A C T A U N I V E R S I T A T I S L O D Z I E N S I S
F O L IA L IT T E R A R IA A N G L IC A 3, 1999
M elanie Branton
BRINGING HOME THE BACON:
A REASSESSMENT OF ANTI-STRATFORDIANISM IN THE CONTEXT OF ITS ROMANTIC ROOTS
IN T R O D U C T IO N
A n ti-S tratfo rd ia n ism , the belief th a t W illiam S hakespeare o f S tratfo rd - -u p o n -A v o n did n o t w rite the plays trad itio n ally ascribed to him , has been a th o rn in the flesh o f o rth o d o x literary scholarship since the first b oo ks an d articles a ttrib u tin g th e w o rk s to F ra n c is B aco n ap p e a re d in th e m id-n in eteen th century. A lth o u g h never su pp o rted by an y th in g resem bling scientifically valid evidence, the asso rtm en t o f theories a ttrib u tin g the plays to B acon, M arlow e, the earl o f O xford o r A nne H a th a w ay , am o n g o th ers, have received m u ch m edia a tten tio n , wide p ublic credence an d an a rray o f distinguished cham pions, including M a rk T w ain, O rso n W elles, Sigm und F re u d an d M alcolm X. T h e reaction o f S hak espearean academ ics to the a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n p h en o m en o n is, how ever, best exem plified by Sam uel S ch o en b au m ’s section on the theories in his m o n u m en tal 1970 survey o f S h akespearean biography, Shakespeare’s L ives: alth o u g h he dev oted one h u n d re d pages (o u t o f a to ta l o f 768) to “ the h eretics” , as he calls them , he brok e his otherw ise chronological sequencing o f m ateria l to q u a ra n tin e them in a ch a p te r o f th eir ow n, sandw iched betw een “ V icto rian s” an d “T h e T w en tieth C en tu ry ” , entitled “ D e v ia tio n s” . F o r m ain strea m sch o larsh ip has rarely acknow ledged an ti-S tratfo rd ian ism as p art o f the fab ric o f S hak es p earean critical discourse. W here it h a s n ’t ignored th e m o vem en t com pletely as being beneath its co n tem p t, it h as tended to analyse it in iso latio n from o th e r tren d s in literary criticism , as a specim en o f m isguided p o p u list th o u g h t, u tterly unrelated to its ow n activity.
M y p u rp o se in this p ap e r is n o t to argue th a t th e a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s are right in denying the trad itio n al attrib u tio n o f the S h ak esp earean canon: they are alm ost certainly w rong, and there is little, if any, em pirical rig o u r
in th eir subjective analyses and m anifestos. But as n o criticism - even m arg in al criticism , even criticism which all recognised experts d en oun ce as absolutely ridiculous - is w ritten in a vacuum , it is w orthw hile ceasing the practice o f exam ining an ti-S tratfo rd ia n discourse as an a b e rra n t practice w ith no relationship to o rth o d o x literary theory. W hen B aconian and O xfordian trac ts are taken o u t o f q u aran tin e and scrutinised alongside m ain stream critical texts co n tem p o rary to them , and p articu larly when placed beside the scholarly w orks which attack them , som e interesting com p ariso n s com e to light. O ften the critical a p p a ra tu s o f co nventional scholarsh ip tran sp ires to be as unso u n d as the “ heretics’ ” m eth o d s; often one can read in the am ateu r scholarship o f the an ti-S tratfo rd ia n s a justified critiq u e o f the flaw ed reasoning o f professional academ ia; th e relatio nsh ip betw een the established orth o d o x y and the crack p o t fringe theories suddenly starts to seem m ore sym biotic th a n hith erto . M y central c o n ten tio n is th a t it is tim e to bring hom e the B aconians, the O xfordians, th e M arlo v ian s and all their “d e v ia n t” friends from their unjust b anishm en t o n th e fringes o f S hakespeare scholarship, and to establish them in th eir rightful place as an in teg ral p a rt o f th e in te rte x tu a l m esh o f n in etee n th an d tw en tieth cen tu ry critical discourse. W hen this is done, one o f the first things which em erges is th a t early anti-S tratfordians share with their m ainstream o pp on ents a flawed R o m an tic reasoning.
