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Shakespeare's Wife
By Germaine Greer
Bloomsbury £20
406 pages
Dateline: 26th October, 2007
Bill Bryson in his recent short biography
of William Shakespeare bemoaned the fact that so few concrete facts
are known about his subject but also pointed out that by comparison,
far less is known about his wife.
This seemingly insuperable impediment has not stopped media personality
and female eunuch but also Shakespearean scholar Germaine Greer from
compiling a 400 page book on the mysterious lady behind the great playwright.
Indeed, she is not the first writer to become interested in Mrs. Shakespeare,
poet and novelist Robert Nye having created a novel of that title.
Ms Greer may these days be best known as a cultural commentator and
TV personality but she repeatedly demonstrates her skills as a historian
in this well-written and generally readable almost-life.
Her real strength is in hypothesising about what might reasonably have
happened in the life of Ann Shakespeare from the extremely limited documentary
evidence, her husband's writings and information about life in and around
Stratford at the turn of the 17th century. She is also particularly
good at debunking myths created by her predecessors in bardolatry.
Where biographers of Shakespeare, particularly male ones, have tended
to eulogise their hero and do down a woman whom they assume to be his
harridan of a wife, her champion takes a different viewpoint.
Not surprisingly, this is both feminist and usually highly rational,
as she sifts through vast quantities of information to come up with
more or less likely explanations that build into a picture of an extraordinary
woman.
The author has also demonstrated tremendous scholarship and dedication
to her cause. This might best be exemplified by the efforts that she
has put into studying patterns of birth and marriage 400 years ago.
Thus, she discovers that, almost as often as not, a Stratford bride
would be pregnant, thus removing some of the stigmas that have been
attached to the woman that was Ann Hathaway, spelt almost always without
the "e" on her Christian name, which might as easily have
been Agnes, those names being interchangeable at the time.
The act of marriage itself was also not what it appeared, in that it
took no more than an exchange of vows to become married while the church
ceremony was merely a spiritual confirmation of a state that already
existed.
It is also as reasonable to guess, with Ms Greer, that Shakespeare
loved and cared for his wife rather than regarding her as a distant
millstone around his neck.
If Germaine Greer is right, during Shakespeare's absence acting and
writing plays in London Ann became a successful Stratford businesswoman,
possibly working as a maltster and also a moneylender. Although the
writer does not suggest it, this is one possible explanation for her
husband's inexplicable will that seemingly excludes her from benefit.
If she really was wealthy in her own right, then possibly she had less
need of whatever chattels were to be bequeathed?
Thus it was Mrs S. who decided to purchase and maintain the second-biggest
building in Stratford, New Place, by her efforts as a businesswoman.
This is supported by various assumptions, in particular with regard
to the paucity of money that will have been available even to the greatest
playwright that the world has ever seen.
If the period before and during their marriage is based on limited
information, that of widowhood relies entirely on surmise until we reach
the eventual fact of Ann Shakespeare's death. There is though fascinating
speculation in the last chapter that perhaps it was this lady, who was
responsible for the publication of the First Folio. We shall never know.
Shakespeare's Wife is packed with quotations, not merely from
William but also innumerable writers from before, during and after Shakespeare's
time, right up to now. They are used to support and fill the story,
although there is a section halfway through the book that contains a
surfeit of extraneous information, which completely buries its subject.
This is a rarity and even if one might question some of the conclusions
that the book reaches, it is still a valuable work of social history
in its own right.
Better than that, it is also as good a biography of William Shakespeare,
even if only in passing at times, as many others that have borne his
name. As the always brave and forthright Germaine Greer writes in the
final chapter, "most of this book is heresy, and probably neither
truer nor less true than the accepted prejudice". It is a pity
that so many others have not demonstrated similar humility when making
claims at least as hard to prove as many in this volume.
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