"Contested Will" by James Shapiro

This common sense but even-handed investigation of the ‘Who wrote Shakespeare’ controversy concludes that Shakespeare did. The argument that he did not rests on the concept that a Glover’s son would not have had the experience to write such wonderful plays; it argues that the author of the plays must have lived in Italy, must have had three daughters, must have experienced betrayal, must have been captured by pirates; because these experiences are recounted in the plays. Shapiro suggests that this is an anachronistic understanding of Elizabethan literature: the fact the fiction today is heavily based on autobiography does no mean that it was so then.

The argument against the Earl of Oxford being the author is principally that he died in 1604 but that some of the plays were being premiered up to 1610. Oh, but he wrote them and they were first performed after his death. But there are references to historic occurrences after 1604. Oh, but they were inserted by other authors.

Shapiro shows how Shakespeare’s dramas changed after 1604 (a) because he resumed collaborating after years of single authorship and (b) because the Globe had burned down and his company was using an indoor venue which required candles which needed to be refreshed periodically so his plays began to include music and dancing so that the refreshment could proceed. Would a noble author such as Oxford or Bacon really have co-authored with low commoners as Shakespeare’s collaborators?

Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. The only argument that Shapiro neglects is the unusually high proportion of Warwickshire words in the plays.

A brilliant book. I must find out more about Shakespeare.

May 2011; 316 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

Other books about Shakespeare reviewed in this blog can be found by clicking here.

Random points I noted.

The creator of the Oxfordian myth was a man named Looney who came from Blyth where my Dad came from.

Shapiro uses the term ‘sock-puppetry’. Wikipedia tells me that this means " the use of multiple accounts to deceive other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, or otherwise violate community standards"

In Elizabethan times “People didn’t think in terms of modern binaries of ‘homosexualty’ and ‘heterosexuality’” (p307)