The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [122]
If our generation does not like something Shakespeare wrote, we are tempted to say he did not write it. And if someone, imitating Shakespeare carefully enough, writes something we do like, we are tempted to say Shakespeare did write it. In that way, he edits himself, and he has the luxury, every generation, of receiving help in crafting only the best possible collected works. He keeps the best of the day and can rely on us to pooh-pooh his own worst stuff for him. Which brings us to the question of Arthur.
I must say, I think it reads quite well, and I like parts of it very much indeed. I think Arthur and Guenhera’s courtship scene is especially fine. The play in its entirety is not my favourite, but I feel similarly, for example, about All’s Well That Ends Well. Thus, when a computer says it isn’t not Shakespeare, I am tempted to give it to him. It has his name on the cover and a date that makes sense, which—I expect you know—hardly proves it is him, but also does not weigh against him. All told, I enjoyed the play, and, more to the point, I rather like the idea of it being his. I like that he might have written that scene of Guenhera’s labour pangs. (Not terribly scholarly of me, I confess!) I am glad to offer you this good news. I am happy to add my name to the authentication process. Congratulations, and I sincerely hope you and Arthur continue to win over fans.
A nice old lady, certainly. I don’t wish to mock her scholarship or her kindness. But, really. A science dedicated to proving that all the bad ones were by someone else? This is typical of the industry. “After God, Shakespeare has created most,” mooed Alexandre Dumas, another better man kowtowing to the plaster bard. Shakespeare could not conceivably write bad plays; therefore, bad plays with his name on them are fraudulent. Even the bad parts of the things we know he wrote! The worst of Pericles is now by Wilkins. The computer says so.
If all this is circumstantial, speculative, well, there is something else. I remember Dana’s responses to our “old” “1904” edition, back when she thought she was being shown a play many people debated, like Edward III or A Yorkshire Tragedy. She read it in a frenzy, failing to ration her pleasure, and she rushed back to our father with her stylometric report, which, as an eleven-year-old, she was very proud to deliver, proud that he cared about her opinion. “I think it’s him,” she declared, every bit as scholarly as that Irish don whose letter I just transcribed.
“Yes! You just know, don’t you?” he told her. “When you read it, aloud, you know it’s him. It’s his—don’t count the you or ye, the ’em/them, forget all that nonsense. Just read it out loud like your performance matters, like you can impress the groundlings and the nobles, maybe the queen, and you know it’s him. It makes you laugh like him, gives you gooseflesh just the same.” He recited from memory a few lines of Arthur’s from II.vii:
“Imperfect is the glass of other’s eyes
Wherein we seek in hope of handsome glimpse
Yet find dim shapes, reversed and versed again,
Which will not ease our self-love’s appetites.”
Dana applauded. “It is him,” she said, a girl with an idol—my father and Shakespeare interblended in her loving gaze. “It has to be.”
“It does have to be,” he agreed. “His attitude, his amused skepticism—of kings, of knowing ourselves, of knowing all our own motives, of love. He loves all of life, but he tells the truth even about the bad parts.”
“So why doesn’t everyone see it’s him?” Dana demanded. “Why don’t people put it on?”
“They don’t have a license to like it. They need precious proof, a piece of paper, an explanation. They don’t trust what you and I can hear. They want trivia: Where did the play go? Why this, why that, why isn’t it proven? But we don’t know. How could we? Anything’s possible: maybe it was censored, maybe he meant to work on it a little more. We can’t know, but really, who cares? You know, don’t you. You can hear it. God, Dana, that’s wonderful.”
At the time, I thought they were just annoying. Now I