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Rival Playwrights

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James Shapiro is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, NYC. His particular skill lies in framing aesthetics within their social and historical contexts. This is evidenced by recent works such as 'Shakespeare and the Jews', a treatment of 'The Merchant of Venice', which takes its starting point not in the sixteenth-century, as one might expect, but with the expulsion of Jews in England in the late thirteenth-century; and 'Oberammergau', an exposition of the latent anti-Semitic prejudices that inform and pervade the famous passion play of the same title.

'Rival Playwrights' was written prior to these texts. It does not possess their widespread appeal outside of hallowed university halls, nor their exigent elaboration of ever-present social inequalities through the prism of canonical literary texts.

But this is not a failure on the part of Shapiro or his research. As he implies in his work, the subjects of his study have each perpetuated his own lasting relevance - itself an admirable achievement: 'Rivals with each other, it is fair to say that they have not been rivaled since.'

Every page of this book bears eloquent witness to Shapiro's respect for, and cogent awareness of, both the idiosyncrasies and the divergences between three contemporaries: Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare. Some of the evidence that Shapiro employs for his case is tangential; for example, he refers to anecdotes popularized in taverns. Moreover, much of his evidence is conjectural, such as his examination of famous 'silences': for instance, why is it that Jonson frequently referred to Shakespeare in his writings (most famously in his eulogistic verse, where he celebrated his rival's transcendental appeal), when Shakespeare apparently remained silent about Jonson?

However, we should recall Dr Samuel Johnson's insight that conjecture can be both harmless and helpful: 'There is no danger in conjecture, if it be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, those changes may be safely offered, which are not considered even by him that offers them as necessary or safe.'

Indeed, Shapiro's speculations are always grounded by his scrupulous readings of each playwright's works. Temperate, discerning and critically engaged, his analysis is intellectually rigorous and therefore can be demanding to read, but as always, it is a scholarly breath of fresh air.