Customer Reviews

Shakespeare and Co.: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story

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Stanley Wells is one of the great Shakespeare scholars of this, or any other, generation. His work on the Oxford edition of the Complete Works, the Textual Companion, the Dictionary of Shakespeare and, if I can mention a personal favorite, Shakespeare for All Time, assure his enduring reputation. It was with keen anticipation I picked up this book, then, and I was not disappointed. The book is not groundbreaking, by any means, but is pleasant, erudite, and consistently interesting. It is the best introduction I know to placing Shakespeare in the theatrical currents of his time and tracing his interactions, such as they can be known, with his less famous, though greatly gifted, contemporaries Marlowe, Jonson, Dekker, Middleton, Fletcher, Webster and the rest.

In an age such as ours where otherwise serious people can become preoccupied with crank, dilettantish ideas like the Oxford wrote Shakespeare nonsense so much in circulation, how likely is it those same serious people have taken the time to read Shakespeare's less well known fellows? They have, perhaps, read Dr. Faustus in an English lit survey class, and know about Marlowe because, after all, HE might, just maybe, be the one who really wrote at least some of Shakespeare's plays, but certainly they have not read either part of Tamburlaine, or A Trick To Catch The Old One, or The Shoemakers Holiday. Need enough, then, that a thoroughgoing, popular introduction to the lives and masterpieces of some of Shakespeare's contemporaries deserves a home on our bulging Shakespeare bookshelves.

The first sentence of the Preface says "This book attempts to place Shakespeare in relation to the actors and other writers, mainly playwrights, of his time in an accessible and where possible entertaining manner" (ix). And so it does, with, speaking for myself, at least, emphasis on "entertaining." I found the book enormously likable. If you are familiar with the period and the authors being treated, you will find nothing new, but a non-specialists book surveying a rather broad field does not attempt to present novel interpretations, but rather can be relied on to deliver the state-of-the-art scholarly understanding of these authors and their works in a pleasant style. Wells's scholarly status guarantees the most dependable understanding of the times and writers, and his gifts as a writer makes reading a joy.

This book is excellent in establishing Shakespeare's context among the other playwrights of his time. I only wish the author had devoted as much time and energy to discussing the later writers (especially Middleton and Webster) as he did with the earlier chapters on Marlowe and Jonson. But for those who think Shakespeare was the only fellow writing plays at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, this is a must-read. Hopefully, someone out there will now read the works of these lesser-known (but wonderful!) English Renaissance dramatists.

This study of the circle of writers that made up the theatre world during Shakespeare's career provides both an excellent entry into the subject and also a refreshing reminder to students of the period of the diverse talent that surrounded and interacted with Shakespeare. I particularly enjoyed the opening chapter that gives us a sense of the theatre business in the Elizabethan/Jacobean period and a flesh and blood kind of context for the writers that subsequent chapters will illuminate. I found the study quite readable and well-paced, as well as useful to understanding and evaluating some of the more polemical studies of the period and its most prominent writer. The greatest attribute of the study may be that it makes one want to go back and read or re-read many of the works of Shakespeare's contemporaries.

It's entirely too easy when reading about Shakespeare to forget there were a lot of other guys writing at the same time as, and in competition with, him. These are the stories of some of those guys, the best of them, and reference is made to their relationship to Shakespeare right along, so it gives a nice feeling of knowing the context. This is not only about "the other players in his story", but also speaks of Shakespeare' less well known collaborations with some of them. It is well to have a Complete Works (Oxford, by my preference) of Will's works in hand while reading this book so you can follow some of the references.

Stanley Wells' "Shakespeare & Co." is the most delightful companion to the Elizabethan-Jacobean stage I know; or it would be if the plays it is meant to be a companion to were more accessible.

As it is, though short, every page is lively, and it is as full of matter as an egg is full of meat.

When I studied Shakespeare in school 40-odd years ago, he was presented as a solitary genius; and he still rules the performing stage. Although Wells, as chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and a quondam professor at Birmingham, has seen occasional performances of plays by Middleton and Fletcher, I have never had the pleasure. Even reading them is expensive.

In ". . . & Co." (and, no, he never hints that he knows Sylvia Beach once ran a bookshop with that name), Wells sets out to, first, establish that the solitary genius sometimes worked with collaborators and, even when writing alone, was responding to other plays, and to actors and audiences -- the second part of this may seem obvious, but the first was akin to heresy when I was in college; and, second, to explain in what unShakespearian ways the other playwrights were also masters.

He sums up, "With the passing of the years, Shakespeare has too often been isolated from his fellows. He is the greatest of them, but he would not have been what he is without them. As a playwright, he developed in technique and in the capacity to convey the depths of his human understanding throughout his career."

Wells throws in everything including the kitchen sink. There will be a page of close textual analysis, followed by a page of antique gossip, followed by a page about stagecraft, followed by a page about performance history. All deeply informed and sometimes so obvious as to be missed. For example, Wells observes (not claiming to be the first to have done so) that all Shakespeare's late plays about familial conflict end in reconciliation.

This was certainly not true of other popular playwrights, like Webster.

I have often thought that the assiduity of scores, perhaps hundreds, of scholars doing "research" by ransacking old books and papers for themes and attributions, that the spending of years to show that a line in Shakespeare came, directly or otherwise, from a book published by someone never read today, was silly. Wells shows that, at least sometimes, the connections have point.

Whether the points really enhance the play, which is, after all, the thing, is another matter; but in his hands the hunt doesn't seem quite so trivial.

