Issue #46 17/10/19
Welcome, dear readers, to Stop The Presses, a frightening exposé on Elizabethan celebrity culture which has somehow been successful enough to last 46 issues. In our last issue, we discussed which lead-and vinegar based makeup is most suitable for your complexion, and the secret betting method guaranteed to win you big money at cockfights. But today’s issue is rather special- today we will be discussing the bard himself, with the help of three of our budding new journalists. Our topic- just how authentic was Shakespeare’s writing? Our first writer, Skipp McFinnigan, arranged a meeting with academic heartthrob Janet Clare, and her findings were nothing short of scandalous…
1.
“Nothing said that hasn’t been said before” Is a Latin tag that some paint the labeled “copycat” Elizabethan era and with it a scandal simmering round Shakespeare’s celebrity status. We managed to get insight on this notion during an interview with Janet Clare. Janet stated that the debate of “good and bad imitation” or “acceptable or unacceptable” borrowing drew opportunity for writers to shoot ammo against their opponents through “Charges of slavish imitation, mere translation” or accusations of “borrowing”. Where, “good” Imitation was seen as positive and was linked to “high culture” (when in tune with the classics), “bad” imitation was branded as amateur or juvenile, due to it being borrowed. So comes the question of, was Shakespeare a “good” or “bad” writer/imitator? Did he simply borrow and recycle literary genius or innovate it creatively into his own textual art? . His early works such as the Taming of the Shrew and The Comedy of Errors could arguably be labeled as more “borrowed” than innovated however, a more creative turn could be seen taken much later in the Elizabethan era. This refined version of imitation can be seen when Shakespeare took a dip in courtly aesthetics in his midsummer night’s dream. Clare claims that there is a “generic intertextuality” between Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the works of earlier court dramatist John Lyly. Shakespeare experimented with the themes and styles seen in court comedies such as their “mediation of romance; courtly rhetoric and classical materials” which although, drew similar to John Lyly’s work it however differed in its accessibility to the public theatre, making it more popular with its audience. The comedic twist of romance and love in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is heavily influenced by Lyly’s playful writing of myth and folklore. So is this enough to call out Shakespeare as unoriginal? Not necessarily. Plays may “share stories” however the way they are adapted change the way they are presented and performed. These changes can thus shift the way an audience responds to the performance in mental and emotional aspects. To add, Lyly’s dramaturgy was aimed to win royal favor, being set mostly in the “court world”. Shakespeare however mixes the “rustic and the courtly” together thus taking a diverse approach to imitating Lyly’s dramaturgy by intermingling “incompatible traditions”. To conclude, although similarities may be drawn between Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and John Lyle, it is important to point out the innovation of style, themes and structure that he implements to transform something exclusive into a more relatable performance that anyone could enjoy.
Thanks, Skipp. As Clare was getting up to leave, however, our second writer, Barry McCool pressed her even further, and scooped up this hot take:
2.
Hamlet, arguably the most famous and loved of all Shakespeare’s plays, is still not something existing in its own place in the history of theatre. It, like all else, was part of a network of inheritance and influence, connected to different texts both before and after it. First of all, it’s important to remember that Hamlet was not a completely new, original idea invented in Shakespeare. There is a lost play, known as the Ur-Hamlet, that was performed in a Shoreditch theatre years before. This play is known to have had a character known as Hamlet, and a scene involving a ghost. However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Ur-Hamlet is that it’s writing is attributed to Thomas Kyd. Kyd was later the author of popular revenge play The Spanish Tragedy, which is seen by many as a major influence on the version of Hamlet known to modern audiences. This is not to say that the ideas were co in Shakespeare’s plays were copied, though: some of Hamlet’s most defining features are actually in contrast and response to Kyd’s play. For example, as Janet Clare observes, Hamlet the man is defined by his interior and covert emotional struggle, whereas the Hieronimo of Kyd’s play is much more external in the way he shows his feeling. However, whether by drawing on or responding to Kyd’s revenge tragedy, it’s nonetheless clear that Shakespeare’s writing was informed by it. In fact, there is even a strong academic opinion that the first Quarto text of Hamlet, a version viewed as of lower quality and value, perhaps adapted from a performance by a third party, is actually Shakespeare’s first adaptation of a previously existing Hamlet. After all, a play of that name is listed in the repertory of a playhouse at which the bard’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, performed years before we know of Shakespeare’s Hamlet being performed. We can’t be sure of any of these assertions, but if true they imply that Shakespeare did not even write Hamlet from scratch, but rework it version by version from an existing play. This isn’t a criticism of Shakespeare, or an attempt to call him unoriginal, but a sign of the unusual way of theatre writing at the time: not one of originality but adaptation and reworking. And if anything is to confirm this, it is this: The Spanish Tragedy was eventually republished to renewed success in 1602, having been worked on and changed from the original. The most likely candidate identified by literary historians for the adapter? William Shakespeare.
