When it comes down to genuine facts, somewhat surprisingly, we know more about Chaucer than Shakespeare. There are no less than 493 documentary records of the life of the Father of English Poetry but, as Professor Derek Pearsall makes clear in his Life of Geoffrey Chaucer (Blackwell Pounds 9.99), that has still left some biographers with plenty of room for supposition.
For, despite evidence that Chaucer served (in turn) as page, diplomat, esquire at the royal court and customs controller, few of the records provide any intimate details. Pearsall has, however, studiously avoided speculation on the “Chaucer must have done this” or “would have done that” lines. Even so, by drawing on knowledge of the 14th century and especially on Chaucer’s works themselves, he gives us a full yet scholarly portrait of the man - in particular showing us how closely the life of the courtier and civil servant was entwined with the more private life of the poet.
The first “William would have . . .” occurs in the very first paragraph of Shakespeare: the Evidence by Ian Wilson (Headline Pounds 7.99). Here the style is journalistic (even tabloidy) rather than scholarly. Typical is the chapter which begins: “On the morning of 31 December 1607, with the Thames frozen from Westminster to London Bridge, a lone bell-ringer ascended the tower of St Saviour’s, Southwark. ” All right, so that parish’s registers do record the burial that day of one “Edmond Shakespeare, a Player, in the church” but those seven words do not mean it is “reasonable to infer” that Shakespeare’s younger brother was an actor with the King’s Men.
Wilson also regales us with all the old gossip. Did Shakespeare write the plays? Who was the Dark Lady? Was Shakespeare homosexual? Why did he set a curse on his grave? Even so, Wilson repeatedly has to draw the conclusion that we simply do not know. Indeed, just over 100 pages into this life story, he is forced to admit, “As yet our hypothesis has little hard evidence to back it up.”
Rather more practical (and very good value) is the re-publication as Penguin “Black Classics” selected texts from the Penguin New Shakespeare. Four Comedies contains The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It and Twelfth Night; Four Tragedies offers Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth (Pounds 6.99 each).
Also from Penguin comes the paperback edition of Malcolm Bradbury’s personal yet definitive account of fiction since 1878, The Modern British Novel (Pounds 8.99). He divides the intervening period into “movements” of 15 years apiece and charts their changing fashions with wit and empathy, from the time when “the baggy monster” of the Victorian novel gave way to Henry James up to the present decade.
Bradbury (who has just retired from the University of East Anglia) has said that he prefers teaching creative writing to literary theory. “I believe I am keeping an organic farm, not running an abattoir.” Here he has succeeded in producing something creative yet critical. It is an enjoyable read and a very useful historical survey - and well within the grasp of most A-level students.
For a guide to the novels of the 19th century, one could very well turn to the new edition of Michael Wheeler’s English Fiction of the Victorian Period (Longman Pounds 12.99). This reads rather more like a textbook but it is still a handy guide - especially to the lesser known authors. Interesting too to see Lewis Carroll and Conan Doyle considered alongside the Bront s, George Eliot and Trollope.
A guide to a much newer medium has also just been up-dated. Andrew Crissell’s Understanding Radio (Routledge Pounds 9.99) now takes account of commercial national radio (Classic FM and Virgin) and includes a new chapter on music radio. It replaces one on educational radio because “radio seems to be playing an increasingly peripheral role in education”.