T H E A N T I-ST R A T FO R D IA N S: A BRIEF H IST O R Y A N D O U T L IN E
T h e A m erican D elia Bacon was n o t the first person to express d o u b ts a b o u t the S tratfo rd ia n a u th o rsh ip in p rivate w ritings, b u t she was th e first to publish an assertive challenge to the trad itio n al a ttrib u tio n an d to posit an altern ativ e candidate: h er nam esake, F ran cis Bacon. H e r article in the A m erican jo u rn a l P u tn a m ’s M o n th ly in Ja n u a ry 1856 inspired m u ch ridicule b u t also initiated a wave o f B aconian publicatio n in B ritain, the US and G erm an y w hich still continues to d a y .1 In 1896 the first P olish B aconian article, U Szekspira by N e k a n d a T re p k a , appeared in p rin t in the W arsaw publicatio n A teneum 2. I h e theory th a t E dw ard d e Vere, seventeenth earl o f O x fo rd , w ro te the plays w as first posited in 1920 by th e B ritish schoolm aster J. T h o m as Looney, and ap p ears to have gained m o re adherents th a n any o th er “ heretical” g ro u p o th er th a n the B aconians. T h e M arlo v ian s
1 S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives (Oxford: Clarendon Press; N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 534; A d o lf Strzelecki, S zekspir i Bakon: wiele hałasu o nic (Kraków: “ C zas” F . K luczyckiego i Spółki, 1898), pp. 18-19.
to o k a while to establish them selves - no m ajo r ad v o cate until C alvin H o ffm an in the 1950s - b u t they d o hold the d istinction o f being the only a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n g ro u p to successfully exhum e a re lev an t R en aissan c e figure. D elia B acon had b roken into H oly T rin ity C h u rch in S tra tfo rd with tools to attem p t to illegally exhum e S hakespeare, but h ad lost her nerve. In 1956, how ever, H offm an persuaded council officials to allow him to legally open the tom b o f Sir F ran c is W alsingham , afte r ex p o un ding his hypothesis th a t W alsingham and M arlow e w ere long-term lovers, an d th a t secret d ocum ents confirm ing M arlo w e’s au th o rsh ip o f the S h ak espearean corpus w ould be found in the vault. N o th in g was d isco vered.3 V ario us o th e r claim ants have been pu t forw ard by various o th e r groups. N o n e o f those pro p o sin g the claim ants has been a m em ber o f a university English d e p a rtm e n t or had a specialised know ledge o f English literary o r historical research.
A N T I-ST R A T F O R D IA N CRITICAL ST R A T E G IE S
A n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n th o u g h t ten d s to progress th ro u g h a n u m b er o f stages. T his is a very generalised overview - som e o f th e „h e retic” critics d o n o t follow all these stages o r in this order.
Stage O ne
In m o st cases, a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s base th e ir in itial rejection o f th e S tra tfo rd S hakesp eare as the a u th o r o f the plays o n th e g ro u n d s th a t the personality w ho emerges from the genius exhibited in the plays is incom patible w ith the k now n facts o f S hakespeare’s biography. Som etim es this arg u m en t takes th e form o f an e q u a tio n o f artistic genius w ith suprem e m o ral p ro b ity , com bined w ith a selective in te rp re ta tio n o f th e legal d o cu m en ts and anecdotes associated with Shakespeare, which indicates th a t th e S tratford ac to r was an im m oral degenerate. D urning-L aw ren ce, fo r instance, describes S hakespeare as “ the sordid m oney-lender o f S tra tfo rd ,” 4 p o in tin g o u t th a t, “T h ere is only a single letter ex tan t addressed to Shakespeare, an d this asks fo r a lo an o f £30!” 5 and th a t there are “ in existence three, and three only, co n tem p o rary letters referring in any way to him , an d these are n o t a b o u t lite ratu re w ith which the S tratfo rd m an had n o th in g w hatever to do - b u t a b o u t m ean and sordid sm all business tra n s a c tio n s .” 6 T h e re is
