Osservatorio letterario ANNO 14. – NN. 73/74 MARZ.-APR./MAGG ...

as co-author of Henry VIII and The Two Noble
Kinsmen Titus Andronicus may have undergone more
rewrites, than a Hollywood screenplay, with alleged
input from Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Robert Green and
George Peel. Recent debate has centred on Thomas
Middleton’s possible contribution to Macbeth.
III.
Shakespeare wrote some of the best parts for
himself.
There is no reason to doubt that Shakespeare acted in
his plays. Some scholars like to believe that he played
the characters who control the actions like a director,
for instance the Duke in Measure for Measure and
Prospero in The Tempest.
IV.
Shakespeare was a Catholic.
In Elisabeth’s reign Catholicism was synonymous with
treason, yet quasi-Catholic imagery in some of the
dramas ― notably the return of the ghost from the
purgatory in Hamlet ― has prompted suggestions
that Shakespeare privately inclined toward Rome. The
fact that his father, John, was fined by the protestant
authorities for non-attendance at church has added
weight to this myth.
V.
Shakespeare was a soldier.
Numerous theories try to explain his “lost years” ―
the decade between his marriage to Anne Hathaway
and the arrival on the London theatre scene is
1592.Some conclude that the plays battle scenes owe
much to Shakespeare’s experiences of war in Flanders
(Duff Cooper called his 1940s biography Sergeant
Shakespeare). Others argue that the vivid descriptions
of Italy mean that Shakespeare spent time there.
VI.
Shakespeare was a teacher.
For this one we must thank John Aubrey, whose 1697
collection of potted biographies, Brief Lives, noted that
Shakespeare “had in his younger years been a
schoolmaster in the country”. Early this century E.K
Chambers discovered in the papers of an Elizabethan
Catholic family in Lancashire a reference to a “William
Shakeshaft”, who may have been the family tutor.
VII.
Shakespeare was an adulterer.
If you accept that the mysterious Dark Lady of the
Sonnets existed, then she was married, had black hair
and eyes and was the poet’s mistress. If you accept the
Sonnets as autobiography ― Wordsworth called them
the key with which Shakespeare unlocked his heart” ―
then our Will must have done the dirty on Hathaway.
But nobody has any clues about the “Dark Lady’s
identity. In his fine 1993 book, “Shakespeare: The
Truth” that distinguished historian, Desmond Oliver
Dingle (aka the actor Patrick Barlow) suggested instead
that the Bard concealed the Dark Lady’s name not
“because he had anything to be ashamed of, but
because he had absolutely no idea who she was.
VIII.
Shakespeare was bisexual.
More than 100 of the Sonnets are written to or about a
handsome, aristocratic youth, commonly identified as
Henry Wriotesley, 3 rd Earl of Southampton. Whoever
this “Lascivious grace in whom all ill well shows” was,
there is a temptation to believe that Shakespeare’s
feelings for him went beyond platonic admiration. The
myth was fuelled by Frank McGuinness in his 1997
play: Mutabilitie. McGuinness leaves two actors
stranded with Shakespeare in Ireland is 15 98 and has
them crack jokes about the Bard voracious homosexual
appetite.
IX.
Shakespeare had a love-child.
The Restoration playwright, William D’Avenant claimed
to be Shakespeare’s bastard son. D’Avenant’s mother
kept an inn at Oxford and to break the journeys
between Stratford and London, Shakespeare may well
have stopped off for a bed and bawd. D’Avenant was
born in 1606, when Shakespeare was 42.
X.
Shakespeare was a poacher.
Rumours in the17s century (lent credence in the 1930s
by sleuthing of the Canadian academic Leslie Hotson)
put it about that Shakespeare had been prosecuted by
Sir Thomas Lucy for poaching deer from his estate just
ourside Stratford. Shakespeare allegedly took revenge
by writing a satirical ballad, was prosecuted again and
had to leave Stratford. He then caricatured Lucy as
Justice Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor.
XI.
Shakespeare was a teenage
Animal rights activist.
In his introduction to the 1709 edition of the plays,
Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first real editor
biographer, notes that the Bard’s father was a dealer in
animal skins. Rowe adds that young Will used to hate
seeing calves slaughtered (for making vellum) and
would make speeches” in pity” for the poor animal’s
fate. If that’s true, he must have hated his time in
another occasionally mooted occupation ― as a
Stratford butcher’s apprentice.
XII.
The Bard died from booze.
The final myth suggests Peter Holland of the
Shakespeare institute, is that Shakespeare may have
died from a cold brought on by a heavy drinking
session with Ben Johnson and the poet Michael
Drayton. To believe or not to believe? That is the
question? ― The Times ―
DR. BENKŐ MIHÁLY KELETI MAGYAROK
KUTATÁSAIRÓL
I. BEVEZETÉS – SZINTÉZIS
Dr. Benkő István: Keleti magyarok
(Ellenszélben)
„Ünnepnapja ez a magyar tudománynak” mondta
Harmatta János akadémikus Benkő Mihály 2001-ben
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OSSERVATORIO LETTERARIO Ferrara e l’Altrove ANNO XIV – NN. 73/74 MARZ.-APR./MAGG.-GIU. 2010