How did Shakespeare come to know so much?

[NotJesus]

Hamlet is twice as long as any other Shakes. play...

That's not accurate, though it is much longer than most of the others.

 

[fleabeetle]

Actually, it's something of the opposite. Hamlet did not have scene or at breaks when Shakespeare wrote it. The play was written as a continuous whole. Breaks are put it in after the fact, primarily because it was logistically difficult to get actors on and off stage so rapidly. And then there's the problem of the actor having to deliver two very long soliloquies within five minutes of real time, Rogue and Peasant slave and Too be or not to be, so they're separated by a break.

Hamlet is twice as long as any other Shakes. play and takes almost five hours in it's entirety. And as we know, most of the audience stood for this.

They were tough in those times -- and according to Bryson's writings, most of them were skiving-off from their excruciatingly long work schedules (risking severe punishment if found out), to go to the playhouse. (Very long obligatory working hours six days a week, and no plays on Sundays.)

 

[RedIbis]

That's not accurate, though it is much longer than most of the others.

True. I might have been thinking Hamlet is twice as long as the shortest play.

 

[Spektator]

Hamlet was in the company repertoire for many years, and there is some internal evidence that Shakespeare occasionally tweaked it when it was revived. For example, there are two "suicide" soliloquies ("Oh that this too too sullied flesh would melt" and "To be or not to be") when one might have done. Harold Bloom and Stephen Greenblatt, among other Shakespeare scholars, are of the opinion that each time a new production of Hamlet was mounted the company made cuts in the script, and that it's unlikely the final text (which assembles all the variants into one piece) was ever acted exactly as written.

 

[dudalb]

Well, I see that we are going to get the full "SHakespeare Was a Tudor Disinfo Agent" routine again with the discovery of the body of Richard The Third.....

 

[Vixen]

There is a ballad called "A Shrewd and Curst Wife Lapped in Morel's Skin for her Good Behavior." That is probably what you're thinking about (the plot, anyway). There is another play called The Taming of A Shrew which was at one time considered the immediate source of Shakespeare's play (there's no horse, though); however, I believe the current scholarly consensus is that A Shrew is a muddled version of The Shrew. As for the ballad, it's not really close to Shakespeare's play--it's much more brutal. Jan Harold Brunvand (the urban legends guy) argues compellingly that Shakespeare's primary sources for the main plot of The Shrew was oral tradition. The source of the subplot--the wooing of Kate's sister--is George Gascoigne's play Supposes, a translation of Ariosto's I Suppositi.

All Shakespeare's plots were borrowed. Okay, there's no known source for the main plot of The Tempest, but otherwise, they're all borrowed. And all the other playwrights did the same thing. Sometimes they even updated older plays. Thomas Middleton seems to have edited and added to Macbeth, and Ben Jonson was hired to add scenes to Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. And then there's the Ur-Hamlet.

Again, they all did it, and it wasn't considered plagiarism. They took bits and pieces from various sources and reworked them into something new. Take Two Noble Kinsmen, for example. Shakespeare co-wrote the play with John Fletcher. Its main source is Chaucer's Knight's Tale. Chaucer's source was Boccaccio's Teseida. Boccaccio's specific sources are unknown, but he unquestionably had sources. In the Shakespeare/Fletcher play, there is a non-Chaucerian subplot involving a jailer's daughter, who wanders around being mad for a bit. These scenes are very reminiscent of Ophelia's mad scenes in Lear. Guess who wrote them? Fletcher. Shakespeare was presumably not bothered by the...homage. Oh, Fletcher also wrote a sequel to The Shrew called The Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed. It was performed by and possibly written for Shakespeare's company, perhaps when he was still active in it.

It seems that whilst The Tempest is usually designated a romance, some argue it is a comedy and borrowed from the Italian tradition. Some scholars argue that Shakespeare's source was from a traditonal comedy set up, in which a set format is followed. OK, so whilst the characters have Italian names, for example Prospero, this is not the reason for the designation, rather, it is within how the play unfolds. Shakespeare, like any creative writer, no matter how 'original' or literary, will have taken a keen interest in how other playwrights and plays worked, including those further afield.

The plot:

The plot of the Tempest has been summarised as follows by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
for the theatre goers at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon:
Twelve years ago Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was usurped by his brother, Antonio, with
the help of Alonso, King of Naples, and the King's brother Sebastian. Prospero and his baby
daughter Miranda were put to sea and landed on a distant island where ever since, by the
use of his magic art, he has ruled over the spirit Ariel and the savage Caliban.
He uses his powers to raise a storm which shipwrecks his enemies on the island. Alonso
searches for his son, Ferdinand, although fearing him to be drowned. Sebastian plots to kill
Alonso and seize the crown. The drunken butler, Stephano, and the jester, Trinculo,
encounter Caliban and are persuaded by him to kill Prospero so that they can rule the island.
Ferdinand meets Miranda and they fall instantly in love. Prospero sets heavy tasks to test
Ferdinand and, when satisfied, presents the young couple with a betrothal masque. As
Prospero's plan draws to its climax, he confronts his enemies and forgives them. Prospero
grants Ariel his freedom and prepares to leave the island for Milan.

