Feature: Shakespeare? Or Marlowe? Which One Do We Choose?

The first play I ever read by Christopher Marlowe was The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. I found it to be so powerful and moving that I was quite in love with Marlowe. Later, while discussing this particular play with my mother, she told me all about the authorship question regarding Shakespeare’s plays. It was from her I first learnt that Shakespeare was believed not to be Shakespeare, the playwright. Apparently, there were several contending candidates said to have written Shakespeare’s plays; among them being Sir Francis Bacon, The Earl of Sussex and Christopher Marlowe.

I was quite intrigued by the case for Marlowe. It sounded so plausible, especially as Shakespeare is said to have been so greatly influenced by the former that it would seem almost like he was haunted by Marlowe’s Ghost. Of all the playwrights and writers of the time, Marlowe and Shakespeare’s style were incredibly similar. In fact, scholars have scientifically sought to deduce the similarity in their writing (in terms of syllabic words used, idioms, phrases and the like) to prove that Marlowe and Shakespeare were one and the same person. And if the results are to be believed, it would strongly appear to be so. Marlovians (scholars who support the theory of Marlowe being the real Shakespeare) say that the progression from Marlowe’s plays to that of Shakespeare could be of a natural strain – of an artist growing gradually and surely in his art. Some other points that the Marlovians make in favour of their candidate is that 

1. many of the plays are about exiles, and if Marlowe survived he most certainly was an exile, 
2. in exile Marlowe would have travelled all over Europe thus being familiar with the places that pop up in Shakespeare’s various plays; this as opposed to Shakespeare not having been anywhere further than London,
3. Marlowe’s immense education, especially his scholarly interests in the Classics with special attention to Ovid; this as opposed to Shakespeare’s mere education in a public grammar school.

To believe that Marlowe was in exile it had to be assumed that he did not really die in the reported tavern brawl. Research and investigation into the matter have brought up some interesting information. For instance, the fact that the three men with Marlowe were, in someway or the other, connected to the Walsinghams; (this bit is important as Marlowe was one of Walsingham’s spies); that the whole coroner’s inquest was suspect; that they were not even in a tavern but in a safe house run by a widow called Eleanor Bull; and most importantly the fact that Marlowe was on the threshold of coming under a death sentence. The details are quite astonishing and fascinating. However, while all of this might prove that Marlowe did not die, that the brawl was really part of a plan to get Marlowe out of the country, none of this proves that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

I found my faith in Marlowe begin to waver as I read Ben Crystal’s Shakespeare on Toast. While he does not deal at all with the authorship question, there were a few things  that seemed completely out of place with the Marlowe-is-Shakespeare theory. 

1. Shakespeare wrote plays meant for his actors to perform. His plays were fashioned to suit the abilities of his actors or the availability of kinds of actors. During the time he wrote plays like As You Like It and Twelfth Night it is said that Shakespeare has some good youthful actors in his company who fitted the constant gender-role changes of these plays. And apparently plays like Hamlet and King Lear were written with one of his rather powerful and oratorical actors in mind. (This information does not come from Crystal’s book but from my recollection of tid-bits offered out in university classes.)
2. Shakespeare wrote for his stage. He knew the pros and cons of his theatre.
3. Shakespeare wrote for occasions. Macbeth being a case in point, having been written during the time of political unrest when James VI of Scotland became James I of England after the death of Elizabeth I.
4. The two years of the black plague saw absolutely no plays as theatres were shut down. However, these are the two years in which it is said that Shakespeare wrote his 154 sonnets.
5. While there are no documents or manuscripts by Shakespeare’s hand, to prove that he wrote his plays, apparently there are documents by his actors that refer to the plays that Shakespeare had staged at The Globe. (Recently got this off reviews regarding this book.)
6. For all the places that Shakespeare has mentioned in Europe, he seems to get his geographical locations all wrong, according to Crystal, almost as if he had heard about these places rather than seen them.

