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A Half-hearted Attempt at Entering the Authorship Debate

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So I saw “Anonymous” this weekend.

I’m not going to lie and say that I tried to be objective going into this film.  I

De Vere and Shakespeare

didn’t.  I walked in ready to hate every molecule of every bit of every piece of it.  I walked in ready for a fight; armed with my rapier/quill of righteousness and my shield of Bardic faith.  I walked in and plonked myself in that seat as a professional obligation; knowing that I had to see this for the good of those around me and as an educational experience to enrich my own knowledge of current events in my field.

The movie opens with a framing device.  Derek Jacobi is late to a lecture in New York City.  We follow him through the streets as he gets out of his cab and enters the theatre, then immediately hops onstage to begin his story.  The theatre in which he lectures is a giant, sumptuous, velvet-decked place of mythos (a Broadway house like that would never be given over for a lecture on Shakespeare).  The lecture sequence is filmed from the perspective of the house (though with a few close-up shots of Jacobi’s face) giving us the feeling of sitting in that theatre, listening to that story.  Jacobi presents the pre-cursor to Oxfordian evidence with a straight face and a charming accent (of course, in a situation where there is no one to defend the evidence it seems to pile against our beloved playwright).  His last words before we cut to the first internally nested loop are “what if there was another story?”

Ben Jonson, England's first poet Laureate and compiler of the First Folio

Cut to Ben Johnson taking refuge in the trap door of the Globe theatre with a pile of manuscripts as he hides from a pursuing armed guard.  Unable to find Johnson, they torch the theatre.  Johnson is eventually captured and detained for questioning and we cut to another flashback.

The plot evolves this way in layers, too transparent and insubstantial to truly determine where in time (and sometimes place) one is in the story.  At one point, we find ourselves inside a play within a flashback of a flashback of a flashback of a framing device.

A second problem lies in the lack of clearly differentiated characters.  For the most part, the Earls and Noblemen are interchangeable… except when they’re not.  The problem there, of course, is how do you tell apart someone who hasn’t been saliently understood to begin with?  The lack of characterization leads to a lack of caring and that lack of caring leads to a disengagement with the over-arching plot (or plots, in this case).  Fine politics becomes impossible to follow when all noblemen are created equal.

I went in expecting the screenwriter to play fast and loose with history (which he did).  I was surprised by the amount of historical events which he managed to conflate within the film (of course, the actual timeline of history was completely and utterly altered, but who cares for the space-time continuum?).  The burning of the Globe (actually June 29, 1613), the Essex rebellion (actually 1601), the publishing of Venus and Adonis (actually circa 1593), the death of Christopher Marlowe (actually May 30, 1593), and the writing of Shakespeare’s plays themselves set forty years before the main events of the film (actually sometime between circa 1589-1613) are just a few instances of the incredible shifting timeline which John Orloff weaves.

There were a few cute nods built in (like the inclusion of famous portraiture in the backgrounds of scenes, often these portraits depicted the historical individuals whom the foregrounded actors were also playing, or the almost-requisite autograph scene in which De Vere attempts to figure out how to sign his name as “William Shakespeare” of course playing upon the signature theme which I was going to say that I have previously explained on this blog, but then realized that it was via a lengthy facebook post… so see the footnote to this post for it*).  And I must admit, it is refreshing to hear a new explanation for the dedication of Venus and Adonis.  Also the film does include one of the greatest portrayals of James I that I have ever seen.  Ever.

But on the whole, the movie was an apathy-fest.  I had trouble caring about the film, I had trouble wanting to care about the film, and I almost felt bad for the film.  Far from being the tour-de-force attack that the scholarship community has built this movie into, it is a flimsy film which simply won’t hold up under the light of scrutiny.  If someone truly tried to pick this apart, it would simply dissolve into a heap of dust.

To most scholars, the most troubling part of the entire “Anonymous” fiasco

Of course... if the Doctor had actually managed to be there, we could solve this whole darn authorship debate. What I wouldn't give for a TARDIS.

was the simultaneous release of lesson plans for schools.  That absolutely baffles me.  After seeing the film, I am convinced that you may as well teach “The Matrix” at a Computer Science program.  There are films which have been made, meticulously researched, and could be used to teach Shakespeare (“Shakespeare in Love”, I’m looking at you).  I think our greatest fear was that “Anonymous” would be one of them.  After having seen it, I can say with certainty that our fears on this account were ungrounded.  Any film which depicts Ben Jonson as a struggling writer unable to make worthwhile prose can dive into the depths of the circular file and hide under my yogurt lids.

In fact, I’d almost like to hear someone defend this film.  How can you justify something like this?  Not because of the ideas it disseminates, but because of its sheer sloppiness…

So go on.  Try to hold this up as historical fact.  I dare you.

*William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare and baptized April 26, 1564. The church records the spelling of his name (both at that time, as well as upon his burial and the burial of his children) to be “Shakspere”. Early Modern Spelling is a fluid matter really, so this could (or could not) be evidence of any import. The spelling “Shakespeare” is believed by some to be a “fancified” version of Shakespeare’s name to refer to the Great London Playwright as opposed to the man from Stratford and came into vogue during Shakespeare’s lifetime as the most commonly-used spelling in publications of that period. Certainly there is evidence of this in documents that we have; often when the documents were directed at William Shakespeare, the hum drum guy from Straford, the name was spelled “Shakspere” (as noted above) or “Shaksper”. We have only six surviving signatures of Shakespeare’s and almost all of them spell the name in a different way (though this is likely due to accepted legal abbreviations of the time). “Shakp”, “Shaksper”, “Shakspe”, “Shakspere”, and “Shakspeare”. As to the etymology of the name, it has been put forth that perhaps Englishmen were named after the weapons which they carried. Shakespeare’s paternal grandfather, Richard Shakespeare, was mistakenly referred to as “Richard Shakstaff” in a 1533 record (perhaps lending credence to this argument, or noting a particularly useless scribe). What is unscrupulous about all of this is that Shakespeare most definitely did not make the name up for himself, though he probably shifted the spelling of it depending on what he was doing at the time.

