The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [96]
He turned to me and asked permission to look in the fridge.
“It’s yours.” I smiled with loving condescension. “You don’t have to ask. Dana and Petra filled it for you.”
He drank a Diet Coke, extremely frustrated (and knowing his frustration was ridiculous) that Tab could no longer be had. “I was really looking forward to that. I’ve missed it.” He smiled at me and nodded several times as he drank, and I assumed it was love and relief, excitement for our project, and I’m sure it was all that, although eventually he asked, “What were we talking about?”
“What happened to Arthur between 1597 and the country house?”
“You didn’t tell them about the country house, did you?” he asked, again for the first time.
“No. Trust me. Attic.”
I took notes, the basis for an essay on this topic, an essay I am contractually bound to place in this Introduction, but which I can no longer honestly write. That was a different time. So now, to fulfill my terms, I offer my sincere notes of September 30, 2009, still preserved in the amber of my abbreviations, unedited. Contract fulfilled:
Try theories that work with little we know. Dad: 1597 makes sense, but maybe not for composition. Written earlier? “Corrected and augmented” implies yes. Also, early WS: iambic pentameter rigorous throughout. Later WS bends it, stops mid-line, wraps around lines. This is early. Comp stylometry will confirm. Prob/possib perf’d earlier in decade, maybe even before plague closed theaters ’93–’94. Then perf’d again, later, does well enough 4 Burby 2 think he can make $$$ publishing → prints in ’97.
Other evidence “squishier.” Theme: WS often stuck w/idea from I play to next, tried diff. angles. Explored fully before moving on. John, Richard 2, and both Henry 4, all between ’95 and ’98. All look at king’s fitness to rule. All variations on theme, four men (inc Prince Hal in H4), each with diff. ability diff. vocation, legit’acy, rel’ship to legit: desperate, arrogant, worried, cynical. Arthur fits perfect: slightly diff. from those 4, but absolutely of family, maybe 1st try at this, right after H6 and R3. New angle on WS’s preoccupation: What makes good king? Who should be king? What happens when king unsuited, or wishes didn’t have to be king? Arthur = Hal’s opposite, at least when Hal becomes H5. Arthur can’t become Henry V. Arthur never becomes hero, try & try. Too flawed, stained by birth. Idea WS can only safely explore 1,100 years in past.
Squishier: people like to look for WS autobiog. in plays. Total squishy, but here: WS’s son dies in ’96. Maybe it’s in TTOA. Dad feels it. “Feels something.” TTOA “manifestly about lost fatherhoods & lost childhoods.” Written by a father? Definitely. By a father who lost a child? Very poss. So: writ in ’96, perf’d that year or next, pub’d in ’97? Maybe.
Seems to Dad to fit between H6/R3 on one side and R2/H4 on other.
No record of perf’s, but not damning. No record 2 Noble Kinsmen and others ever perf’d in WS’s life. Likely just not recorded. Cover probab. tells truth: “played diverse times.” Maybe at Court—no records for Eliz’s reign, don’t know every single 1 of 100S of plays at Curtain, Theater, Inns, Stewington (?), etc.
Arthur is 1st x WS on cover page. ’98 Love’s Labour’s Lost now 2nd x. So WS name popular enuf 2 sell plays by ’97. But TTOA never printed again and excl’d from Folios, even 2nd and 3rd Folios. So. Have to try best guess 4 Y. Y?
Dad’s speculate 1: play about sterile queen—bad idea w/60+ y.o. QE1.
Dad spec 2: answer is here, timing explains: 1598: George Nickleson (sp?), Queen’s agent in Edinburgh sends letter to Lord Burly (sp?), Lord High Treasurer/adviser, complaining how Scotch portrayed on London stage!!! Very serious. Msg really from King James 6 of Scot. Most people know he will be Eng king when Queen Eliz dies. Absolutely poss. because of this letter,