The Year's Contributions to Shakespearian Study: 1 - Critical Studies

Summary

Several recent studies range widely over the canon analysing various aspects of Shakespeare’s technique and creative process, the most original but also questionable thesis being advanced by Joan Rees. She argues that the plays are not careful intellectual constructions but the result of a generative creative process in which Shakespeare’s imagination responds to developments of the story line as they take place in the course of writing. Some part of the material may stimulate a burst of creative power and consequently distort the story line; again, where the story line fails to provide adequate imaginative stimulus, or where the narrative materials prove insufficient, his energy makes splendid way through new outlets. It is an attractive theory but highly speculative. It is asserted, for example, that Shakespeare realised the limitations of his material in the characters of Hero and Claudio, and that the plan of All’s Well That Ends Well made Helena’s role in the second half of the play unrewarding; the consequence was a compensatory flow of energy into the characters of Beatrice, Benedick, and Parolles. But are the situations of these characters inherently limited? The argument is available that they only appear so because Shakespeare chose to develop them in the way he has, and that the weight and interest attaching to Beatrice, Benedick, and Parolles were part of his primary conception of the plays.