Besides setting up this blog, I spent a little time with Shapiro's book on Shakespeare in 1599. I was struck by how narrow the margin of creativity can be. Shapiro reckons there were 15 active playwrights in London at the time. It seems like a lot for a city of 200K, but on the other hand, it doesn't seem like much between all of Elizabethan drama and nothing at all. I notice that legislation could certainly count as one of the uncertainties about the future, and I suspect that this is an increasingly prominent part of calculations in the period, especially as the succession loomed larger in everyone's minds. That and the plague!
On our way down to Pennsylvania for Christmas we listened to Bill Bryson's Shakespeare book. While of course not scholarly, it was still very good and interesting, perfect for a long car ride. I especially liked his debunking of people who think Shakespeare must have been someone else, e.g. De Vere.
ReplyDeleteHave you read the Greenblatt?