3 Schoenbaum , op. cit., pp. 622-625.
4 Edwin Dum ing-Lawrence, Bacon Is Shakespeare (London: G ay and H ancock, 1910), p. 82. 5 Ibid., p. 51.
a curio u s circular logic in D u rn in g -L aw ren ce’s reasoning: he argues th a t because S hakespeare was involved in usury, he m u st have lacked the m o ral p ro b ity necessary to be a great artist; and then goes on to argue th a t since S hakespeare did n o t w rite the plays, it is an injustice to ascribe the plays to a m an o f m o ral calibre so m u ch low er th a n th a t o f the real a u th o r. T h e ap o cry p h al stories, d atin g from th e late seventeenth cen tury , th a t S hakespeare was a deer-poach er in his yo u th and th a t he died o f th e effects o f a d rin k in g spree w ith Ben Jo n so n and M ichael D ra y to n , have also been cited by a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s as evidence o f the S tratfo rd m a n ’s d eprav ity , inco m p atib le with tru e artistry, as has the fact th a t he applied fo r and gained the g ra n t o f a co a t o f arm s to which he was n o t technically entitled. F o r m o st an ti-S tratfo rd ia n s, th o u g h , it is n o t th e a c to r’s lack o f a noble spirit which causes the biggest problem s w ith the tra d itio n a l a ttrib u tio n o f th e w o rk s, b u t his lack o f n oble blood. M cM a n aw ay , surveying th e a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n trad itio n , notes th a t one o f the m o st recu rren t objections to the S hakespearean a u th o rsh ip “ is th a t he could have had no o p p o rtu n ity to h ea r the conv ersatio n o f royalty and nobility and, conseq uen tly , could n o t have w ritten the dialogue o f the plays.” 7 Jo n a th a n B ate has pointed o u t, “ It does n o t seem to occur to them th a t insight a b o u t roy al co u rts m ay be derived from b o o k s.” 8 A n o th e r reason the a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s give fo r th e im possibility o f the S tratfo rd ia n au th o rsh ip is S h ak esp eare’s lack o f schooling. T hey see specialised legal, m edical and philosophical know ledge in the plays which they assum e could only have been acquired by a university educated m an o r a privately educated noble with extensive leisure and an eclectic personal library, and a fluency and elab o ratio n o f literary style w hich they im agine was u n attain ab le by a m an w ho never progressed beyond secondary education. A dditionally, som e posit the lack o f ex tan t m an u scrip t m aterial attrib u tab le to S hakespeare and the a p p a re n t differences betw een his signature on legal docu m en ts to w hich he was a p arty as evidence th at he was n o t m erely ill-educated bu t actually illiterate. Professional S hakespeareans have been quick to p o in t o u t th a t these basic assu m p tio n s o f a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n th o u g h t c o n s titu te an an a c h ro n istic a p p lic a tio n o f p o st-in d u stria l R evolution, V ietorian values to the E lizab eth an age. T h e assum ption th a t a provincial glover’s son could n o t have gained a sophisticated level o f literacy reflects n in etee n th , n o t sixteenth, ce n tu ry ed u c a tio n a l practice. M o re im p o rtan tly , alth o u g h the desire for a teeto tal, cleanliving S hakespeare w ho fitted in with bourgeois social n orm s m ay have been an ti-R om antic (one suspects th a t D uring-Law rence and som e o f his colleagues
7 James G . M cM anaw ay, The Authorship o f Shakespeare (Ithaca: Cornell U niversity Press, 1962), p. 33.
8 Jonathan Bate, “ Snobbish about Shakespeare, B ook review,” in: The Sunday Telegraph, April 9, 1995.
w ould have liked a “ S h akesp eare” w ho covered his p ia n o legs an d d id n ’t p u t b ooks by m ale and fem ale au th o rs next to each o th er unless they were m arrie d ), the expectation th a t the artist should be an individual o f exalted sensibility is obviously pure R om anticism .
Stage T w o
H aving established in their ow n m inds th a t S hakespeare could n o t have w ritten the plays, the “ heretics” next m ove is obviously to identify w ho did. Som e already have a ca n d id ate in m ind , o thers com b an th olo gies o f
R enaissance w riting for echoes o f style and biographies o f key E lizabethan figures fo r them atic sim ilarities and coincidence o f events w ith th e plots o f the plays. T h e fo u n d er o f th e O xfordian m ovem ent, J. T h o m as L ooney, attem p ted to system atise this search by com piling a checklist o f eighteen characteristics which he th o u g h t the tru e a u th o r would possess. T h is list consists largely o f abstract characteristics, such as “ genius” and “ eccentricity” , w hich c a n n o t be em pirically m easured, and which are, in an y case, based o n L o o n ey ’s subjective im pression, derived from reading the S hak espearean w orks, o f w hat the tru e a u th o r m u st be like. F o r instance, m erely o n the gro u n d s th a t th ere are m an y sporting an d h u n tin g im ages in th e plays, L ooney assum es th a t the real “ S hakesp eare” m ust have been a noted sp o rtsm an ; how ever, this very selective ap p ro ach ignores the w ealth of o th e r im agery in the w orks - m atern ity is an o th er re cu rre n t them e, but L ooney does n o t conclude th a t “ S hakespeare” m u st have been a m o th er.
Stage T h ree
H av in g established w ho the “ tru e ” a u th o r is, they th en engage in exegesis, often involving a fuller com parative study o f th e w riter’s b iog rap hy an d the plays and poem s. T here is a dual purpo se in this: it is b o th an interpretive strategy and a further attem p t to prove their theory o f authorship.
