Jim Shapiro article in last weekend's FT

[azalaisdep]

Fans of Jim Shapiro - I know there are one or two on my flist! might be interested in this article from the weekend's Financial Times (which despite its title and reputation has a remarkably good arts section) about Shakespearean attribution and collaborative authorship:

Just William: did Shakespeare write his plays alone?

Comments

[sensiblecat]

I have huge respect for Shapiro. His book "1599" totally gripped me and had a lot to do with my decision to take an MA in Bard Studies. It's a wonderful book. And I look forward to reading this one, too. The conspiracy theorists are always with us - they tend to be in love with the idea of Shakespeare as romantic genius rather than as a hard-headed playwright who needed to earn a living. I was chatting to someone yesterday who was arguing, basically, that Shakespeare should never have written The Taming of Shrew and I was trying to explain to he'd no way of knowing he'd become a cultural icon and a moral touchstone for Western literature - at the time he was turning a penny by writing on a popular theme that was quite probably distasteful to him.

There's a good review of the Shapiro book in The Economist this week, too.

[azalaisdep]

Ooh, I like the Economist cultural section, but we're not currently subscribing - will have to persuade the Resident Geek to pick a copy up...

I've just finished reading 1599! The section on the multiple versions of Hamlet in particular fascinated me...