Tantalizing hints of Shakespeare
A historian pieces together bits and scraps in an effort to re-create a chapter in the life of the Bard of Avon.
from the February 26, 2008 edition
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But Nicholl is able to capture glimpses of the neighborhood, "leafy ... with secretive walled gardens. Birdsong mingles with the noises of trade, the aroma of medicinal herbs vies with chimney-smoke, cooking-smells and cesspits."
He is also able to re-create the Mountjoys ("the industrious, quarrlesome, somewhat rackety family of immigrants with whom [Shakespeare] lodged") and the trade (the manufacturing of elaborate hats and wigs) that they brought with them from France. In their home was "the workshop with its wire-mills and twisting-wheels, and its clientele which included royalty and artistocracy as well as prostitutes and players."
Best of all, Nicholl gives us the context in which Shakespeare would have experienced all this – a London that was as sophisticated as it was squalid, and small enough that the outlines of Shakespeare's social network can be traced. (Here Nicholl is particularly knowledgeable – his other works include biographies of some Shakespeare contemporaries.)
Most of what Nicholl writes remains speculative – and yet it intrigues. A "Cordelia" (an unusual name at the time) was born around the corner in the time frame that Shakespeare worked on "King Lear." Might there be a connection?
Angelo's garden in "Measure for Measure" (another play dating from Shakespeare's Silver Street residency) is described as "circummur'd with brick,/ Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd" – much like the yards in the Mountjoy's neighborhood. Could Shakespeare's room have offered him such a view as he wrote?
"All's Well that Ends Well" (also from that period) features a young Frenchman pressed into marriage (not unlike Belott), while "King Lear" describes a daughter estranged from her father (as was the Mountjoy daughter after the squabble over her dowry). Was Shakespeare working from the world around him as wrote?
We'll never know and in truth it doesn't matter. And yet somehow it's alluring. "The Lodger Shakespeare" is a chance to almost catch a glimpse of the great man as he hurries home to his bed or strolls down the lane to the barber for a shave. For most of us, it's as close as we'll ever come to rubbing shoulders with the Bard.
• Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor's book editor. Send comments to kehem@csps.com.
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