Anne Shakespeare and why it is difficult
My newest book is now available as both a Kindle eBook and paperback through Amazon and it is entitled “Shake-speare: The Inside Story (The story of love, nature, humanism and free will told through Anne Shake-speare’s Sonnets).” (Buy now: https://tinyurl.com/2yrfjwdv)
This is a follow on from my first book, “Shake-speare: The Inside Story” which set out the evidence for Anne as author and available as both an eBook and paperback from Austin Macauley and Amazon, Booktopia andBook Depository . I am currently engaged in researching and writing my third book which is tentatively titled “Shake-speare’s Problem Plays (A new interpretation)” which I am hoping will be out in 2023.
Spirals within spirals. This is the rabbit hole of trying to understand why Anne wrote what she did. A woman living in a time of change but still not being able to fully express a feminine view, being constrained by the patriarchal dominance of the society and culture. On the one hand she is constrained by social conventions around such institutions as marriage, politics, power, ownership (of land and chattels), the place within this social world of the woman, tied to social conventions regarding home which includes birth, class and wealth. On the other hand, being excluded from the cultural world of ideas, writing expressing opinions and holding positions of influence (both in terms of relationships and such institutions as education, religion and conversations with equals). That is, excluded from holding views or engaging in debates and arguments in the arts, philosophy and science.
How then was Anne to bring to life her thoughts, her feelings, her lived experiences; to relate to other women, to guide the rich and powerful toward humanist ideals, to support changes to society that she felt were needed such as ideals of the Good life. With the success of her first two major poems, The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis, Anne had the first taste of the power of her poetry to influence and start debates around topics such as rape and domestic violence, love and chastity. But, unfortunately, the audience for these poems were probably only the wealthy, the people who had the means to purchase and to read them (the educated and wealthy strands of society). Anne wanted to reach not only these classes of people; she also wanted to reach the lower classes, those who attended plays (because it was cheap to go and they did not need to be educated to the level of being able to read). But this did not stop these lower class, as far as Anne was concerned, from not being able to hold opinions, to make moral judgements, to understand the difference between right and wrong, to be able to freely choose what they liked or disliked, to see the humour in character (and here Falstaff comes to mind as being a satiric figure of fun from the upper classes).
Which brings us to the present. After some four hundred years of bardolatry, with entrenched academic careers, university programs, all focussed on William as author, and to now try and turn that massive ship that is the Shakespearean canon around is difficult. To now say that for four hundred years, those academics and universities who have built their careers and credibility on having William as author (a male), to now challenge that with just as credible evidence that the real author is Anne (a female) is obviously going to be met with very strong resistance! But it is my goal and hope that the battle will be taken up by new researchers entering the field. Not to be brow-beaten into thinking that there is only one Shakespeare; and a male at that. It is time for a Shakespearean renaissance; to rightly place the real author and what it means for critical analysis now that this author is female.
More to come.
