Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143135 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
"It is rare when a work of such painstaking scholarship is so dramatic, important and exciting to read. Lucidly and persuasively, Clare Asquith takes us through the complexities of religious politics in Elizabethan England, and reveals the anguished debates hidden in Shakespeare's plays. Shadowplay solves many of the puzzles that have perplexed scholars over the years, dramatically enhances our understanding of the dramas of our greatest playwright and, in my view, will lead to a seismic shift in our understanding of our past." Piers Paul Read "Clare Asquith is an inspired and compelling code-breaker - her fascinating study takes us into the concealed heart of the English identity and shows that the Catholic Shakespeare was an exemplary and committed writer, not simply the famously protean bard who resists all attempts to pin down his beliefs. Shadowplay is a remarkable and exciting work of scholarship which shows us the deep structures of Shakespeare's imagination." Tom Paulin, G. M. Young Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford, editor of The Faber Book of Political Verse (1986) and The Faber Book of Vernacular Poetry (1990) "... even if only half of Clare Asquith's argument turns out to be correct, she's written the most visceral, challenging, compelling book on Shakespeare's place in history we've had for over 20 years." Dr John Guy, Winner of the Whitbread Biography Award, 2004 'This book shows us the enticing possibilities of what is certainly needed, a reading of the works which, with real inwardness, takes seriously their rootedness in the poet's increasingly discernible intent: to speak for (and to) a network of men and women living double lives within the English establishment, and to deploy the freshly available resources of English and European poetic and dramatic form in memorializing those lives by making them transcend their time and their predicament.' John Finnis, Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy, University College Oxford "The politics of language is back in fashion, and in this book we have a daring excursus into the field of oppositional discourse in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Here we are introduced to the workings of a dissident religion that very much dares, even if in code, to speak its name. Scholars will have to think again about how far Shakespeare's faith and his view of the Reformation, inflected contemporaries' understanding of the controversies over the Church in England." Dr Michael Questier, Lecturer in Early Modern British and European history, Queen Mary College, University of London" "Clare Asquith's textual criticism is a marvel; eminently readable scholarship". Sir John Keegan, Daily Telegraph Defence Editor and author of The Face of Battle "This is a book of thrilling scholarship and great daring. Any venture into Shakespearean investigation requires panache, deep affection for "the man" and a delicate balance between nerve and learning. Clare Asquith has rendered all of these elegantly and has also, uniquely, kept pace with the great emotions in the works she scrutinizes." Frank Delaney "A literary detective story, which is quite riveting." Antonia Fraser "So mysteriously little is chronicled about Shakespeare that his life, nature and beliefs lie open to endless speculation. What Clare Asquith has done in Shadowplay is to infinitely widen our perception of who he was. She shows how, despite the rule of terror successfully imposed by the father and son, William and Robert Cecil, Shakespeare throughout his play converses with his contemporary audience in an entirely accessible code that has been lost until now by us. This book is a masterpiece of sustained scholarship that reads like a detective novel." Harriet Waugh "The book, set to cause controversy among experts, is full of such detailed analysis and reads, as historian Antonia Fraser has said, 'like a literary detective story.'" Vanessa Thorpe, The Observer "As incendiary religious theories go, it's right up there with The Da Vinci Code." The Independent "I did find reading Shadowplay was like reading a thriller." James Naughtie, Today Programme "Among the most remarkable books to come out about Shakespeare in years... If she is even partly right, her book represents a small earthquake in our understanding." Sam Leith in The Spectator "(N) obody can fail to be impressed by the verve with which (Clare Asquith) writes, bringing a lost world to life". James Shapiro in the Daily Telegraph "Asquith's learned new book is valuable for the new light it sheds on Shakespeare's life amid the dark religious dangers of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, and for the new suggestions she makes about such mysteries as his abrupt retirement from writing." Anthony Holden in the Daily Mail "This is one of the most astonishing and original books ever written about Shakespeare... Clare Asquith has produced a wonderfully stimulating read.... (this is) one of the most important books ever written about his plays." The Catholic Herald "Shadowplay turns a period in English history on its head as well as our most important playwright's role in the time. Thanks to Asquith's ability to decode and clarify his dissident yet patriotic message, the author's simply explained, painstaking research leads the reader down mysterious alleys with the same ease as the best thriller writer. Shadowplay is a masterpiece of precise scholarship uncovering England's most brilliant playwright's politics, religious beliefs and dramatic fight for his country's freedoms. The "Merrie England" of Elizabeth I is no longer the liberated country presided over by an enlightened monarch as we have been taught, but a far darker place. As always, history is owned by its architects, Elizabeth's and her regime. Now hitherto unexplained mysteries about Shakespeare's life and beliefs are brilliantly laid out for us." Leonie Frieda in The Evening Standard "Clare Asquith's Shadowplay... is a fascinating literary detective story and has stirred up controversy as everything to do with Shakespeare - and the Gunpowder Plot - always does." Antonia Fraser - Books of the Year in the Sunday Telegraph "Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare by Clare Asquith looks at the complexities of religious politics in Elizabethan England, revealing the anguished debates hidden in Shakespeare's plays. Piers Paul Read - Books of the Year in The Times "Clare Asquith's Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare (Public Affairs, GBP 18.99) is an audacious, compelling literary/historical investigation that challenges our assumptions about the plays, the playwright and English history itself. I am no expert on Shakespeare, but found her account of how the perilous day-to-day politics of Elizabethan England affected Shakespeare's dramas wholly convincing." Piers Paul Read - Books of the Year in The Spectator 'In Shadowplay (Public Affairs, GBP 18.99), Clare Asquith builds up a detailed argument for William Shakespeare having expressed his Catholic beliefs through a series of coded images. As the historian A.W. Kinglake wanted inscribed on churches: "Important if true. Intriguing in any case.'" Christopher Howse - Books of the Year in The Tablet "... passionately argued, compellingly readable... gracefully and persuasively (Claire Asquith) pulls together the findings of those who have labored before her in the academic vineyard." Los Angeles Times "Asquith smashes the familiar icon of Shakespeare as a determined conformist who brilliantly skated the political thin ice that cracked under his less skillful countrymen. Her Shakespeare is darker and more complex - a tormented dissident who died in defeat. Asquith is far from alone in her conjectures. The portrait that is emerging shows that Shakespeare was a hero as magnificent as any he created." Washington Post"