All of this really makes one wonder if Shakespeare did write Shakespeare after all! Disbelievers have been accused of academic snobbery in their inability to believe that a man of Shakespeare’s meagre education and lack of ‘experience’ could have written such works of absolute genius. But, isn’t the mark of a genius that his ability springs from a brilliance of mind, thought and natural talent rather than from his education and experience? I don’t really know, but right now I am strongly inclined toward giving Shakespeare the benefit of the doubt.

Shakespeare Through the Eyes of an Actor

Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard by Ben Crystal

I ordered this book from flipkart.com the moment I read this review. As some of you might have noticed, I’m planning to read all of Shakespeare’s works in the next couple of years or so, and this book sounded like it could have a clue or two to help me have a better experience of the Bard. 

I am happy to say I wasn’t disappointed. It was not what I had expected, but it didn’t let me down.

Shakespeare on Toast is a book written by an actor who gives us a very different perspective on Shakespeare – through the eyes of a Shakespearean actor. When studying Shakespeare in college we were given to understand that all the stage directions, in his plays, were very much present within the dialogue. What I did not realise was how much! According to Ben Crystal Shakespeare tells his actors how to deliver certain lines, through his dialogue. Shakespeare wrote most of his play in blank verse, which there was a metre and a rhythm to it. In other words, the iambic pentameter. 

While Ben Crystal shows us many clues to reading Shakespeare throughout the novel, the part that made me give this book a five star rating is when Crystal lays out the background for Macbeth and gives us a step-by-step analysis of one of the scenes from the view-point of an actor. Really, Shakespeare’s plays are meant to be performed, and not merely read. But I’ve understood, that while reading, if I can keep in mind the stage, the people the plays were performed, the background of the plays, I can glean a great deal more from Shakespeare than just a story or some beautifully written poetry. 

I would recommend this to anybody who is reading or intends reading Shakespeare.

“The Blue Castle”

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

I read the Anne of Green Gables series a long, long time ago that I had forgotten why I had simply loved reading L M Montgomery. There is something so exquisitely charming about her stories, and I’m so happy I got to relive that charm in The Blue Castle. 

The Blue Castle is, supposedly, Montgomery’s only novel for ‘adults’. It’s about twenty-nine year old Valancy who has no happy prospects of marriage to look forward to. She is a timid woman, who fears everyone in her family and allows herself to be cowed down and bossed around by all. Then, a visit to the doctor changes her entire outlook on life and her attitude. She says ‘no’ to fear, leaves her family and moves out to make her own living. In the process she finds friendship and love – two things she has never experienced before. 

It is a simple story about a young woman finding love. It’s a simple love story. But so full of life and character. I found myself enjoying something I recall quite annoyed me as a child – Montgomery’s colourful and sensual description of nature, sunsets and sunrise, moonlit nights, and the wild. I reveled in the poetic beauty of her language and decided that I had to read some more Montgomery and do a re-reading of Anne of Green Gables.

Let me end this post with a quote:

“The woods are so human…that to know them one must live with them. An occasional saunter through them, keeping to the well-trodden paths, will never admit us to their intimacy. If we wish to be friends we must seek them out and win them by frequent, reverent visits at all hours; by morning, by noon, and by night; and at all seasons, in spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter. Otherwise we can never really know them and any pretence we may make to the contrary will never impose on them. They have their own effective way of keeping aliens at a distance and shutting their hearts to mere casual sightseers. It is of no use to seek the woods from any motive except sheer love of them; they will find us out at once and hide all their sweet, old-world secrets from us. But if they know we come to them because we love them they will be very kind to us and give us such treasures of beauty and delight as are not bought or sold in any market-place. For the woods, when they give at all, give unstintedly and hold nothing back from their true worshippers. We must go to them lovingly, humbly, patiently, watchfully, and we shall learn what poignant loveliness lurks in the wild places and silent intervales, lying under starshine and sunset, what cadences of unearthly music are harped on aged pine boughs or crooned in copses of fir, what delicate savours exhale from mosses and ferns in sunny corners or on damp brooklands, what dreams and myths and legends of an older time haunt them. Then the immortal heart of the woods will beat against ours and its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own forever, so that no matter where we go or how widely we wander we shall yet be drawn back to the forest to find our most enduring kinship.”