F o r exam ple, D u rning-L aw rence identifies Y orick, th e jester referred to in H am let, w ith Jo h n H eyw ood, a T u d o r c o u rt jester w ho was allegedly a friend o f the B acon fam ily and thus m ay have played w ith F ran c is w hen the latter w as a child. O n these ground s he argues th a t H a m le t’s statem en t th a t Y orick carried him on his back proves th a t H a m let - “ S h ak esp eare” (the tw o are ap p aren tly indistinguishable in D u rn in g -L aw ren ce’s m in d ) m u st be B acon, fo r the S tratfo rd actor could never have m et H e y w o o d .w I he O xfo rd ian s to o scour the plays for w hat they tak e to be bio graph ical references. L ooney discovered th a t the earl experienced m an y ol th e sam e m isfo rtu n e s as “ S h a k e sp e a re ’s” ch aracters: like H a m le t, he h ad been d istu rb ed by his m o th e r’s rem arriage less th a n a year after the d e a th oi
his father; like O thello, he had been persuaded by a d isho nest servant to accuse an inno cent wife o f adultery; and (believe it o r n o t) like B ertram in A ll s W ell That Ends W ell and A ngelo in M easure f o r M easure, he was rep o rted to have been tricked in to sleeping with his estranged wife under cover o f darkness in the belief th a t she was som eone else. T h e problem s w ith th is a p p ro a c h are obvious. F irstly, by a rb itra rily iden tifying th e a u th o r w ith selected ch a rac te rs from the plays and re ad in g th em as biography, an ti-S tratfo rd ia n w riters ignore the d ra m a tic ch a rac te r o f the w orks. Secondly, even if we accept th a t these references in th e plays tru ly are allusions to Ileyw ood and O xford, these m en were so fam ous in the sixteenth century th a t facts ol their biographies were co m m o n know ledge, and playw rights m ay well have alluded to them to add top ical in terest to their w ork in m uch the sam e way th a t d ra m a tists and T V scriptw riters to d ay som etim es m ake jokes a b o u t well k now n public figures. T h e device o f th e b ed-trick is fairly co m m o n in R enaissan ce w riters o th e r th an S hakespeare: it is used in The Changeling, for instance, when B eatrice- Jo a n n a bribes D ia p h a n ta to stand in for her o n her w edding n ig ht to conceal the fact th a t the bride is n o t a virgin. In the sam e play, D ia p h a n ta o n learning th a t her m istress intends to test w hether she really is a virgin quips to the audience: She will n o t search me? . . . Like the forew o m an o f a fem ale ju ry ,” 10 and this is generally accepted to be a g ra tu ito u s topical allusion to the n o to rio u s vaginal inspection o f P enelope R ich a t her divorce hearing. R esonances o f the lives o f real-life figures in E lizabethan plays are n o t unco m m on, then, and biographical allusion does n o t have to be au to b io g ra p h ic al allusion.
Stage F o u r
H aving read their ca n d id a te’s life-story into the plays and in terp reted the plays according to th a t life-story, they generally conclude th a t the biographical references are no t ju s t incidental, n o r even a sp o n tan eo u s overflow o f feeling on b eh alf o f the poet in th e interests o f his own cath arsis, bu t a deliberate hint to the reader o f w ho the a u th o r is. A m ore th o ro u g h search for fu rth e r hints and clues brings dividends to diligent a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n readers. It is a com m on place o f a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n th o u g h t to read A ct hive Scene One o f A s You L ike It, in which T o u ch sto n e the clow n o rd e rs the ru stic W illiam to a b a n d o n all claim to th e w om an A udrey, now T o u c h sto n e ’s prospective bride, as a covert m essage th a t th e tru e a u th o r is o rdering the rustic W illiam S hakespeare to relin quish all pretension to the a u th o rsh ip o f the p lay s.11 T h a t this com plicated exegesis
10 Ih om as M iddleton, The Changeling. Jacobean Tragedies, ed. A. H . G om m e (London. Oxford U niversity Press, 1969), p. 283.
entails identifying th eir idol w ith a clown, and a po ten tially big am o us clow n a t th a t, does n o t seem to b o th er the B aconians and O xfordians.