Our journalists seemed to be of the belief that while Shakespeare’s plays drew inspiration from a variety of sources, their thematic individuality and writing process made the intertextuality more appropriate. But what about the complexity of Shakespeare’s characters? Our final journalist Pepper McSalt was on the case…
3.
When comparing Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice to Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta , Hussein Ibish argues: ‘I think the reputation of the Jew of Malta as an anti-Semitic play rests on the absolutely immoral and stereotypically evil character of Barabas and the contrast with the Merchant of Venice and its more nuanced portrayal of Shylock who can be and now usually is portrayed sympathetically’. (The Atlantic). Whilst it is generally agreed amongst critics that Marlowe’s play served as a template for Shakespeare’s, it is in the subversion of Shakespeare’s ‘Barabas character’ where he reverses the expectation and makes the character more layered. While Shylock is presented as a dehumanised moneylender in some scenes, it could show to highlight the prejudice that exists within Shakespeare’s society: “I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so the following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you” (MV 1.3.28-29). Shylock is aware of his discrimination and it inhibits him from forming genuine connections across the play. Barabas, however, is more Machiavellian, a traditional villain who ‘smiles to see how full his bags are crammed’. Rather than experiencing prejudice, Barabas seems more than happy to instigate it (“I would have brought confusion on you all, / Damned Christians, dogs, and Turkish infidels.”) outlining him as a champion of violent thought rather than an outsider. His indulgence in prejudiced language also inhibits sympathy from the audience, automatically making him less layered than the more complex Shylock. As Israel Davidson states in his study of the two, ‘One is the devil in the guise of a man, the other is a man with just enough of the devil in him to make him appear terrible’ (Shylock and Barabas: A study in Character). But Shylock only appears terrible because of how we’re supposed to view him. Audiences who had watched The Jew of Malta would automatically expect villainy from the ‘Barabas archetype’, but instead they would witness a more complex antagonist, who cares deeply for his daughter even after being manipulated. Compare this to Barabas, whose closest friend is his slave, literally regarded as a ‘second self’, and we can observe how Shakespeare’s replication of source material allowed him to subvert expectation and surprise audiences, in a subtle and artful way.
at 6:00pm last night, we managed to track the Bard himself down to the George Inn in London, where we confronted him on his fraudulent behaviour. He was very angry and gave us an evil glare
we asked, ‘Shakespeare, is it true you ripped off Lyly, Marlowe, Ovid, Jonson, and piggybacked off their hard-earned material, adding a few small details to make your work more thematically complex despite never acknowledging your source material and basking in the God status you acquired?’
And he said: ‘Hahaha no, you IDIOT! This is totally what we did at the time. I mean, what we’re doing right now. Shut up! Trust me it’s very very clever. In 350 years time someone will write an essay on how it’s actually art, and then they’ll see. People will think it’s really intelligent. They will be teaching modules on me, maybe, someday.’
Then Shakespeare did a playful wink and went back to his beer. What could it all mean?