—	Chapter III, The Blue Castle by L M Montgomery

You can find an online version of the story here.

Feature: Using ‘Thou’ and ‘You’

Here’s a little piece of interesting information I’ve just gathered from reading Shakespeare on Toast.

I was always under the impression that ‘thou’ was the formal form of ‘you’. In fact, I thought that ‘thou’ was used before ‘you’ ever entered the English language. Apparently, I was wrong on the first count, and as for the second, I’m not really sure that was wrong in thinking so, but it seems highly likely.

According to Ben Crystal, actor and author of the afore mentioned book, in giving clues as to how to understand a Shakespearean play, he mentions how ‘thou’ was used when talking to a commoner, one who was inferior in rank, and one who is intimate with you in terms of family, lover or friend. ‘You’ was used in all matters of formality, even when addressing royalty. 

I guess, now, the term ‘your majesties’ makes sense!

UPDATE: Incidently, God was always referred to as ‘thou’ to reflect the close, fatherly relationship one could have with Him.

Literary Blog Hop: Must Literature have an Agenda?

This is a bi-weekly meme run by The Blue Bookcase.

This fortnight’s question: 

Should literature have a social, political, or any other type of agenda? Does having a clear agenda enhance or detract from its literary value?

I doubt the saying, the pen is mightier than the sword, is just something that popped out of someone’s head with no real meaning behind. Literature, and any art from for that matter, is representative of cultures, eras and various peoples. If literature is the voice of various kinds of people, then it is bound to find itself in various forms. The pen has caused revolutions, as in the case of the French in 1792. It was a revolution that was instigated through the writings of the likes of Robespierre. It was writers like Thomas Carlyle who brought, to the attention of his people, the goings-on in Paris about the same time. There were writers who exalted and encourage the cause of the common French people, and then there were others who later wrote in dismay of horrors of the revolution. Without the agenda’s of these various writers, surely enough, we would have no history, right? 

Literature has given hope to people, has inspired and stirred people on toward freedom; it has brought to light so much that would otherwise be hidden in the darkness. But, it has also sought to work as a means of escape, as a means of serving the imagination one fantastical dish after the other. 

Should literature have an agenda? 

To me, this is rather a rhetorical question. All literary works have an agenda – an agenda to incite, to inspire, to condemn, to judge, to entertain, to comfort. There is no literature without an agenda.

There’s Something About Agnes Grey…

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

I’ve read Jane Eyre several times, loving it for its gothic atmosphere, its strong vein of passion, its story of love that knows no bounds. I’ve struggled through Wuthering Heights (I hope to re-read it again and see how I fair this time around) once, struck (not in a positive way for me) by its wild passion and stormy love story. Then I read Agnes Grey and it was so normal. 

I could so imagine myself sitting with Anne Bronte a.k.a Agnes Grey, in a coffee shop, catching up with each other after, say, five years. I would greet her with a laugh and ask her how the molly-coddled baby of the family had managed her years as a governess. She would smile and relate to me her hopes and simple ambitions to prove to her family that she can take care of herself and help be a decent provider to the family; how her excitement mounted up while on her way to meet her new mistress and her children. And then her face would change, the hope would die out of her voice as she related the horrors passing for children. She would relate how much she had tried, through patience and strong will to help these children overcome their brattiyish nature, but at the end was fired. Then she’d mention her second stint with a couple of older girls, so completely involved with themselves that they cannot think of others. She would mention Weston, the curate, and of how much she loved but had to suffer in silence as her pupils sought to take him away from her. Then would come the news of her father’s death, and her mother’s school. And finally, a quiet happily ever after for her.

