bella Italia!

Did Sh travel in Italy? They say yes of course. I say No. Why? Have you ever been? My time in Italy is filled with the immediate smells and sensations of another culture. All the Italian Culture and more importantly for my argument, Nature in Sh’s plays and poems is essentially English grafted onto an Italian background. Sh was a sensualist, without doubt the man had tasted the forbidden fruits. This fits Shaksper and Oxenforde. The latter knew Italy from extended stays in most likely luxurious surroundings.

Eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays are set in Italy. So it sounds reasonable to assume (use this word carefully or as the old etymology says you might make an ass of u and me) that the author had spent some time there, right? Wrong!

Every grammar schoolboy in Eliza’s time was steeped in Roman history from Ovid to Horace. They literally spent 6 hours a day transcribing Latin texts into English and back again. The Romans had occupied Britain, but not Scotland or Ireland, for 400 years. Roman roads and ruins had to be more visible in Elizabethan times than now. The chance of digging up or finding artefacts was probably bigger too. Hadrian’s wall is still a fact.

I said 18 plays, let’s see:

1. Titus Andronicus
2. Coriolanus
3. Julius Caesar
4. A Winter’s Tale
5. Two gentlemen of Verona
6. Romeo and Juliet
7. The Merchant of Venice
8. Antony and Cleopatra
9. Much Ado about Nothing
10. The Comedy of Errors
11. The Taming of the Shrew
12. Twelfth Night ……is twelve I can think of, off the top of my head, which is a third of the 36 plays in the First Folio….which proves nothing other than the author stole a lot from Italian authors. His sources are all documented, as to explain where the stories for the plays come from. Sh the genius writer for a flourishing public theatre added unusual subplots and key characters to bring in a mirror for the main action. See the Sonnets for this little self-reflective conceit.‘look in thy glass and tell the face thou view’st,
    Now is the time that face should form another.’

    ‘Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
    Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste…’

    My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
    So long as youth and thou are of one date…’

13. Othello
14. Measure for Measure
15. All’s Well that Ends Well
16. I’m stuck, gotta look em up and hit my forehead and say duh!

Still headed up to half the plays in the Canon. SO?

Pericles, Timon of Athens, Cymbeline, Troylust and Cressida, all attest to the fact that the author had swum as well in the Mediterranean figuratively, not necessarily literally physically. ‘All of it, Kevin!’ Any man who has tasted that will let it penetrate his soul. And if it resides in his soul it will out into his soul’s creations. And yes dear readers i believe in my soul, it weighs 21 grams.

So the message of today’s blog is read him first and foremost for his stories. He stole from the best. and added his best.

‘Look what is best, that best i wish in thee,
This wish i have, then ten times happy me.’