On this again, but to try to use another comparison to explain where I
stand, rather than Bach, which nobody seems to have 'got', I'll invoke great
chessplayers.
Now the majority of top-class chessmasters have been, outside their area of
talent, deeply mediocre minds. Lasker was a partial exception, he did have
thoughts on other things, although they were rather cliché-like in nature,
but people like Morphy, Botvinnik, famously Bobby Fischer (favourite writer
Sax Rohmer), Petrosian, Keres, Staunton etc etc had nothing much of interest
to say to the world outside their sphere of ability. Alekhine, for instance,
my favourite chess stylist of the last century, was distinguished only by
some rather dodgy political views off the board.
Now with WS there is nothing to suggest he was intellectually motivated in
respect of the bubbling of new ideas that his time contained, Marlowe and
Jonson, who are lesser writers, seem more au fait in that respect, in
respect of his personal views, one can infer some from the plays, although
the inferences will differ according which play and when one is using, there
does seem to be a strong 'divide' between the 'middle' and the 'early' and
'later' Shakespeares. I recall a comment from someone along the line that
protested that the monument in Holy Trinity to him looked like a
representation of a 'Stratford pork butcher'.
Well maybe that was what he was like. In the absence of any direct personal
statements intentions are not recoverable, what we are left with is
interpretation, reconstruction and of course dramatisation.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
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