Shakespeare by Another Name

Author:Mark Anderson [Anderson, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Drama, Literature/Drama/History, Literary, Literary Criticism, Shakespeare, Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781611871784
Google: kzav7JrRRJsC
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2011-11-19T23:00:00+00:00

So enamored of the name of a gentleman that he will have it, though he buys it. He comes up every term to learn to take tobacco and see new motions [puppetplays]. He is in his kingdom when he can get himself into company where he may be well laughed at.

In 1596, an application was submitted to London’s College of Arms to buy Will Shakspere’s father, John, a coat of arms. By 1599, the application had gone through, and Shakspere could style himself a gentleman. The college presented the country landholder with a heraldic crest and a new motto, Not without right (Non sanz droit)—sounding suspiciously like an underhanded joke on the part of the granting officer, implying that the arriviste is not entirely without a claim to the gentry.

Jonson satirically skewers Shakspere’s newly purchased gentlemanhood. In the following scene from Every Man Out of His Humor, “Sogliardo” is Shakspere, “Carlo” is Jonson’s jester, and “Puntarvolo” is a vainglorious knight and world traveler (who, given that he elsewhere parodies Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene, is probably a spoof on de Vere):

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