As for accessibility, cheap editions of Shakespeare are to be had for pennies, but editions of his contemporaries are expensive. For example, Middleton's "A Game at Chess" is $27 in the Revels edition, and his complete works are $200. A reasonable collection of just the plays mentioned by Wells in "Shakespeare & Co." would run at least a thousand dollars.

They might be worth it, at that, but not everyone has a thousand for such pleasures.

A fun, fast read...If your looking for who wrote Shakespeare other the Shakespeare you will be disappointed...Prof. Wells though speculates on who may have collaborated with Shakespeare on some plays a little more freely the other academics might but don't look for a smoking gun...the best passage in the book in my opinion is Prof. Wells description of the death of Marlow, it is vivid and would make a great story for any High School Lit. teacher to use to spice up her/his Jr. Eng. Lit. class.

If you are into Shakespeare I think you will find "Shakespeare & Co.:..." a great read.

Are you a REAL Shakespeare buff/scholar and wanting to know the truth about what is known about Shakespeare?

Do you want to read actual facts about Shakespeare not assumptions and fantasies and wishful stories?

Well then, read SWEET SWAN OF AVON by Robin P. Williams.

You will be opened in such a delightful way as a flower dawns from the winter....

"Strong but not conclusive"??? That's what the previous reviewer on Amazon.com just wrote as his title of his review. Well, the person did give this book 5 STARS. It deserves 20 or 100!! This book is the most thrilling novel!

If you want intrigue and drama out of the wazooo, READ THIS BOOK!! Its utterly fascinating, mystifying AND DE-MYSTIFYING!

Ms. Williams puts the most compelling FACTS together with such thorough research of the life of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, and presents this proposal: DID A WOMAN WRITE SHAKESPEARE? with such integrity that after giving ALL THE EVIDENCE, she let's YOU DECIDE!! The author in fact, NEVER states that MARY SIDNEY is the actual true author of the SHAKESPEARE WORKs because she has way too much integrity as opposed to all the other books out there boasting of having the answer to this question WITHOUT ANY REAL EVIDENCE!

Most books on this topics are filled with "must have's" and "certainly's" and "probably's" and come to some conclusion about who really wrote Shakespeare with the kind of arguments that wouldn't stand up in a court of law... in fact, other books on the topic's evidence would be LAUGHED AT IN A COURT OF LAW!! NOT Robin P. Williams' book: SWEET SWAN OF AVON! THIS book is filled with the kind of EVIDENCE that PROVES CASES!! BUT, as a good lawyer does, Williams presents the FACTS, THE EVIDENCE & then poses the QUESTION.

Again and again, the question is there for YOU TO ANSWER! I have ONLY CERTAINTY in my mind that if this case was presented in a court of law, the winning verdict decided by the jury, not the lawyer whose job it is to PRESENT the case, would MOST CERTAINLY be that MARY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE IS MOST DEFINATELY the REAL AUTHOR of the plays and sonnets currently attributed to the one known as Shakespeare.

Have an opinion? Doubt it? Curious? Want to know more? READ the BOOK! Its DELICIOUS and will excite you as much as the plays have excited millions for centuries!

Don't be fooled by your own resistance to the idea. Take any page in Shakespeare right now, just open up a book with the writing of the one currently called Shakespeare, and you'll be inspired to defile your own arrogance and reach into a deeper place calling forth a true humility that resides in us all! Out of this inspiration, this openness to love, to life, pick up SWEET SWAN OF AVON and be truly educated about the life that reflects these times and learn so exquisitely and intricately of the times past, about a life of human being that is so extraordinary that you will be brought to your knees.

Mary Sidney's story told so impeccably in SWEET SWAN OF AVON will inspire anyone by her grace and power and her very resilience and brilliance! She was a being that existed on this earth who fought wars so harsh that most would have broken.

SWEET SWAN OF AVON opens you to a world that was pivotal in our history. Some of the most tumultuous times the effects of which have given us the world we live in. Freedoms were fought and won during this era that give us the freedoms we have now.

Learn about a life, a human, a woman who in her time -- for whom it was illegal for her to publish any original thought only because she was of the fairer sex -- is so worthy of being known as herself!

Whether you want to know her as the real pen behind Shakespeare or for who she was known in her day: a great and acknowledged teacher, writer, acclaimed translator, supporter of the arts and mentor to many of the great known authors of her day through her famed Wilton Circle which she established which still meets to this day -- and so much more!

She was hero. She is a her. She. She is one to be known in her own right for what is absolutely known of her.

Coming to know so much of her through Robin P. Williams, you will want to find her writings penned in her name attributed to her in her day and reach further still to other's writings of her and by those who surrounded her, like Lady Mary Wroth, her stellar brother Sir Phillip Sidney and the magnificent Ben Johnson and so many others. The Sidney family reads like the who's who of English literature filled with family dramas that fill the plays and sonnets of what we call Shakespeare.

Embarking on this journey of who is Mary Sidney will open doors within doors of fascinating history and arts that will carry you through your whole life bringing such richness elaborating and enunciating all that you already know with so much greater detail and depth bringing your own humanity into a fullness that you'll thank God for AND Mary Sidney, The Sweet Swan of Avon.

Do it for what ever reason you can muster even if you have great resistance and opposition to the idea. Do it any way. You owe it yourself. You will be opened in such a delightful way as a flower dawns from the winter. Why not awaken something new in you? Perhaps it is just what you've been waiting for...

Your Grace, Sarah West

Sanctuary The Sacred Pyramid Sanctuary

~~ author of Beloved, I Have Searched for You & CDs available on amazon.com SANCTUARY, THE SACRED PYRAMID & VOICES OF ETERNITY