William Shakespeare - The Fictitious Bard? ACT II - Article Published

March 26, 2012 - PRLog -- With only the finished product, we yearn for the thought process of Shakespeare, how he wrote what he did, we can reasonably ascertain why he wrote what he did if we look at the context of the world around him. He writes as any musician, artist or poet does today, with the audiences in his mind. The play ‘As You Like It’ is a good example of this, he says to his audience ‘Here, you love comedy so, then here it is, just as you like it’.

The gloriously romantic notion of him sitting alone at a desk, the cacophony of noise from a bustling Elizabethan London cascading through his window, as he scribbled away furiously with his ink stained fingers is... well, we have no idea if that is even true. Or indeed we have no idea if that’s false either. Thus it comes to various quarters using manipulative scholarship, removing the context from the narrative of his life, and replacing it with idealism and circumspect reasoning, and in this case, replacing Shakespeare altogether.

In Shakespeare Part two we will attempt to produce some linear understanding amid the chaos of wanton interpretation. Are the anti-Stratfordians really making ‘much ado about nothing?’

The Not-so-clever-Shakespeare.

We delve straight into the very heart of the debate between the two armed camps of anti-Stratfordians and Stratfordians, the issue of the works being much too clever for a mere son of Stratford to have penned. Only a noble of high born blood could have possibly known of the intricate workings of court life, of the glamour and glitz of 16th century Italy, and other depths of human knowledge such as medicine, military affairs and antiquarian studies. It is true; the eloquence shown through the works belie the upbringing of William Shakespeare from Stratford.  So, the question we must ask, is just how educated would Shakespeare have been?

The school records from the grammar school Shakespeare would have attended are long vanished (Bryson, 2006). This is a huge shame, as it could have told us unequivocally whether Shakespeare attended. Parts of history are lost to another world, and all we are left with are calculated assumptions based upon his father’s status at the time. We must also consider his father John Shakespeare’s role in the community that would have made his son not just eligible for education, but a compulsory matter of fact.

The school he would have attended was King’s New School, which was located in Guild Hall on Church Street in Stratford (Graham, 2003). The school is now a local landmark that still stands in Stratford, and is now named the King Edward VI Grammar school. It is even possible to see the very classroom of Shakespeare itself (if of course there are not classes taking place).

In the Tudor period, the school was open to any young male from the area, regardless of dubious intelligence or ability, just as long as they could read and write. We assume of course, that young Shakespeare could do both. An interesting fact is that King’s school was of a high standard of the time and graciously supported by the town (Bryson, 2006).

Boys in Elizabethan England were able to obtain a good education; beginning school around the age of seven, remaining there until they were about fourteen, where they would then go onto a University.

Shakespeare would have been fourteen in 1577, and this is the period in which his father suffered financial breakdown, thus Shakespeare was unable to attend university. To actually educate these young minds it was thought best to keep them at school for 11 hours or more, beginning at 6am. Schooling took place over a tedious 6 days a week. I dare say their school dinners were better though…

But, what was the syllabus like? Well, from what we know, it wouldn’t have been much like what we are used to today. They were treated to healthy dose of Classical studies and the art of Rhetoric, with the studying of works by Seneca, Cicero and Plautus.

This is of course in Latin too; Latin was the staple part of the education process. Ancient Greek classics would be studied... in Greek naturally. Aesop’s Fables would have certainly been a part of the curriculum (Graham, 2003) His awareness of tortoises and hares would have been astronomical of course, as well as the morality style of storytelling, which he does so well.

In effect, Shakespeare would have been armed to the teeth with the knowledge of the Classics and the Ancient World, and he would use this knowledge to great effect in his plays, combining this knowledge with his capacity for the knowledge of human character, from Icarus and his failed ambitions, to the tragic hero Aeneas and the founding of Rome.

Except the education Shakespeare was subjected to would not have included the other things he speaks so much of in his plays, such as mathematics or geography and indeed, love.  These weren’t considered entirely necessary for one’s education. Effectively, wherever Shakespeare managed to obtain this knowledge, it wasn’t from his school. (Bryson, 2006)

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