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| re: This old story again (sigh) | |
| Posted by: MFeingold 08:35 pm EDT 10/31/17 | |
| In reply to: re: This old story again (sigh) - Vivian 06:54 pm EDT 10/31/17 | |
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| This is a complicated question that deserves much more space than one has in a message-board thread. And well worth exploring if you want to immerse yourself in the literature of the period. The concept of the author as celebrity was really just beginning to evolve. Remember tht most of the population was illiterate or in London semi-literate at best. Aristocrats who wrote books were celebrated - but they were already celebrities. Popular poets who'd been read for decades, like Gower, were household words (hence Shakespeare's use of him as a storyteller figure in PERICLES). But a writer as such was only one grade up from a scrivener - a guy who wrote letters at a penny a page for those who didn't know how. Shakespeare was among the writers whose popularity began to change that. And a PLAY was something performed by a company - not particularly a writer's work. Like a movie in the studio era, it might be written by multiple hands. One of the few pieces of writing we have in Shakespeare's own hand is the draft of a scene for somebody else's play of SIR THOMAS MORE. What mattered in a play were the rhymed tags or images that everybody could quote, and the STAR (sound familiar?), like Edwrd Alleyn or the leader of Shakespeare's company, Richard Burbage. One of the earliest allusions we have to WS is a satirical poem about the yokel who couldn't tell the actor from the character, "And when he would have said that Richard died / And cried 'A horse, a horse!' he BURBAGE cried." And as posters below pointed out, Shakespeare was one of the very first to have his collected plays published in a fancy folio volume - by his theatre company after his death. The only other writer of his time to merit that was Ben Jonson - who published the collection himself. And note that Jonson said of Shakespeare "I loved the man, this side idolatry, as well as any." The remark obviously means that Jonson thought too many people were over on the other side, idolizing Shakespeare. So presumably a fair amount of attention was paid to him by cognoscenti. But he doesn't seem to have been an actor whose work attracted great attention. He left that to Burbage, while busily turning out great roles for him. There are a lot of contemporary allusions to LINES from his plays, but with no concern for attribution. Though there is an Elizabethan play - can't remember now by whom - in which, when the King (a minor character) enters, somebody says, "Guards, shake your spears in welcome to our king." Scholars assume this was an in-joke reference to WS playing the part. Lastly, bear in mind that English society was just beginning to secularize and London to 'culturize.' Religion - a source of tremendous conflict - was the center of the nation's consciousness, and one huge sector of the population - Puritan reformers - viewed the theatre as a pit of hell. Not all that long after Shakespeare's death, there was civil war in England. Theatre companies were disbnded and the theatres closed by order of Cromwell, the Lord Protector, for 18 years. The tradition and lore of Shakespeare's company in his heyday were all lost, except for odd scraps here and there. When theatres reopened after the Restoration, England was a very different place with very different artistic demands; it took a lot of reworking for Shakespeare to fit in there. |
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| re: This old story again (sigh) | |
| Posted by: Vivian 09:18 pm EDT 10/31/17 | |
| In reply to: re: This old story again (sigh) - MFeingold 08:35 pm EDT 10/31/17 | |
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| Thank you for your knowledgeable comments, Michael. They provide insight into a completely foreign mindset, and are a lot to think about. Thanks also for all you do for this forum--you consistently make it so much more informed and interesting. Vivian |
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| Well said, Michael! | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 09:17 pm EDT 10/31/17 | |
| In reply to: re: This old story again (sigh) - MFeingold 08:35 pm EDT 10/31/17 | |
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| Excellent! Laura, between innings |
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| re: Well said, Michael -- Yep | |
| Posted by: Whistler 12:15 am EDT 11/01/17 | |
| In reply to: Well said, Michael! - showtunetrivia 09:17 pm EDT 10/31/17 | |
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| Yep, you managed to squeeze quite a lot in there, Mr. Feingold. Nice. And thanks. | |
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