It is bu t a sh o rt step from here to seeing literal secret m essages em bedded in the text. All O xfordians believe th a t the earl “ sign ed” the w orks o f “ S hakespeare” by using w ords containing th e “ v er” letter c o m bin atio n (e.g. ever, very, discover) in key places. Indeed, on this p o in t the O g b u rn s indulge in a quasi-religious veneration o f th eir idol, ind ig nan tly accusing those w ho d o n o t share their belief o f som ething resem bling blasphem y:
Oxford used all the variants and com binations o f Ver . . . n ot only consciously but purposefully throughout the plays, as a signature. In its different forms it threads and branches within the body o f his work like an arterial system which centred in the p o et’s heart. H is “good nam e” was dearer to him than his life’s blood, and the sonnets attest that he m ade alm ost a fetish o f a great nam e’s immortality. T hose w h o scorn to read his signature or care nothing for his nam e’s im m ortality are scorning the poet h im self.12
I c a n ’t read the O g b u rn s’ book w ithou t co nstan tly being eerily rem inded o f B arthes’s “ D e ath o f the A u th o r.” W h at springs to m ind here is that:
We know now that a text is n ot a line o f words releasing a single “theological” meaning (the “ m essage” o f the author-god) but a multi-dim ensional space in which a variety o f writing, non e o f them original, blend and clash.13
B arthes was being figurative when he talks o f “ theo lo gical” and “ g o d ” , b u t th e O gburns w eren’t. A t this stage in an ti-S tratfo rd ia n th o u g h t the c a n d id a te often takes on the statu re o f a deity w ho, like C hrist, reveals him self cryptically in parables so th a t only the chosen m ay k now him . T he “ V e r” sign ature pales into insignificance beside the anagram s, secret codes and num erology o th er an ti-S tratfo rd ia n s have read into th e plays. D u rn in g - -L aw rence’s chief co n trib u tio n to an ti-S tratfo rd ia n th o u g h t is his w ork “ On the revealing page 136 in L o v e ’s L a b o u r’s L o s t.” H e calculates th a t in the 1623 folio the strange E lizabethan buzzw ord “ h o n o ro rific ab ilitu d in itatib u s” ap p eared on page 136 as the 151st w ord, and fell on the 27th line. T hose th ree num bers becom e his key num erological figures. H e p o in ts o u t th a t the long w ord has 27 letters, and th a t if we assign to each o f the letters a num erical value based on its placing in the alp h ab et (A = 1, B = 2 etc.) an d add the values together, the value o f the en tire w ord is 287 - the sum o f 136 and 151. H e goes on to form a L atin anagram o f th e w ord: “ H i
12 D orothy and Charlton O gbum , The S tar o f England (N ew York: Cow ard-M cCann, 1952), pp. 175-176.
13 R oland Barthes, The Death o f the Author, trans. Stephen H eath; Twentieth Century
ludi B aconis n ati tuiti o rb i,” o r, “T hese plays F. B acon ’s offspring are preserved fo r the w orld.” H e th en adds the num erical values o f th e initial an d term in al letters o f each w ord in the an ag ram and finds they com e to 136, the values o f the rem aining letters to 151. H e next calculates the num erical value o f B acon’s nam e, by the sam e system , to be 33. T u rn in g to line 33 o f page 136, he finds the line: “ W h at is A b speld b ackw ard w ith the h o rn on his head?” D u rning -L aw rcn ce com m ents: “T h e reply should o f course have been in L atin. T h e L atin for a h o rn is cornu. T h e real answ er therefore is ‘Ba corn-u fo o l .'1*
Stage F ive
As m entioned before, once they get to the stage o f cry p to g ram s and num erology, an ti-S tratfo rd ian s are also likely to search for secret docum ents, w hich they usually expect to find hidden in graves.
A n ti-S tratfo rd ia n s are usually pro n e to conspiracy theories - suspicious th a t d astard ly enem ies suppressed th eir h e ro ’s tru e id entity in his/h er ow n lifetim e, suspicious th a t the critical establishm en t is w orking to suppress the tru th they long to reveal now.
P eter S am m artin o ’s claim th a t the establishm ent recognises the tru th o f th eir claim s b u t will n o t openly reveal it for fear o f losing face:
C an you imagine what would happen to the reputation o f thousands o f professors if it were established that the true Shakespeare was n ot the Stratford man? It just w ou ld n’t d o to have this hap pen.15
is p aten tly p a ra n o id , and displays typical a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n ign o ran ce o f the fact th a t from the em ergence o f the New C riticism in the 1930s on w ard s literary critical strategies have m oved fu rth e r and fu rth e r aw ay from overtly b io g rap h ic al read ings an d the id e n tity o f the a u th o r is irre le v an t to in te rp re ta tio n o f the texts. T herefo re, even if a different a u th o r were p roved, the w ork and status o f conventional scho larship w ould n o t be substan tially underm ined. H ow ever, the an ti-S tratfo rd ia n s are righ t to feel aggrieved, in th a t the critical establishm ent has been suppressing them in one sense, by denying them the dignity accorded to m ain strea m theories o f th e ir d ay , an d co n sid erin g them o u t o f co n tex t. A s sta te d in th e in tro d u ctio n , ju st as N ew C ritics read texts in iso latio n from th e cultu re th a t p rodu ced them , so Schoenbaum and o th er scholars o f his g eneratio n read the an ti-S tratfordian m ovem ent in isolation and explain the phenom enon n o t as a p ro d u c t o f nineteenth century cultural forces, b u t as an o rg anic failing in th e p ro p o n e n ts o f th e th eo ry them selves. F o r th o se o f th e
14 D u m ing-L aw rence, op. cit., pp. 84-104.
15 Peter Sam m artino, The M an Who W as William Shakespeare (N ew York: Cornwall B ooks, 1990), p. 14.
a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s fo r w hom he has a residual respect, such as D elia B acon o r Sigm und F re u d , p sychopathology allow s him to claim th a t they were intelligent, sensitive beings w ho m erely lost co n tro l o f th eir senses. W ith th o se fo r w hom he has no sym pathy, the fault is in th eir p erso nality - they are ju st stupid, sm all-m inded snobs.