Anonymous

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Okay folks,

People keep asking so I figure I should say something before I say something.  On October 28th, this is going to be unleashed unto the world:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5XcyiQ50W8]

Yesterday’s New York Times featured an op-ed review of the film  written by Professor James Shapiro of Columbia University (prominent Shakespearean and author of a great many books  ).

Let’s take a moment to talk about the authorship debate.  The nineteenth century saw the deification of Shakespeare (debatably) at its peak.  It was during this time that scholars and literati realized that very little biographical information was available about our esteemed playwright.  Because of this dearth of fact, said literati began to suspect the actuality of William Shakespeare as author of the plays (backed by an insistence that Shakespeare only had a base-level of education and the plays were so transcendent that they must have been written by a University man).  Thus the so-called “anti-Stratfordians” were born.  In an effort to validate this conclusion, various figures have been put forth as alternative “authors” to the plays (including Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlow, and Edward De Vere the 17th Earl of Oxford).

All of these arguments have fundamental flaws (perhaps the most amusing being the fact that De Vere died in 1604, years before at least ten of Shakespeare’s plays were written).  I don’t really have the space to get into the full implications of each argument here, but I’ll be happy to divulge what I know if you buy me enough alcohol (or shoot me an e-mail and ask).

In any case, “Anonymous” falls into what is referred to as the “Oxfordian” camp (i.e. it argues that De Vere wrote the plays).

Here’s my brief opinion of the authorship debate: why are we wasting our time?  No matter how we slice it, Shakespeare (either the man from Stratford or the great playwright – whether these two are the same person or not) is dead.  Shakespeare the man from Stratford existed.  Shakespeare the playwright wrote amazing, transcendent works of literature which continue to touch upon the human soul hundreds of years after his death.  Everything else is a fairy tale.  Whomever this person was, no matter what his life was like,

sitting under the Mulberry tree in Shakespeare's garden in Stratford... my happy place

the important thing is that the plays do exist and they do continue to effect us.  Whether he planted the mulberry tree behind his property in Stratford, whether he hated his wife and ran away with the traveling players to get away from her, whether he was homosexual or heterosexual or bisexual, “he” undoubtedly left us something.  Shakespeare is more important to the modern world as a concept than a person.  We scholars can tell ourselves pretty stories about his life all we want, and back them with as many or as few facts as we can find, but the bottom line is that barring some unforeseen and incredible discovery of a cache of lost documents, we will never be able to prove definitively even a majority of what we tell ourselves.  So we may as well concede that fairy tales are nice, but the play is the thing.

Now, allow me to briefly address Shapiro’s piece.  I sympathize with Dr. Shapiro.  I am fully expecting to leave the theatres angry and frustrated that the good name of my man Will has been despoiled.  Will this keep me from seeing a movie about Will?  Absolutely not.

However.  Dr. Shapiro’s argument in this op-ed piece is perhaps born a bit too much out of the described heat of passion which I am certain will also haze my own vision in red.  Shapiro states that he is more troubled by the fact that “Anonymous” “turns great plays into propaganda” and takes great exception to the film’s point of view that “all art is political… otherwise it is just decoration”.

…well… isn’t that actually true?  I mean, there’s the famous anecdote about Elizabeth I barring any performance of Richard II by saying “know you not that I am Richard?” after

to me, Elizabeth I will always be Judi Dench

the Essex rebellion, but Elizabethan politics are written more subtly all over Shakespeare’s plays.  And not just the histories!  Love’s Labours Lost begins with the cession of Aquitaine to Naverre.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream is founded upon the principle that Theseus defeated Hippolyta’s tribe of amazons.  As You Like it begins and ends in an upturned world of unjust political tyranny made right at the end by the return of the proper Duke.  The Tempest depicts a wild world of chaos organized only by true noble blood which must be forfeit to return to the courtly world of Milan.

Art is power.  And especially in Elizabethan times when plays were the most popular form of public entertainment.  Shakespeare was never shy about expressing his opinions via the theatre, and we shouldn’t be shy about saying that’s what he (whomever he was) was doing.  The canon is not just dead words, it’s imbued with a certain living history and understanding of audiences (both past and future).  And really, that’s part of why it’s still relevant.

In addition, Dr. Shapiro’s title makes me anxious.  It’s not Hollywood that’s dishonoring the Bard, it’s every anti-Stratfordian whose research led to this movie.  Yes, the film itself comes from the institution of Hollywood, but it sprang from us.  Without the scholars, the movie wouldn’t have come to be.  Blaming the product upon the process is like blaming the bomb and not the scientists who developed it or the politicians who set it off.  We can’t claim diplomatic immunity here, we’re part of the problem.

It is with great respect for Dr. Shapiro that I am forced to disagree with his conclusion.  His rage, however, is one which I’m certain I’ll be sharing of in the next few weeks.