Anthony Holden, Daily Mail, September 9, 2005
'Asquith's learned book is valuable for the new light it sheds on Shakespeare's life.'

James Shapiro, Daily Telegraph, September 10, 2005
'...nobody who reads this book can fail to be impressed by the verve with which she writes...'

Customer Reviews

The Forgotten Witness
SHADOWPLAY

The hidden beliefs and coded politics of William Shakespeare

Clare Asquith

This is without any doubt the most revolutionary book on Shakespeare to be published for a generation - or even for several generations. Its message is completely original. If it is correct, it completely transforms our understanding of Shakespeare. Looking below the surface of Shakespeare's works, Clare Asquith has discovered a hidden level of meaning. She shows how, from start to finish, his works can be read as a coded allegorical commentary on the political events of the time, aimed primarily at the Catholic dissident community but also embodying an appeal for tolerance addressed (with a hopefulness that seems almost touching, considering how little effect it had) to Elizabeth and later to James I.

Asquith hit upon the idea that Shakespeare's works might have a hidden message when living in Russia, where she encountered a form of dissident theatre that used coded messages. These were innocuous enough on the surface to escape censorship, but would have been instantly understood by those who were in the know. If Shakespeare did not address political events directly, there were sound reasons for it. Two of his most gifted contemporaries, Kyd and Marlowe, were less cautious. Kyd died after undergoing torture, and Marlowe was almost certainly murdered at the instigation of the government.