S nobbery is invoked by Bate, to o , to explain th e an ti-S tra tfo rd ia n phen o m en o n . T hese establish m en tarian accusations o f sno bb ery ag ain st their o p p o n en ts arc som ew hat surprising, how ever, given their ow n sn ob bery to w a rd s n o n -p ro fessio n al S h ak esp eare en th u siasts. S ch o en b a u m e q u a te s a m a te u rs w ith “ eccentrics, th e cra n k s w ith th e o rie s,” 16 sneers a t th e low -brow reading o f the “ heretics” ,17 and condescendingly explains w hy one ju ro r a t a B oston m edia “ tria l” o f the B aconian cause in 1892 had the critical naivete to find in fav o u r o f Bacon: “ M r K ru ell was a w ood engraver.” 18 O ne can understand the frustration o f m ainstream Shakespearean scholars w ho feel th eir life’s w ork is being eclipsed in the p o p u la r m ed ia by badly researched, unsystem atic folklore. S choenbaum bitterly re m a rk s in m o re th a n one place in his discussion o f the a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s th a t if the a m o u n t o f m o ney and press a tte n tio n lavished on them h ad been diverted to serious scholarship, the b ound aries o f real S h ak espearean know ledge w ould have been greatly expanded. B ut there seems to be a parad o x ical sim ilarity betw een th e sn o b b ery o f the a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s , w ho c a n n o t accept th a t a co u n try tra d e sm a n ’s son w ith n o university ed u c atio n could have w ritten the plays and the snobbery o f academ ics like S choenbaum and B ate w ho assum e th a t tradesp eople w ith no university ed u c atio n have n o rig h t to a voice in the in terp re tatio n o f Shakespeare.
M oreo ver, the identification o f sim ple snobbery as th e cause o f “ h eretic” views cam ouflages their ro o ts in stan d ard n ineteen th century beliefs. A s has already been pointed o u t, an ti-S tratfo rd ian ism is essentially R o m a n tic in its tw o basic tenets: a) th a t the plays are expressive - th a t th eir p rim ary p u rp o se is to record fo r p o sterity the em otio ns and subjective experience o f the a u th o r, an d b) th a t au th o rs are beings o f exalted sensitivity. W hile critics o f the a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s m ay be right in levelling accusation s o f an a c h ro n ism a t th em , w hen co n sid erin g th e early “ h e re tic s” th e re is a curiously hypocritical an achro nism in expecting them to be otherw ise, for if we look at pre-1930s critiques o f B aconianism we see th a t m ain strea m critics were them selves using arg um ents w hich now seem to us d a te d , naive an d an achron istically ro o ted in R o m an tic th o u g h t to o v ertu rn th e th eo ry o f the heretics.
16 Schoenbaum , op. cit., p. viii.
17 Ibid., pp. 566, 598, 626. 18 Ibid., p. 573.
A d o lf Strzelecki m akes som e very acute o b servation s a b o u t the a n a chron ism o f B aconian th o u g h t, dryly com m enting on the ap p ro p riacy o f the choice o f B acon and R aleigh’s coterie as au th o rsh ip can d id a tes in the m id-n in eteen th century: “ Było to g ron o, dążące d o sw obody, w olności, postęp u, coś w guście d em o k ra tó w i liberałów 1848 r .” 19 and ch aracterisin g the dism issal o f S tratfo rd ia n au th o rsh ip on m o ral grou n d s as th e m isa p p lication o f “ wszelkich reguł i zasad angielsko-am erykańskiego p u ry tan iz- m u ” 20 to the R enaissance. B ut the picture o f S hakespearean E ng land which Strzelecki posits in its stead is an equally unhistorical fantasy: “ A nglia w okresie m łodości Szekspira, to w całem tego słow a znaczeniu M e rry O ld
England, pełna w esołości, h u m o ru , zado w o len ia, św ieżości. P u ry ta ń s k a
surow ość obyczajów nie zm roziła jeszcze ludności.” 21 In his depiction o f S hakespeare the uniquely gifted B ohem ian, defiantly b attlin g th e e n c ro a ching forces of drearily literal-m inded bourgeois P u ritan censorship, one ca n n o t help feeling th a t Strzelecki is describing the tensions o f fin de siecle P oland, no t o f E lizabethan E ngland. H e sets the blam e fo r the rise o f the a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n fallacy firm ly a t the feet o f R o m a n tic A ng lo -G erm an b ard o latry : K u lt szekspirow ski w Anglii, a szczególnie w N iem czech, p rz y b rał rozm iary olbrzym ie i przesadne. E ntuzyazm , zachw yt, przeszedł wszelkie granice, n iejednokrotnie stał się m an ią, bezkrytycznem b ałw o chw alstw em , bezsensow