Storms, shipwrecks and deserted islands would have been known of in the early 1600's and some believe Shakespeare must have known of the voyages to Virginia 1609 - 1611 as stated by Barton 1968 to have written it. However, only the letter written by Strachey 1625 is recognised by Shakespeare scholars as having been a source for The Tempest. This, too, is fiercely dispute by others.

A strong case has been made that instead, Shakespeare drew inspiration from a Greek pastoral, Daphnis and Chloe, Longus.

Gesner makes a convincing case that
Shakespeare knew features of this story. The major similarities include: a girl grows up ignorant of
her own and her father’s nobility; the girl falls in love without realising what is happening; the girl
is courted by other suitors, who attempt to ravish her; the boy is taken by pirates; finally, the lovers
are recognised as both coming from noble families, and are eligible to be married.

- Kevin Gilvary in his paper for the DeVere Society.


However, there is no plot about a magician on a shipwrecked island taking revenge on the shipwrecked enemies. Nor does it fit the biblical Joseph story as claimed by some. Gilvary then puts the case for his theory that it is an Italian pastoral theme.

Three pastoral scenarios have exceptional importance for
The Tempest <snip>:
Il Mago deals with The Magician who inhabits a remote island where a group of
buffoons are shipwrecked. After various tricks, plots and amorous adventures, all is
happily resolved.
La Nave deals with a shipwreck on a remote island where a magician holds sway over
some spirits. After various tricks, plots and amorous adventures, all is happily
resolved.
Li Tre Satiri deals with three satyrs who are used by a magician on a remote island to
torment a group of shipwrecked buffoons. After various tricks, plots and amorous
adventures, all is happily resolved.

So has the source for The Tempest been identified? Gilvary thinks so.

The play ends with
those supposed lost are found (Lea 643-47). Since all of these events can be paralleled in The
Tempest, it is clear that the scenarios from the commedia dell’arte were the major source for the
plot of The Tempest. The same holds true for the characters.

Sorry to revive and old thread, I just happened to chance upon it whilst looking up a keyword on the forum.

If anyone wants to read a modern day version of the Tempest I can recommend the recent novel of the same name by Steve Sem-Sandberg, a prize-winning Swedish novelist who sets his tale on a Norwegian island in post-Nazi-occupation.

 

[Gyronaut]

"So far as anybody actually knows and can prove, Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life." - Mark Twain

Of the six hesitant signatures (the man-from-Stratford's entire literary output) not one spells his name as "Shakespeare".

He was quite possibly illiterate, like his parents, children and grandchildren...

When the Stratford man died in 1616, no-one noticed... No public mourning, no obituaries, no panegyrics for the greatest of English writers. Nothing...

Silence, for Seven Long Years

Until someone unknown, at huge expense, paid for the publishing of the First Folio, for the first time alluding to the Stratford Man as the original author of the works.

This person or persons had taken great care to amend and 'correct' the plays prior to the folio's publication, seemingly weighing every word, long after the Stratford Man's death.

 

[catsmate]

 

[theprestige]

Artists being unrecognized during their lifetime; then achieving critical acclaim, popular enthusiasm, and historical significance after their death is a well-known phenomenon.

 

[Vixen]

"So far as anybody actually knows and can prove, Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life." - Mark Twain

Of the six hesitant signatures (the man-from-Stratford's entire literary output) not one spells his name as "Shakespeare".

He was quite possibly illiterate, like his parents, children and grandchildren...

When the Stratford man died in 1616, no-one noticed... No public mourning, no obituaries, no panegyrics for the greatest of English writers. Nothing...

Silence, for Seven Long Years

Until someone unknown, at huge expense, paid for the publishing of the First Folio, for the first time alluding to the Stratford Man as the original author of the works.

This person or persons had taken great care to amend and 'correct' the plays prior to the folio's publication, seemingly weighing every word, long after the Stratford Man's death.

Ha! Just go and visit the place of his birth in Stratford-Upon-Avon. He was middle class and grammar school educated.


Compared to DH Lawrence's house in Nottingham, Shakespeare seems to have been quite well off and hardly likely to have been illiterate.

 

[bruto]

I was under the impression that the persons assembling the first folio were known by name. I was also under the impression that at least some of the plays were in existence in Quarto editions. They managed to get Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Jonson to contribute a poem in preface, and this, among other things, makes the required conspiracy larger and more complex, involving not only a number of Shakespeare's contemporaries, but retroactively requiring that works published under his name and during his lifetime were fakes.

 

[Gyronaut]

Artists being unrecognized during their lifetime; then achieving critical acclaim, popular enthusiasm, and historical significance after their death is a well-known phenomenon.

But "Shakespeare" was recognised during his "lifetime".

Just never as the Stratford Man, during that man's lifetime !

And there is nothing extant from the Stratford Man's lifetime to indicate he was in fact "Shakespeare", the author.

