Bardolatry II

.....Whenever I think of Shakespeare sitting down to write a play with a goose feathered quill pen, I tend to say to myself, "This cannot happen. This cannot be done. It isn't possible."  In P.S. 39 in the Bronx when I was 10 or 11 in the sixth grade I had an inkwell in my desk and a pen with a metal disk which I had to dip into the ink and write with it--often having to use a "blotter" to soak up a bubble of ink that dripped onto the paper.  It took forever to write anything.  Shakespeare did not have the benefit of Papermate ballpoint pens or a word processor on his computer.  Now, I wonder, did he write a play all the way through without a single error or correction that needed to be made?  Did he not have whiteout? Did he not have to write and rewrite as he went along?  And did he not have to write a whole play over again after making corrections in the margins?  (I did read somewhere that Tolstoy's wife had to copy his "War and Peace" thirteen times to get it right.)

.....  Now, Shakespeare, besides writing 36 plays and 154 sonnets, was also an actor and had to take time to learn his lines.  He was a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Company--a group of actors who contributed funds for the building of the Globe Theatre and they held shares in it.  And Shakespeare, though not the accomplished actor as was Richard Burbage, still performed in many plays.   Nevertheless, after his acting and his writing, he still managed the time to share a pint of ale in a Bidford inn with his friends and to exercise his love life.

.....In November 1582, at the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior after she informed him that she was pregnant with their first child, Susanna.  There is evidence that Anne's family pressured young William to make her an honest woman.  It was the custom in Elizabethan times to announce the "banns" three times during church services over a period of three weeks as a method of giving an objector to the marriage enough time to come forward; but the banns were announced only once--very unusual--and of course, very hasty.  Twins, Hamnet (who died at the age of eleven), and Judith were born in 1585.  Shakespeare never made it to Hamnet's funeral because he was off to the countryside with a traveling troupe and there was no telling where he was at the time, and no way to get a message to him.  By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London, already known as an actor and a playwright.  Those who try to give credit for the plays to some other "University educated" guy from Oxford or Cambridge are smoking the wrong weed.  The evidence that Will of Stratford was Will of the plays is overwhelming.  Now, I've been teaching the plays for many years and when someone complains to me that they are too hard to understand, I say to them that only the things that are above you can lift you up.  If I were to be stranded on a desert Island, I would like to bring with me my toothbrush, a roll of toilet paper, a six pack of diet Coke, several pairs of clean underwear, and a copy of Shakespeare's plays.