nem zaślep ien iem ” 22 b u t p a te n tly sh ares in this tra d itio n himself. T here is no m o re revealing p h rase in the w hole book th a n the o ne in w hich he announces th a t Shakespeare saw “ okiem poety, okiem dziecka, okiem człow ieka p ierw otnego” and ascribes this ability to see the w orld as a child to fo u r writers: S hakespeare, G o eth e, M ickiew icz and B y ro n .23 H e also asks, q u ite sensibly, b u t again w ith an alarm ingly p a n -R o m a n tic array o f exam ples, why S hakesp eare’s ap p a re n t interest in com m erce an d his ow n financial advancem ent should be tak en as evidence against his au th o rsh ip , w hen G o eth e, Byron and Sir W alter S co tt all did q u ite well fo r them selves and w ere never know n to tu rn their noses u p at a roy alty p a y m e n t.24
All th e a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n arg u m e n ts c ro p up in reverse: w here th e B aconians had argued th a t S hakespeare could n o t have w ritten th e plays because he had never experienced life at co u rt, Strzelecki argues th a t, as there is im agery in the H enry V I plays concerning th e w ork o f a bu tch er, B aco n cou ld n o t h av e w ritte n th e plays b ecause his fa th e r w as n o t
19 Strzelecki, op. cit., p. 11. 20 Ibid., p. 32.
21 Ibid., p. 29. 22 Ibid., p. 59. 23 Ibid., p. 36. 24 Ibid., p. 181.
a bu tch er.25 W here som e an ti-S tratfo rd ia n s tak e th e sto ry th a t S hakespeare fled W arw ickshire for L o n d o n because he had been ca u g h t p oachin g deer as p ro o f o f his churlish degeneracy, w here m o st m ain stream scholars deny the au th en ticity o f the anecdote, Strzelecki desperately wants S hakespeare to have been a deer poach er, to confirm his th eory th a t S hakespeare was a wild, sp o n tan eo u s, rebellious yo uth, unconstrained by bourgeois social co n ventions and closely in tou ch with n a tu re .26
S trzelecki’s critical exegesis rivals th a t o f the a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s in its n aivete, literal-m in d ed n ess and the circu larity o f its re aso n in g . In his coverage o f S h ak esp eare’s m arriag e w ith A nne H a th a w ay he uses the k n o w n facts a b o u t the union to selectively read the plays for references, and th en uses tho se references to back up his claim th a t the tru e a u th o r can only be the S tratfo rd m an . R em arking, “ Nie m iałoby sensu przypisyw ać zbyt wiele wagi d o p o rozrzucanych w najrozm aitszych dziełach S zekspira uw ag i refleksyj, przyznaw ać im w arto ść au to biog raficzny ch w y zn ań,” he th en plucks references to unhappy m arriag es from the plays, co m m entin g o n P ro sp e ro ’s curse on F erd in an d if he breaks M ira n d a ’s virgin k n o t before the w edding rites: “ Czyż nie przebija się w spom nienie w łasnego sto su n k u z A n n ą w słow ach P ro sp e ro ” .27
Strzelecki is, o f course, a straw targ e t, as m uch as th e a n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n s are, b u t this kind o f criticism is sy m p tom atic o f the times. S isson’s satirical a tta c k on R o m an tic excesses in Shakespeare criticism in “T h e M ythical S orrow s o f S h ak espeare” 28 m akes clear th a t the practice o f m aking sim plistic eq u a tio n s betw een S h akespeare’s life and art was still p rev alent in o rth o d o x literary analysis. C aro lin e S pu rg eo n ’s w ork on Shakespeare's Im agery and
W hat I t Tells Us, published in 1935, fifteen years after L ooney, in which
by a com plex system o f cross-referenced index card s she attem p ted to analyse S h ak esp e are an use o f m e ta p h o r in a “ scientific” , em piricaily - -qu an tifiab le way, attra cted som e derision even in h er ow n day . T his is largely because as well as using her analysis o f im agery as an in terp retiv e to o l for analysis o f the plays she also used the p a tte rn s o f im agery to r • d ra w co n c lu sio n s a b o u t W illiam S h a k e sp e a re ’s p e rs o n a l in te re sts an d preferences. T his leads her to such prosaic yet detailed speculation as: “ By 1599, w hen he was five an d thirty, S hakespeare h ad p ro b a b ly experienced , h e a rtb u rn as the result o f acid ity” 29 . . . “ H e w as, one w ould ju dg e, t t ) __________
25 Ibid., pp. 39-40. 26 Ibid., p. 46. 27 Ibid., p. 44.
28 C. H. Sisson, The M yth ical Sorrows o f Shakespeare. Studies In Shakespeare: British
A cadem y Lectures, ed. Peter A lexander (London: Oxford U niversity Press, 1964), pp. 9 -32.
