The Fictional Lives of Shakespeare

Kevin Gilvary received his Ph.D. in English Literature from Brunel University London in 2015. He also holds a BA and MA in Classics as well as an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Southampton. He taught at Barton Peveril College in Hampshire, UK, for twenty years.

Contents

Early Editions of Shakespeare’s Works v

Abbreviations v

List of Tables vii

List of Plates vii

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction: The Fictional Lives of Shakespeare 1

1 Biography: Much Practice, Little Theory 7

1.1 The Western Tradition of Biography 8

1.2 Coherence and Linear Narrative in Biography 12

1.3 Types of Biographical Material 16

2 Gaps in Our Ignorance: the Biographical Material for Shakespeare 18

2.1 Source Material for Shakespeare 19

2.2 Public Records: Stratford 28

2.3 Public Records: London 33

2.4 Literary & Theatrical Records 34

3 Inventing the myths: the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 43

3.1 Early Fictions 43

3.2 Nicholas Rowe’s Acount of the Life &c (1709) 47

3.3 Reprints of Rowe’s Account 52

3.4 Dr. Johnson’s unattempted life of Shakespeare 55

3.5 Edward Capell’s Neglected Insights (1767) 57

4 Doubting the Myths: Malone’s Unwritten Life of Shakespeare 60

4.1 Attempt at a Chronology 61

4.2 Use of the Poems for Biographical Inference 68

4.3 Ambition for a Life of Shakespeare 69

5 Filling in the Gaps: Constructing a life of Shakespeare: 1805-1975 76

5.1 Skepticism in the Nineteenth Century 77

5.2 Emergence of Romantic Biography 79

5.3 Exemplary Life and National Biography 82

5.4 Dowden and the adoption of a chronology 87

5.5 Rejection of Bardolatry in the twentieth century 89

5.6 Persistence of Bardolatry in the twentieth century (to 1975) 92

6 Re-Imagining the Life: Samuel Schoenbaum 94

6.1 Shakespeare’s Lives 94

6.2 William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life 98

6.3 "Gentle" Shakespeare 104

7 After Schoenbaum 107

7.1. Modern Shakespearean Biographies after Schoenbaum 108

7.2 Critique of Modern Shakespearean Biography 117

8 Inventing a Patron: the Earl of Southampton 131

8.1 Shakespeare’s Dedications to Southampton 136

8.2 Rowe’s Mention of a £1,000 gift 139

8.3 Plays written for Southampton? 141

8.4 The ‘fair youth’ of the Sonnets 143

8.5 The ‘classless’ green room 145

9 Inventing a Rival: Ben Jonson 146

9.1 Did Shakespeare purge Jonson? 150

9.2 "Shakespear wanted Arte" 152

9.3 Dedications in the First Folio 157

9.4 Jonson’s Timber or Discoveries 165

Conclusions and Inconclusions 170

Appendices 172

A: The Records for William Shakespeare 172

B: Biographical claims in Rowe’s Account of the Life &c (1709) 180

C: Jonson’s Censure of English Poets (ed. Sage & Ruddiman 1711) 183

Select Bibliography 186