 

[Gyronaut]

Ha! Just go and visit the place of his birth in Stratford. He was middle class and grammar school educated.

Shakespeare seems to have been quite well off and hardly likely to have been illiterate.

I would not pay much attention to a tourist-trap's self-serving promotion and mythology.

Everything you think is fact, is merely conjecture. Even they, when pressed, concede this.

The facts may surprise you.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

I would not pay much attention to a tourist-trap's self-serving promotion and mythology.

Everything you think is fact, is merely conjecture. Even they, when pressed, concede this.

The facts may surprise you.

Oooh! Go on, surprise us!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Everything I know about Shakespeare and Strafford-on-Avon I have learned on Upstart Crow^WP. Other than having read extensively about him and growing up about an hour away from Strafford.

 

[Gyronaut]

I was under the impression that the persons assembling the first folio were known by name. I was also under the impression that at least some of the plays were in existence in Quarto editions. They managed to get Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Jonson to contribute a poem in preface, and this, among other things, makes the required conspiracy larger and more complex, involving not only a number of Shakespeare's contemporaries, but retroactively requiring that works published under his name and during his lifetime were fakes.

Who were Shaxper's [the Stratford Man's] contemporaries?

NOBODY knew him as the author "Shakespeare" !

The works were mostly published under the name "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare".

Some other plays were also published under that name, which are now recognised as being "fake", and not by the same author.

Oddly, the Man from Stratford - who was known to be a litigious sort - made no complaints about these misattributions. [nor is he on record as claiming any of the canonical works as his own]

 

[Vixen]

Who were Shaxper's [the Stratford Man's] contemporaries?

NOBODY knew him as the author "Shakespeare" !

The works were mostly published under the name "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare".

Some other plays were also published under that name, which are now recognised as being "fake", and not by the same author.

Oddly, the Man from Stratford - who was known to be a litigious sort - made no complaints about these misattributions. [nor is he on record as claiming any of the canonical works as his own]

Bear in mind Shakespeare lived bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616. Your complaint there are no obituaries or similar stuff is likely due to the lack of social media in those days.

Shakespeare was a 'jobber' who churned out plays for the King's players (a touring band of actors). There was the Plague, there was much suppression of Catholics, there was no such thing as 'copyright'. Shakespeare, like Dickins later, and more contemporaneously, F Scott Fitzgerald, simply churned out words as they were paid for what they produced. A lot of Dickens' stuff was a regular newspaper series for which he was paid per 200 words or so. It was just a job.

There is a lot of intrigue as to whether others might have written plays erroneously attributed to Shakespeare (for example, Christopher Marlowe) but that is something that is never likely to be solved. Fact is, the average person is no way going to be able to churn out stuff of the same high quality as Shakespeare, Dickens or Fitzgerald.

 

[Gyronaut]

Bear in mind Shakespeare lived bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616. Your complaint there are no obituaries or similar stuff is likely due to the lack of social media in those days.
.

Nice theory, but unlikely. Every other author of the period has left a paper trail linking them to the works that appeared under their name. Including, in some cases, receipts/invoices, etc .for payment for their efforts. Plenty of obits and eulogies too.

Only "Shakespeare", of all his contemporaries, (some so obscure they are remembered today only inside University Eng. Lit. Departments) has left NOTHING linking him to being a writer. Absolutely nothing.

I calculated the odds of that happening by chance, as about 116,000 TO 1 against....

Then we have the inconvenient fact that Shaxper [the Stratford Man] did leave a paper trail, documenting his life [he was such a busy guy!] Money-lending, property deals, sueing people and being sued, trying to become a "gentleman". About 70 documents.

Just NOTHING WHATSOEVER linking him to writing....

He left not a book [very valuable items in 1616] or a manuscript in his will, made no provision for his children's education, etc.

 

[Gyronaut]

from History.com

"Shakespeare’s parents were probably illiterate, and his children almost certainly were.
Nobody knows for sure, but it’s quite likely that John and Mary Shakespeare never learned to read or write, as was often the case for people of their standing during the Elizabethan era. Some have argued that John’s civic duties would have required basic literacy, but in any event he always signed his name with a mark.... His wife and their two children who lived to adulthood, Susanna and Judith, are thought to have been illiterate, though Susanna could scrawl her signature."

[cough]

 

[theprestige]

from History.com

"Shakespeare’s parents were probably illiterate, and his children almost certainly were.
Nobody knows for sure, but it’s quite likely that John and Mary Shakespeare never learned to read or write, as was often the case for people of their standing during the Elizabethan era. Some have argued that John’s civic duties would have required basic literacy, but in any event he always signed his name with a mark.... His wife and their two children who lived to adulthood, Susanna and Judith, are thought to have been illiterate, though Susanna could scrawl her signature."

[cough]

I'm highly literate, in more than one language even. My signature is a gibberish scrawl that bears no relation to any written script or alphabet. If I'd known, when opening my first bank account at 16, that I could get away with just making a mark, I'd have been doing exactly that for the past [something something] years.