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Shakespeare's WifeBy (author) Germaine Greer
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US Kirkus Review » Longtime feminist provocateur Greer (Whitefella Jump Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood, 2004, etc.) proffers a wildly far-fetched "biography" of the Bard's underdocumented spouse.The author blithely disregards the perils of extrapolating a historical record from Shakespeare's writing in this glue-and-scissors account. Greer is annoyed by the bad rap Ann Hathaway has earned from most Shakespearean scholars, who assume that because Ann was eight years older she lured the 18-year-old glover's boy into an early marriage and made him so miserable that he skirted off to London for most of their adult lives. Because there is very little on record except dates of birth, marriage and lawsuits, Greer works by examining the parallel lives of Ann's siblings and Stratford's inhabitants: how they lived, worked and died and what their expectations of marriage were at the time. The author asserts, for example, that Ann was probably a farm servant, could read the Bible a little and was left to fend for herself and the children when Will left around 1587. Greer suggests that the purchase of New Place in 1597, usually seen as part of Shakespeare's "gentrification project," was "very much more likely" instigated by Ann, who ran a lively business in malt-making and money-lending from the enormous Stratford house. The fact that the scant documents relating to such activities are all in Will's name is waved away: "the dealings of married women were invariably subsumed within their husband's." Using Shakespeare's poetry as evidence, Greer insists that Ann must have loved and missed Will very much. She suggests that, far from being a chronicle of homosexual and adulterous love, some or all of the Sonnets may have been written for Ann. She is, to put it mildly, overanalyzing her sources. An exasperating work that edifies only with its intensive study of the era's mores; it can be used as a sociological study of Elizabethan women, but it doesn't offer a plausible judgment of Ann Hathaway Shakespeare. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Introduction: considering the poor reputation of wives generally, in particular the wives of literary men, and the traditional disparagement of the wife of the Man of the Millennium". In this introduction to her 'Introduction', Greer spells out for us the theme and nature of her book. Ann Shakespeare is the maligned or disparaged wife in question and Greer intends to rescue her from this sorry state. She takes on all the well-know biographers of Shakespeare and points out where they err, and she offers her own biography of the wife of the Bard. As usual, she is argumentative, challenging and controversial. As usual, she will infuriate some readers and delight others. But she is tilting at windmills: and given that she provides us with chapter headings in the manner of Cervantes in Don Quixote, she clearly knows this. In Chapters One and Two, Greer gallops through the genealogies of both Ann and William at such a pace that the reader is left reeling. Parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, births, marriages, name-changes, contracts, deaths and wills fly past but ultimately prove nothing other than that we don't know and probably will never know why Ann (or Agnes) Hathaway (or Gardner) and William Shakespeare married, or what their marriage was like. All Greer proves is that she can speculate as well or even better than the "bardolaters", in particular the male ones, whose work she frequently quotes. She speculates along the way that Mary Shakespeare, William's mother, married for status and spent her time gossiping and showing off her finery, rather than helping his father in the family business; that a young, love-lorn William wooed Ann with his poems (which, of course, is very likely); and that Ann was blind (although this is probably sarcasm), a milkmaid, or an employee in John Shakespear's gloving business. Other chapters contain similar gallops through fragmentary archives concerning Stratford, its history and its citizens. Mostly, these chapters concern people whose lives may have been somewhat similar to that of Ann Shakespeare or who may have had some association with her. They provide support for Greer's claims that, for example, Ann was a respected and influential, financially independent townswoman. Which is quite possibly true. Often, however, these chapters bog down in details and connections which are just confusing. They offer speculation supported by too many random and often irrelevant details, which is pointless. When Greer gets down off her high horse and writes about facts related to contemporary custom and society in general, rather than fantasy, she is very good. Chapter Six, for example ("of handfasts, troth-plights and bundling, of rings, gauds and conceits, and what was likely to happen on the big day"), offers a delightful description of Elizabethan marriage practices, beautifully illustrated by apt quotations from Shakespeare's plays. This chapter is a pleasure to read and provides us with a deeper understanding of the plays as well as some idea of the way in which a sixteenth century audience would have understood them. Another chapter which I thoroughly enjoyed is that which argues that some of Shakespeare's love sonnets may have been written for Ann, not for some mysterious dark lady (or man). Greer quotes freely from the sonnets and argues her case selectively but well. The romantic in me would happily believe that Shakespeare truly loved his wife and missed her during his long absences from Stratford, but nothing can be proved either way. It is a pity that in her gallant effort to rescue Ann from oblivion, Greer sometimes contradicts herself. In several places she notes that many people made the three day journey between London and Stratford, and she suggests that Will did this between terms, when the theatres were closed, and for family occasions. At other times she writes of him as having been "estranged from his family for more than ten years". She is also inclined to lapse in slang (Mary Shakespeare was "spoiled rotten", John Shakespeare's business had "flat-lined", someone else "gets an earful"), which is a pity given the overall excellence of her writing. None of this matters, of course. In the end, all biography is speculation. What does matter is Shakespeare's work, not his life or that of his wife. As Greer writes in the penultimate paragraph of her final chapter, in which she, "the intrepid author", suggests that Ann may have been very much involved in the publication of the First Folio: "All this, in common with most of this book, is heresy, and probably neither truer nor less true than the accepted prejudice". Exactly! ************* Copyright © Ann Skea 2007 Website and Ted Hughes pages: http://ann.skea.com/ First published in Eclectica Magazine http://www.eclectica.org/ Ann Skea Website and Ted Hughes pages: http://ann.skea.com/ Author Biography: Germaine Greer Recent books by Germaine Greer » View all books by Germaine Greer » View all books by Germaine Greer |
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