On any visit to the Arcade I can guarantee that you will find something connected with William Shakespeare. His plays and poetry are quite easily found in the book section under the cafe and over the years I have seen Will’s bust (no giggling at the back please) for sale in one or two of the units and other ephemera.
In a sense one can be anywhere in the world and would be hard pressed not to find someone who has not heard of dear old Will Shakespeare or the The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. My thoughts are that she was Aline Florio. If you look at Rosaline in Love’s Labours Lost and Romeo and Juliet you might get my meaning.
In a way I had a head start as my parents had a comprehensive library of Shakespeare’s works which I seemed to be reading as soon as I was out of nappies.
At Christmas instead of being taken to pantomimes, I was dragged to see Macbeth being unpleasant or Ophelia popping down to the local baths.
But seriously, I grew up with a great appreciation of Shakespeare’s work which was useful later in my education.
There have been questions about the authorship of some of Will’s plays which is surprising, as really no direct evidence really exists and I believe that the relative obscurity of his life lends itself to these assumptions. I am told that there have been over sixty authorship candidates proposed ranging from the philosopher Francis Bacon to Kit Marlowe and others such as the Earl of Oxford.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is leaning towards friends helping and advising Will rather like Ezra Pound did when Tom Eliot was writing The Wasteland or Siegfried Sassoon’s advice to Wilfred Owen at Craiglockhart.
When thinking about this subject, one must remember that his authorship was not questioned in his lifetime but began to gain speed in the nineteenth century. I could say that Christopher Smart’s cat Jeffrey wrote Jubilate Agno and somebody, somewhere would believe it.
In a way, it is an industry all by itself and I am sure that if you look closely at the books in the Arcade, you might find books dealing with the subject.
Although it is nearly Christmas, I actually wrote most of this mini-mini article in the Paris heat outside of the famous Shakespeare and Company bookshop opposite Notre Dame whilst waiting for Caron. I tucked it into a bag and there it stayed until yesterday when I found it again.
It was to be part of a much larger article which I hope to write (although I think I will not write it in the blazing glare of a Paris summer). But until then, do consider Will Shakespeare who will make a happy addition to your home and who knows, you might find many more things of interest at the Arcade in the coming weeks before the big day.