The message, then, had to be a coded one. And the basis of the code uncovered by Asquith is breathtakingly simple. 'High' and 'fair' stand for Catholic, 'low' and 'dark' for Protestant - terms used by Spenser, with equally patent allegorical intent, in The Shepheardes Calendar. Other characteristic and recurring symbols are tempest, and exile. Tempest and shipwreck are always meant to suggest the dire upheaval and destruction of traditional values that had been the Catholic experience of the Reformation. As for exile, the most cursory reading of the plays cannot fail to notice how often Shakespeare's plots feature the splitting up of a family or community. All these can be seen as allusions to the schism in the body politic of England that had resulted from the religious divide; and more specifically, to the plight of the English Catholic exiles on the Continent (of whom there were tens of thousands), their longing to return home and their hopes for the restoration of the old faith.

It is impossible in the space of a short review to do justice to the historical scholarship and persistence with which Asquith has delved into the background to Shakespeare's works, uncovering a wealth of forgotten detail. In play after play she demonstrates connections between the story and the immediate historical circumstances. Take Troilus and Cressida. Here the siege of Troy can be recognised (in view of the traditional association of Britain with Troy) as the standoff between Protestant and England and the Catholic powers led by Spain. The Greeks have failed to take Troy, as Spain failed with its Armada. Even individual characters can be identified. The gloomy and fatalistic Agamemnon suggests Philip II, old Nestor is the Pope, and the astute and diplomatic Ulysses is the Jesuit Robert Persons. Even Ulysses' famous speech - 'Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, / Wherein he puts scraps for oblivion' - is taken from an image in Persons' Christian Directory, an immensely popular work at the time.

Leaving code messages aside, the book reminds us of the dimension in Shakespeare that express a deeply Christian - and characteristically Catholic - spirituality. In The Winter's Tale we find a 'chapel' in the last act of the play, where something infinitely precious that was thought to have been lost forever has been preserved inviolate. And when the statue of Hermione comes to life, in response to Paulina's injunction 'It is required you do awake your faith', and Leontes exclaims 'If this be magic, let it be an act / Lawful as eating', we cannot be left in any doubt that this is an allusion to the Mass.

It is important to make clear that the allegorical reading of Shakespeare's work does not conflict with the traditional and literal reading. The existence of multiple levels of interpretation, existing in parallel and all equally valid - was taken for granted by Shakespeare's contemporaries. Shadowplay encourages us to rediscover the way in which Shakespeare and his contemporaries approached literature, and literary creation. His relevance to the events of his own day was veiled in his own lifetime, and since then has been obscured. This book rediscovers it. And it changes our experience of Shakespeare radically - not by substituting something different but by adding an extra dimension.

Asquith's scholarship is meticulous and painstaking, and her argument deserves to be taken very seriously indeed. I cannot urge you too strongly to look at the evidence she puts forward, and look at it carefully, before making up your mind.

It makes total sense!
Bold and daring - such fun to read such speculation written with real panache. It brings the paranoia and cloak and dagger world of Elizabethan England to life - and was fascinating to see that this journey started with a diplomatic attendance of a theatrical performance in Soviet Russia. Keeps you reading to the very last page and brings depth to familiar and justly famous texts - you will never be able to hear/read/see Shakespeare again in quite the same way. A tour de force

Shadowplay
Shadowplay excellently reveals the Catholic influence on England's greatest writer. Besides being interesting, it is a revelation of England's Catholic heritage. Clare Asquith shows the intelligence, and the regard for sources, of a professional academic, yet many academics of the 21st & 22nd centuries will be glad she was not confined within the assumptions of the educational establishment. Let sceptics reflect on coded writing in our time, and throughout history, before they dismiss Shadowplay as 'Catholic propaganda'. Let English historians consider how much the history of the 16th century was written by the Protestant tradition which prevailed in the 17th. I predict Shadowplay marks the start of a revolution in how we see Shakespeare, and Catholicism in English history and life.