Agnes Grey is so real. There is absolutely no drama, except for the mild bit of it we see with Rosalie, Agnes’ pupil, and the young curate. Anne Bronte could so easily have been giving us a biography of a governess during that time. The life of the governess was a very mean one. Most families who employed them were rather dismissive of them in general, and the servants always followed their masters’ cue. Their control over their pupils vastly depended upon the amount of control the parents sanctioned. And so, their hands were quite figuratively tied.

I think Anne Bronte brings out all this in her quiet way. There are no fireworks. There is no passion. But the story and the sentiments flow slowly yet steadily through the pages. Do I like Agnes Grey better than Jane Eyre? No. I doubt I would pick it up again. Yet, I’m glad I read it. I’m glad that there was something different to experience from Anne Bronte, different from her sister Emily and Charlotte. I don’t really see Agnes Grey as a ground-breaking work. It is a very staid novel. But it is a novel that isn’t lacking in courage. Anne Bronte tells us right at the start of the novel, that she really needs to put down what she knows:

All the histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge. I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others; but the world may judge for itself. Shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture, and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend. (p.15)

I guess, she mostly sought to lend a moral boost to those other women out there who had no other honest way of earning a living than to become governesses. Entertainment was meant only for those who didn’t particularly look for the moral instruction. Whatever her motives might have been, I think she did a rather good job. I have to admit, that before I started reading this book, I wondered how much I would find myself comparing her to Charlotte Bronte. I never did once think of comparing her with Emily. I guess, this was mainly because of the ‘governess theme’. However, Anne Bronte made this book her own. Any comparison I thought I would be making stopped dead on the tracks of the very first paragraph of the very first chapter.

Agnes Grey isn’t brilliant. It’s no show stopper. But it is definitely worth its salt.

Marking My 100th Post with Dr Seuss!

I had never heard of Dr Seuss until about eight or nine years ago when I was an undergraduate. A professor of ours was very much into the Seuss books because of her five-year old son. So, she would sometimes bring a Dr Seuss to class and read it out aloud. I wasn’t the only one who got hooked! However, it wasn’t until very recently that I found a couple of Dr Seuss(es) in a bookstore around here. Although, my little son is hardly old enough to understand much by way of stories, I was eager to add this to the collection I am growing for him. So then, I bought Horton Hears a Who and Dr Seuss’ Sleep Book.

 

Horton Hears a Who!

by Dr. Seuss

 

Ever since I learnt of Dr Seuss, Horton has been a favourite character of mine. He is so innocent and full of good intentions, and he sticks to his guns no matter what! I was simply thrilled when Horton Hears a Who came out as a movie (I’d never read the book until now), and I quite fell in love with it. I finally got the book (as you can see), and though I see how different the movie is from the original, I love them both just as much!

 

I think this book is a nice story to tell a child. There’s so much a child can learn from it without being preached at.

A person’s a person no matter how small.

Horton’s loyalty is also so touching. And once cannot forget the expressive illustrations! I just can’t wait to start reading this to my son!

 

 

Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book by Dr. Seuss

 

This one is adorable! I wonder if it would make my little one excited to go to sleep by the end of it? Or would he just drift off while I’m only in the middle of this happy tale of the world saying good night and falling asleep? I find all the strange little creatures of Seuss imagination so cuddly and imaginative! Not to mention that the illustration help us understand his creatures better.

 

My husband read this book ahead of me and he was in stitches. He’d never read anything like this before, and one has to admit, it’s quite amusing!

At the fork of a road
In the Vale of Va-Vode
Five foot-weary salesmen have laid down their load.
All day they’ve raced round in the heat, at top speeds,
Unsuccessfully trying to sell Zizzer-Zoof Seeds
Which nobody wants because nobody needs.Tomorrow will come. They’ll go back to their chore.
They’ll start on the road, Zizzer-Zoofing once more
But tonight they’ve forgotten their feet are so sore.
And that’s what the wonderful night time is for.