The Secret Life of William Shakespeare (59 page)

He comes to her across the room, she comes motionless to him, waiting to enclose him, as lovers do, as people do, just that. They hold, kiss, thrust low despairing happy heads against each other’s shoulders and ringing arms.

At the window the wind stops its violence, and gives way to a clear stillness, and the threatened storm reveals itself a fraud. Just as with passion, the truest thing about it is the peace that follows it.

If you enjoyed reading
The Secret Life of William Shakespeare,
read on for an exclusive interview with the author, and discover the inspiration behind the novel. Also included are topics for discussion and suggestions for further reading.

Jude Morgan writes about
The Secret Life of William Shakespeare

Pinpointing the moment when a vague or potential idea for a book turns into the decision to write it is always tricky. With
The Secret Life of William Shakespeare
several factors influenced the process.

I wanted above all to reinstate Shakespeare as a real person. It seems to me that we have an ambiguous attitude to our greatest writer. Whilst there is a general acknowledgement of his (I believe) supreme literary genius, we are not comfortable with him. We give him silly names like The Bard or The Swan of Avon, as if already turning him into a pub sign. The familiar likeness, the dome-headed mannequin with quill at the ready, is a kind of bad joke. It was illustrated for me by a statuette adorning my senior school library. There he stood, leaning on a lectern in wrinkled hose, dreaming up deathless pentameter. There was really very little resemblance to a human being, and with Shakespeare it sometimes seems that we have stopped looking for one. Perhaps this accounts for some of the demented attempts to deny his existence at all, to give up the effort of imaginative reconstruction for the padded comforts of conspiracy theory.

And history has given us a hard corpus of facts about William Shakespeare, his life, marriage, children, finances, professional career in the theatre. The disappointment – but the exciting challenge for the novelist – is that those facts are so very hard and dry. He married a woman eight years older than himself when he was eighteen and she was already pregnant: end of information. This is where the novelist’s imagination, aided by as much careful research as possible, moves in. It may transpire that a young age for marriage was not unusual for men at the period, that pregnant brides were not uncommon at all levels of society … but still that says nothing about the individual situation of these people, and how they felt about it. Ask a modern English person why they chose to marry their partner, and they will probably say because they fell in love. They won’t say, ‘Because in the early twenty-first century it remains the commonest form of translating the post-Renaissance theory of exclusive romantic love into a public contract establishing parameters of legal and economic status.’

Armed with these bare facts, the biographer must draw only the most likely conclusions, and emphasise that they are informed speculation. The novelist has an easier time of it. We are liars by profession. People pay us to make up stories for them. On the other hand, like all con artists we have to be persuasive. As soon as the reader shakes their head in scepticism, as soon as they feel something doesn’t ring true, the deal is off. So in writing about Shakespeare, I strove to give the feeling, not that ‘this is how it might have been’ but ‘
this is how it was
’. This doesn’t mean any kind of last word on the subject; that would be absurd. In writing a historical novel about real figures, you must accept that someone else could and probably will come along and write a novel about the very same subject, and give it an entirely different interpretation – and still be convincing, maybe more convincing than you. That’s part of the deal too.

On another note: many years ago an aunt of mine, attending the local girls’ county grammar school, was severely reprimanded and even threatened with expulsion for openly referring to William Shakespeare as ‘Old Bill Waggle-Dagger’. Perhaps I’m trying to atone for that.

An Interview with Jude Morgan

Writing a novel about the life of Shakespeare is a daring undertaking. What made you feel you could do it?

It was a subject I felt enormously drawn to and fascinated by, and I
wanted
to do it … but there were certainly times during the writing when I really felt the weight of the challenge. The best advice then is ‘don’t look down’. And I also wanted to emphasize that yes, this book is about William Shakespeare, but it’s also about a human being of flesh and blood.

Anne Hathaway is a very important figure in the novel, and we see a good deal of it through her eyes. You’ve often written from a woman’s point of view before: how do you approach this?

It’s never really occurred to me that as a novelist you can or should only write from the point of view of your own gender. What I like and value about novels is the scope for imaginative sympathy they offer – for getting beyond the bounds of self. Also I believe that the sexes have more in common than what separates them: we may experience the world in different ways, but the defining experience is of being human, not a man or a woman.

The English language was very different in Shakespeare’s day. Have you tried to reflect that in this novel?

What kind of language to use was one of the first and most important decisions to make in writing this novel. I wanted to be authentic particularly in the dialogue, and so I tried to ensure that no character spoke using a word or expression that wasn’t current in Shakespeare’s time. (I’m sure I’ve failed.) But there are some aspects of Elizabethan language that just have to be tinkered with for the modern reader. For example, Shakespeare and his circle would have been as likely to use the word ‘hath’ as the word ‘has’. But reading a long narrative in which words like ‘hath’ appear will inevitably produce an effect of archaism – and I wanted to avoid that above all. An Elizabethan didn’t think he or she was being archaic or quaint: they lived in the present, as we do.

