Sunday, June 15, 2008

A Lover's Complaint : Shakespeare No More?

http://www.slate.com/id/2193477

I was wondering if this would happen, for real, in my adult lifetime.  Ron Rosenbaum reports that the Royal Shakespeare Company has made the decision to drop the long poem A Lover's Complaint from The Complete Works, and to add the relatively recent discovery, To the Queen.

Now, granted, it's not Macbeth or Cardenio.  But still, think about what this means - redefining what's understood to be "Shakespearean".  I'm not quite sure what I find more intriguing, pointing to one work formerly thought to be Shakespeare and saying "Nope, not Shakespeare", or a formerly unknown work and saying "That is."

2 comments:

Iyov said...

I think you should read the RSC Complete Works editor's response to Rosenbaum's article. The bottom line -- it is in, but there was a physical page limit on the volume.

catkins said...

I like the RSC editor's term: dubia. There must be room for grey areas, and some will look more grey to one person than another. I side entirely with Rosenbaum having always found "A Lover's Complaint" embarrassingly bad. The only thing I would add to his commentary is that I find the meter very un-Shakespearean. The meter also damns "To the Queen" and, no matter what shivers it gave to the audience, I find it hard to believe it was penned by Shakespeare. I give it the palest shade of grey.