Rodney Bolt: History Play: The Lives and After-life of Christopher Marlowe

Rodney Bolt

History Play

Dedication Dedication Epigraph Foreword PROLOGUE A Dead Man in Deptford PART I CHAPTER ONE Prefaces to Shakespeare CHAPTER TWO Une Histoire Inventée CHAPTER THREE Catch My Soul CHAPTER FOUR Gentlemen of a Company Interlude PART II CHAPTER FIVE West Side Story CHAPTER SIX Gypsy Soul CHAPTER SEVEN Men of Respect CHAPTER EIGHT Shakespeare in Love CHAPTER NINE Theatre of Blood CHAPTER TEN The Mousetrap CHAPTER ELEVEN The Reckoning Interlude PART III CHAPTER TWELVE His Exits and His Entrances CHAPTER THIRTEEN In the Bleak Midwinter CHAPTER FOURTEEN Renaissance Man CHAPTER FIFTEEN Under the Mask CHAPTER SIXTEEN Themes and Variations CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Prospero’s Books Afterword Appendices Notes and References Bibliography Index Acknowledgements About the Author Praise Copyright About the Publisher

For my parents

Epigraph Epigraph Foreword PROLOGUE A Dead Man in Deptford PART I CHAPTER ONE Prefaces to Shakespeare CHAPTER TWO Une Histoire Inventée CHAPTER THREE Catch My Soul CHAPTER FOUR Gentlemen of a Company Interlude PART II CHAPTER FIVE West Side Story CHAPTER SIX Gypsy Soul CHAPTER SEVEN Men of Respect CHAPTER EIGHT Shakespeare in Love CHAPTER NINE Theatre of Blood CHAPTER TEN The Mousetrap CHAPTER ELEVEN The Reckoning Interlude PART III CHAPTER TWELVE His Exits and His Entrances CHAPTER THIRTEEN In the Bleak Midwinter CHAPTER FOURTEEN Renaissance Man CHAPTER FIFTEEN Under the Mask CHAPTER SIXTEEN Themes and Variations CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Prospero’s Books Afterword Appendices Notes and References Bibliography Index Acknowledgements About the Author Praise Copyright About the Publisher

About anyone so great as Shakespeare, it is probable that we can never be right; and if we can never be right, it is better that we should from time to time change our way of being wrong.

T. S. ELIOT

Contents

Cover

Title Page Rodney Bolt History Play

Dedication Dedication Dedication Epigraph Foreword PROLOGUE A Dead Man in Deptford PART I CHAPTER ONE Prefaces to Shakespeare CHAPTER TWO Une Histoire Inventée CHAPTER THREE Catch My Soul CHAPTER FOUR Gentlemen of a Company Interlude PART II CHAPTER FIVE West Side Story CHAPTER SIX Gypsy Soul CHAPTER SEVEN Men of Respect CHAPTER EIGHT Shakespeare in Love CHAPTER NINE Theatre of Blood CHAPTER TEN The Mousetrap CHAPTER ELEVEN The Reckoning Interlude PART III CHAPTER TWELVE His Exits and His Entrances CHAPTER THIRTEEN In the Bleak Midwinter CHAPTER FOURTEEN Renaissance Man CHAPTER FIFTEEN Under the Mask CHAPTER SIXTEEN Themes and Variations CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Prospero’s Books Afterword Appendices Notes and References Bibliography Index Acknowledgements About the Author Praise Copyright About the Publisher For my parents

Epigraph Epigraph Epigraph Foreword PROLOGUE A Dead Man in Deptford PART I CHAPTER ONE Prefaces to Shakespeare CHAPTER TWO Une Histoire Inventée CHAPTER THREE Catch My Soul CHAPTER FOUR Gentlemen of a Company Interlude PART II CHAPTER FIVE West Side Story CHAPTER SIX Gypsy Soul CHAPTER SEVEN Men of Respect CHAPTER EIGHT Shakespeare in Love CHAPTER NINE Theatre of Blood CHAPTER TEN The Mousetrap CHAPTER ELEVEN The Reckoning Interlude PART III CHAPTER TWELVE His Exits and His Entrances CHAPTER THIRTEEN In the Bleak Midwinter CHAPTER FOURTEEN Renaissance Man CHAPTER FIFTEEN Under the Mask CHAPTER SIXTEEN Themes and Variations CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Prospero’s Books Afterword Appendices Notes and References Bibliography Index Acknowledgements About the Author Praise Copyright About the Publisher About anyone so great as Shakespeare, it is probable that we can never be right; and if we can never be right, it is better that we should from time to time change our way of being wrong. T. S. ELIOT

Foreword

PROLOGUE A Dead Man in Deptford

PART I

CHAPTER ONE Prefaces to Shakespeare

CHAPTER TWO Une Histoire Inventée

CHAPTER THREE Catch My Soul

CHAPTER FOUR Gentlemen of a Company

Interlude

PART II

CHAPTER FIVE West Side Story

CHAPTER SIX Gypsy Soul

CHAPTER SEVEN Men of Respect

CHAPTER EIGHT Shakespeare in Love

CHAPTER NINE Theatre of Blood

CHAPTER TEN The Mousetrap

CHAPTER ELEVEN The Reckoning

Interlude

PART III

CHAPTER TWELVE His Exits and His Entrances

CHAPTER THIRTEEN In the Bleak Midwinter

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Renaissance Man

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Under the Mask

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Themes and Variations

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Prospero’s Books

Afterword

Appendices

Notes and References

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

Foreword

How curious and interesting is the parallel – as far as poverty of biographical details is concerned – between Satan and Shakespeare. It is wonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing resembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing approaching it even in tradition. They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet. By way of a preamble to this book, I should like to set down a list of every positively known fact of Shakespeare’s life, lean and meagre as the invoice is. Beyond these details we know not a thing about him. All the rest of his vast history, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon course, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures – a tower of artificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation of inconsequential facts.

FACTS

He was born on the 23rd of April, 1564.

Of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names.

At Stratford, a small back-settlement which in that day was shabby and unclean, and densely illiterate. Of the nineteen important men charged with the government of the town, thirteen had to ‘make their mark’ in attesting important documents, because they could not write their names.

Of the first eighteen years of his life nothing is known. They are a blank.

On the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a licence to marry Anne Whateley.

Next day William Shakespeare took out a licence to marry Anne Hathaway. She was eight years his senior.

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. In a hurry. By grace of a reluctantly-granted dispensation there was but one publication of the banns.

Within six months the first child was born.

About two (blank) years followed, during which period nothing at all happened to Shakespeare , so far as anybody knows.

Then came twins – 1585. February.

Two blank years follow.

Then – 1587 – he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family behind.

Five blank years follow. During this period nothing happened to him , as far as anybody actually knows.

Then – 1592 – there is mention of him as an actor.

Next year – 1593 – his name appears in the official list of players.

Next year – 1594 – he played before the Queen. A detail of no consequence: other obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign. And remained obscure.

Three pretty full years follow. Full of play-acting. Then

In 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford.

Thirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulated money, and also reputation as actor and manager.

Meantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associated with a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the same.