Will's Way

A Story of Shakespeare's Youth

Spoiler Alert:

this post contains details which reveal plot elements of Will's Way

Cremonese School, Portrait of Young Boy, late 16th century

 

A leitmotif of my stories is the evolution - and power - of the written word: from writing's beginnings as a Mystery accessible to an elite, to its controversial transformation into a tool for the many, through religious upheavals and technological advances (the invention of paper and the watermark and the revolution of the printing press) and the increasing literacy of the general population, touched on in Will's Way.

William Shakespeare? The Grafton Portrait, 1588

Shakespeare's participation in these last developments seemed the perfect basis for a new novel. Yet I had no intention of embarking on a story about the adult playwright. Apart from the fact that so much has already been written, I was curious about his childhood, his beginnings, the influences which formed him. I hoped too that such an introduction to the Bard might stimulate curiosity in young readers. The advent of the theatre in Shakespeare's day can be compared with movements in music and art which have inspired the youth of our era. But although Shakespeare is 'for all time', his language can be challenging. To meet him as child and youth, living in his turbulent but exciting age might help render him more accessible. 

William Shakespeare? The Sanders Portrait 1603

Initially, my writing a novel even about Shakespeare as child and youth seemed presumptuous. I first thought to set the story in his time and place using a childhood friend to tell the tale of Will's adventures with his art, or alternatively, to portray a budding Elizabethan poet through a pseudonym and alter the setting. Yet the first was a pretext and the second missed the point. We should have the courage of our convictions: I decided to write about the real thing and now consider it my own small homage to Will Shakespeare's life, 400 years after his death.

William Shakespeare? The Chandos Portrait 1610

Research on the decades between 1560 and 1580 yielded a wealth of material. So much has been studied about the period, about Shakespeare's life; so much information is available on the internet; so many worthy studies, histories and papers have been published that I am constantly struck by the lament that 'we know so little about him'. It is not so: we have learnt plenty, thanks to the dogged and passionate work of researchers across the globe.

Consequently, the perverse mystification of Shakespeare's identity seems almost delusional, as though some people think it would be more exciting if Shakespeare were someone else,  someone inaccessible or high-born, or perhaps multiple people, instead of accepting all the evidence which points to a cautious, conservative, hardworking family man, ambitious, with a keen and at times unscrupulous business sense, a formidable memory and a breathtaking, inspired gift for words, who, to our great fortune, happened to grow up in the right place at the right time.

What interested me was to explore, through fiction, the background and influences which possibly formed the provincial glovemaker's son and the subsequent routes he could have followed to become the world's favourite playwright. How he made his way. The important people and events in his childhood and youth. Naturally much is complete surmise, but it is all feasible and possible, not wildly misleading surmise.

Market Cross, Stratford upon Avon as it would have been in Shakespeare's day

Elizabethan leather and satin gloves, from Metropolitan Museum, NY. Shakespeare's father John was a whittawer, glovemaker, (illegal) grain and wool dealer, borough ale taster, one-time constable, burgess, alderman and property-owner who fell into debt and disrepute during William's childhood.

Shakespeare was brought up the son of a skilled artisan, a man who for a time had some influence in his town. During John Shakespeare's moment of prominence his oldest son probably benefited from a relatively good education, was witness to plays hosted by the town corporation (guild) and participated in celebrations which took place in the area.

Shakespeare's Classroom

Will lived during momentous times. What was 'sold' to us at school as the Golden Age of Elizabeth was a far darker era, riven with doubt, suspicion, disaster and above all, fear. (Hobbes was a partial contemporary of Shakespeare.) Will's own parents had lived through King Henry's break with the Catholic Church, the turbulent years that followed and Queen Elizabeth's subsequent boosting of England's place in the world as well as her forceful consolidation of the Church of England. These were dark days, marked by the persecution of Catholics, suspicion, fear of conspiracy, recurrence of the plague and severe economic hardship, specially in the countryside.

The Plague in London 1665, Granger: in 1664 the year of Shakespeare's birth, plague struck Stratford-upon-Avon. Our William survived.

And yet they were heady days too: publishing with the printing press was in full swing, books and pamphlets were available like never before, exploration to distant and exotic lands was underway and when Will was 12 the first theatre, called simply 'The Theatre', opened in London.

Elizabeth I The Phoenix Portrait, attr. Nicholas Hilliard, 1875, around the time of the Kenilworth celebrations in her honour, described in Will's Way

We know that Will's mother, Mary Arden, was related to a family of minor gentry and that while Will was a child his father applied to acquire the title of gentleman and a coat-of-arms. Yet while Shakespeare was growing up, his father fell on hard times: his business affairs faltered, he lost his status in the community, his ambitions were thwarted. Later when his father was near the end of his life, Will would acquire that coat-of-arms and title for his family.

Henley street house from the back garden

Thus there are many interesting factual and hypothetical elements available to build up a story depicting the trajectory of the young Shakespeare. As for romance, much has been surmised about Anne Hathaway; I chose to take a constructive approach.

 

Anne Hathaway's cottage at Shottery, near Stratford. Anne receives little credit for Shakespeare's success; my story hypothesises her importance.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in presenting a credible reconstruction of Shakespeare's childhood was speech. Apart from some vocabulary, it is impossible to reproduce the language of his day with any authenticity, and foolhardy to attempt to imitate him. It seemed more  reasonable to quote him.

Shepherd to Clown, in The Winter's Tale: Prithee son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are gentlemen. This could quite easily have been an echo of Shakespeare's father since his son petioned for and acquired 'gentleman' status for the family name.

So, I integrated quotations from the Works into the dialogue of Will's Way. The story contains over 160 direct and indirect (ie; adapted) quotations; this list does not even include the words, phrases and sayings used by him which have become an integral part of the English language. Most of the quotations are cited in the Glossary. However an invitation - and challenge - is extended to the reader: to resist temptation and play a game of detection, both to spot the quotes and to identify their origin in the Works.

my edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works

Ultimately I hope that the novel might intrigue and stimulate the reader to imagine Shakespeare as a child, as part of a family, as friend and sweetheart and budding young writer of great talent and ambition, born in a provincial town in straitened circumstances, finding his way in uncertain times and how the people around him may have influenced him in, and against, his dreams. Equally I hope that presenting the historical context and the personal perspective of a boy visiting London and the theatre for the first time, might help readers view the plays with a feeling for the inspiration and experience that went into their making.

procession of characters from Shakespeare's plays, circa 1840, attrib. Danile Maclise

Will's Way was a joy to research. Studying the Elizabethan age was like picking up the threads of my highschool education when, in 1970s' Australia, with colonial logic, we studied first and foremost British and European history. This anomaly notwithstanding, British history has always held a fascination, perhaps thanks to its familiarity, perhaps because I spent 8 years as a young adult in Britain, but in this case, mainly because it gave me the chance to find out so much about the life and times of our William.

view of London in 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, Visscher, held in Library of Congress

 *It is interesting that when assessing literacy in a population, the sources are usually parish records and other documents which preserve signatures. When someone signs with a cross or other symbol it is assumed that the person was illiterate. Yet reading is an easier (and cheaper) skill to learn than writing and the assumption that an inability to write implies an inability to read is flawed. It is quite possible that many more people were reading-literate than writing-literate in the past. A point I make in the novel.