Part of the story is told from the viewpoint of Shakespeare’s contemporary, friend and rival playwright Ben Jonson. Why is this?

I wanted to make it clear that Shakespeare was not a solitary genius, single-handedly inventing Elizabethan drama. He was one of many: perhaps the most consistently successful, but still working in a crowded marketplace. I also wanted Jonson, a scholarly and painstaking writer, to throw into contrast the amazing facility of Shakespeare’s genius. Jonson couldn’t see how he did it; nor can we.

What was different in writing about this subject compared to your previous heroines, the Brontë sisters in
The Taste of Sorrow?

I suppose the biggest difference was in sheer scope. Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe
et al
lived full and colourful lives in London and elsewhere, and were busy, professional and productive (and sometimes dangerous and sleazy). Even Anne, as chatelaine of a large household and mother of three children, must have lived a much fuller physical life than that of the Brontës, who were so constrained by circumstance and tended to live vicariously in the imagination.

In telling the fictionalized story of Shakespeare’s life, did you want to reflect themes that he was writing about in his plays at each stage?

I specifically wanted to avoid this, perhaps because it immediately suggests corniness (‘I’m in love, I must write
Romeo and Juliet
’), but also because of my take on Shakespeare. I think he was the least autobiographical writer who ever existed, which may have something to do with why he is also the greatest. He simply didn’t function that way; he was a creator. Certainly there are discernible shifts in the general tone and scope of his writing – there’s no doubt that
King Lear
is the work of a much more mature artist (and man) than
The Comedy of Errors.
But Shakespeare was quite likely to write on a certain theme because it was in fashion, because it was what the market wanted – revenge, or overseas exploration.

The Secret Life of William Shakespeare

Discussion Points

• How has this book informed the way you think about William Shakespeare and his work? Has it changed your opinion of him at all?

• Overall, do you feel the novel presents a depressing or an uplifting vision of love?

• At the age of eighteen, Will declares he knows nothing of himself. In what ways do you think he has come to know himself by the end of the novel?

• To what extent do you think Will feels ensnared or empowered by his marriage to Anne?

• Do you find Anne’s expectations of Will and their marriage unrealistic? How much empathy do you feel towards her?

• How much of a grounding does family provide to the characters in the novel?

• ‘Is his father right after all? That a man can’t split himself in two?’ What conclusion do you feel the reader is guided towards? How do you think the idea of duplicity is handled by the author?

• To what extent do you feel the women in the novel live up to or subvert their positions in Elizabethan England?

• What sort of a contrast do Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe provide in the author’s portrayal of expectation and success?

• ‘You never had less than all my love’. How far do you agree with Will’s statement to Anne?

Suggestions for Further Reading

Non-fiction about Shakespeare’s life and times:

The Lodger: Shakespeare in Silver Street
Charles Nicholl

Shakespeare and Co.
Stanley Wells

1599
James Shapiro

Literature from Shakespeare’s time:

Edward II
Christopher Marlowe

The Unfortunate Traveller
Thomas Nashe

Volpone
Ben Jonson

The Spanish Tragedy
Thomas Kyd

The Works
William Shakespeare

Novels about the period:

I am Mary Tudor
Hilda Lewis

The Grove of Eagles
Winston Graham

Sonnet
XXXIV

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak,

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

The offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.

Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

Sonnet
LVII

Being your slave what should I do but tend

Upon the hours, and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend;

Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

Save, where you are, how happy you make those.

   So true a fool is love, that in your will,

   Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

JUDE MORGAN

The Taste of Sorrow

‘As soon as I saw a Jude Morgan book I tossed aside the twenty other books I should have got to, and sat down to read it … completely involving, absorbing. Full of insight and very accomplished … it will have a lot of fans’ Hilary Mantel

‘Seemingly effortlessly, Jude Morgan breathes such life and vigour into their stories that you are totally drawn into their world … totally compelling … I cannot commend it enough’
Daily Mail

‘A unique approach to a unique family … an instant favourite. And one of those reads where you both look forward to and dread reaching the last page’
Brontëhlag

‘Marvellous and memorable and elegantly written and sets up in the reader a desire to read every word the Brontës wrote … a real triumph and I hope so much that it gets to everyone who would adore it’ Adèle Geras

‘Quite simply the best book about the Brontës I have ever read’ Juliet Barker, author of
The Brontës

‘Generations of powerful writers from Elizabeth Gaskell to Daphne du Maurier … have rewritten the Brontës’ narrative of early loss, child prodigy, romantic passion, great writing and early death … [Morgan holds] nerve and reason where many fail. Brilliant … moving … superb … Deserves a wide readership’
Guardian

‘[To] anyone who may question the need for another Brontë book … I will keep on saying I think this could be the one we’ve been waiting for … pure literary genius … wonderful … How difficult it must be to make something so familiar to many feel so refreshingly vibrant and renewed and, I suspect, also equally alluring to those who come to the Brontës with no knowledge of the detail … a masterpiece’
Dovegreyreader

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