29 Caroline Spurgeon, S h akespeare’s Im agery an d What Is Tells Us (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), p. 119.
a co m p eten t rider, and loved horses, as indeed he did m o st anim als, except spaniels and house d o g s’ and ‘O f all gam es, bowls would seem to be the one he knew m o st intim ately and played w ith keenest zest.’ ” 30 M an y o f her m eth o d s arc open to the sam e criticism s as L o o n ey ’s: like him , she tries to build up a picture o f the B ard ’s personality based on the im agery o f the plays, and while her catego risatio n is m o re extensive th a n L o o n ey ’s, it still relies on a great deal o f selective in terp re tatio n . Like Looney, she m ingles p ride in the scientific n atu re o f her card-index system with the a m a te u r’s d efiant com placency in the fact th a t her key term s are to o in tu itiv e to be em pirically defined: she triu m p h a n tly refuses to define “ im age” , even th o u g h the sceintific value o f her w ork d epends u p o n it.31 She deserves credit for firm ly laying her creed o f expressionism in her in tro d u c tio n - “ I believe it to be p rofoundly tru e th a t th e real revelation o f the w riter’s personality, tem p eram en t and q uality o f m ind is to be found in his w o rk s.” 32 - b u t it is p aten tly the sam e naive e q u a tio n o f p erson ality and w orks so derided in the “ heretics” . W hen the New C ritics launched th eir a tta c k on inten tio n alist readings o f literatu re, they cau tio ned again st “m essage h u n tin g ” it was precisely this kind o f reading they m u st have had in m ind.
A n ti-S tra tfo rd ia n criticism , th en , far from being a freak pheno m en o n , unconnected to m ain stream criticism , is actually em bedded in the sam e R o m an tic values as m u ch o rth o d o x literary in terp re tatio n . It is, in essence, expressive realism ru n m ad, taken to its logical - or illogical - conclusion. F o r if one holds, as Spurgeon and m an y critics o f her d ay did, th a t texts encapsulate the spirit and personality o f the au th o r, and th a t diligent reading can yield “ secret m essages” ab o u t the te x t’s creato r, it is but one sh o rt step from here to seeing literal secret messages. I f one holds, as Spurgeon did, th at the m an em erging from the plays is “in m any ways in character w hat one can only describe as Christ-like; th at is, gentle, kindly, honest, brave and true, with deep understanding and quick sym pathy for all living things” 33 the tem ptation m u st be there to search o u t a ca n d id ate w hose b io g rap h y sq uares m ore fittingly w ith these facts, o r to see the a u th o r as a literally divine figure. T h e anti-S tratfo rd ian ism o f the nineteenth and early tw entieth century, th en , does n o t seem particularly ridiculous, in the con tex t o f co n tem p o rary m ain stream criticism . Indeed, if m ain stream scholars o f the tim e had heeded th e lessons th a t the flaws o f an ti-S tratfo rd ia n ism could have tau g h t them a b o u t the inconsistency o f their ow n scholarship, the bastions o f expressive realism m ay have fallen earlier th an they did.
30 Ibid., p. 204. 31 Ibid., p. 6. 32 Ibid., p. 4. 33 Ibid., p. 207.
M elanie li ran ton
B A C O N A S Z E K S PIR : S P O J R Z E N IE N A P O G L Ą D Y A N T Y -ST R A T F O R D C Z Y K Ó W W ŚW IE T L E P R Z E M IA N W D W U D Z IE S T O W IE C Z N E J KRYTYCE LITERACKIEJ
Poglądy anty-stratfordczyków, twierdzących, że W illiam Szekspir nie napisał utw orów tradycyjnie mu przypisywanych budziły protesty ortodoksyjnych literaturoznaw ców od sam ego początku, tj. od mom entu, kiedy w połow ie X IX w. ukazały się pierwsze publikacje utrzymujące, że prawdziwym autorem jest Francis Bacon. Podobne poglądy były z reguły odrzucane i całkow icie pom ijane, przy czym wysuwane kontrargumenty często były równie wątpliwe jak d ow od y „heretyków ” .
N ie zajmując stanowiska w obec prawdziwości twierdzeń anty-stratfordczyków, autorka artykułu postuluje, by spokojnie przyjrzeć się pism om zw olenników tych teorii i przywrócić im należne miejsce w intertekstualnej sieci pow iązań krytyki literackiej X IX i X X w.
