, never to those "slovenly" persons who are "not normal." Genius, by definition, is NOT NORMAL.
We cannot accept this simple truth. The perspective of genius is ultimately "other" than, or different from, the norm.
The search for Shakespeare's hand in everything from Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy to plays written several centuries after the Stratford Man's death is, partly, the result of the mystery and fascination that gathers around that magic name associated with the richest texts in our language, "Shakespeare."
In commenting on Shakespeare's final play that contains the poet's admonition to posterity concerning these very issues, Colin McGinn notes:
"It is sometimes wondered why Shakespeare called his play 'The Tempest,' when the storm that begins the play is such a small part of its content. I would suggest that the term refers to the storm of speech that constitutes the play -- which, indeed, constitutes so much of human life. We live surrounded by a storm of human words, assailed and buffeted by language. Words can be menacing and dangerous, oppressive and noisy, as well as suspiciously seductive. And we as much need relief and protection from the tempest of language as we do from a literal tempest -- we need the silence that is the absence of both." (McGinn, p. 136.)
Shakespeare has broken his staff and drowned his books. He is no longer among us in fleshly form. We cannot interview him with a tape recorder, he will not chat for an hour with "Oprah," whereas so many others -- who are far from interesting or unusual -- do so every day, sometimes repeating their performances for someone called, "Melissa Harris-Perry."
As a result, because we need to know so much more about him, we must find or create Shakespeare's shadow, often in the least likely places, including controversies surrounding the authorship of lesser works he may have glanced at and touched-up for a friend, or for a bob or two, or in exchange for a pint at a local tavern, or some more salacious motive:
" ... 'The arguments for The Spanish Tragedy are better than for most putative Shakespeare collaborations,' Mr. Stern said. 'But I think we're going a bit Shakespeare-attribution crazy and shoving a lot of stuff in that maybe shouldn't be there.' ..."
"Stay, Go, My Love, Do What You Will."
Undefined in the Times article is the notion of "authorship," and whether the concept of authorship used in literary studies conflicts with the concept as it is defined in intellectual property law, historical scholarship, or for that matter in hermeneutic theory as distinct from anthropology. ("Michael Foucault and the Authorship Question.")
Whether Shakespeare "contributed" a line or two to Master Kyd's tragedy (it is debatable whether they actually "met") is irrelevant to the authorship question. Significantly, this scratching out of a few pence to improve someone else's writing is hardly the sort of thing one can imagine the Earl of Oxford doing.
His "Lorship" (the Earl of Oxford) had the equivalent of a million dollars a year and was not likely to sigh over being "in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes."
Everybody kissed the aristocratic ass of the Earl of Oxford even as they were quite prepared to kick William Shakespeare in his unroyal and even middle class behind that lacked an Oxbridge degree. In the words of Mr. Greene: "This 'Shakescene'" -- obviously, a pun on Shakespeare's name! -- "who thinks himself our equal," meaning the "equal" of university educated "gentlemen," was initially seen as an "upstart." (Rowse, pp. 11, 38, 40, 59-61, 118, 168, 176, 245.)
This is to say nothing of the inconvenient fact that several of Shakespeare's late tragedies were composed AFTER the death of the Earl of Oxford. So much for the Oxfordians.
No doubt Shakespeare "knew" many players (actors) and writers (Marlowe, Johnson) -- who were often the same persons -- as a result of putting on plays in London's West End, hoping to avoid the Plague, occasional fires, the crown's displeasure (never mention Catholics if your dad may be one!), to say nothing of "greasing" (bribing) the possible critics and rival poets as well as taking care to avoid a strong dose of the clap -- which Shakespeare caught with alarming regularity from his friends in the brothels -- while still managing to charm the occasional Dark Lady that wandered before "the orbit of the poet's eye."
"I Shall Abjure Magic."
A friend comes along with a play that needs a little "fixing-up." This slight service by Shakespeare will be remembered and commemorated with a hearty meal and, possibly, introductions to several ladies with a fondness for poetry (and poets!), if only the golden pen of the Globe Theater can be persuaded to dip, as it were, into sparkling ink and improve this crappy play before it opens.
Maybe Will can do something with Act III? Throw in something sexy, maybe? Whatta-ya say, pal?
I am sure that Shakespeare succumbed to such entreaties, especially when made by a lady in a low-cut gown, perhaps, hired to bow very low when she made her plea for "rescuing." ("Serendipity, III" and "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Author.")
I have always suspected that Shakespeare helped Ben Johnson during some dry periods in Johnson's life -- perhaps during one of Johnson's numerous stays in Her Majesty's various prisons -- to complete writings that kept food on the table for his closest friend and those dependent on Johnson's genuine talent.
Does Falstaff bear some resemblance to good Ben Johnson? Is William Shakespeare (more than with most of his characters) also Prince Hal/Henry V?
The issue concerning the notorious "Spanish Tragedy" dates from centuries back. Close analysis of the text using forensic methods is also nothing new: Oscar Wilde's tracing of the dedication of the Sonnets to "Mr. W.H." -- identified by Wilde as a "boy actor" and probable "whore" who served Shakespeare as well as analogizing to some ladies of the night -- is a late nineteenth century product of what is now a vast industry devoted to uncovering clues, puzzles, tricks, blind alleys and labyrinths deliberately placed in his writings by Shakespeare who knew we would try to "find" him. (See Wilde's "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.")
Shakespeare did (and did not) wish to be found. If you can read, if you are not an idiot, he is waiting for you in those glorious texts, laughing and offering you a pint and a great story by the fire. If you are an idiot, he does not wish to know you and you will never find him. For this reason, as Borges said, he "is everyone and no one." Aren't we all?
There is no doubt that Shakespeare wrote plenty of unacknowledged texts for friends or money -- usually money -- including erotic verse for himself and others. Many of these writings are lost forever, tragically, some because Shakespeare intended them to be lost:
"The idea that Shakespeare may have written the additional passages -- which include a 'Hamlet-like scene of a grief-maddened father discoursing on the death of his son' -- was first broached in 1833 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But the claim remained a distinctly minority position well into the 20th century, even as scholars began using sophisticated computer software to detect subtle linguistic patterns that seemed to link the passages to Shakespeare's other work."
In every meaningful sense of the word, Shakespeare is not the "author" of "The Spanish Tragedy." However, he may have jazzed the play up a bit for a small fee. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")
Perhaps what Shakespeare would say to us today is that his work was completed long ago and now belongs to all of us who love his words and, therefore, love him. I suspect that love from us, posterity, is what he really wanted -- and lots of money together with a "Gentleman's Coat of Arms" as well as some choice property in Stratford:
Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint. Now 'tis true
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got,
And pardoned the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
